WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS

by Christopher Morley

 TO FELIX and TOTO

 "I am not free-- And it may be Life is too tight around my shins; For, unlike you, I can't break through A truant where the blue begins. 

 "Out of the very element Of bondage, that here holds me pent, I'll make my furious sonnet: I'll turn my noose To tightrope use And madly dance upon it. 

 "So I will take My leash, and make A wilder and more subtle fleeing And I shall be More escapading and more free Than you have ever dreamed of being!"

CHAPTER ONE

Gissing lived alone (except for his Japanese butler) in a littlehouse in the country, in that woodland suburb region called the CanineEstates. He lived comfortably and thoughtfully, as bachelors often do. He came of a respectable family, who had always conducted themselvescalmly and without too much argument. They had bequeathed him justenough income to live on cheerfully, without display but without havingto do addition and subtraction at the end of the month and then tear upthe paper lest Fuji (the butler) should see it. 

It was strange, since Gissing was so pleasantly situated in life, thathe got into these curious adventures that I have to relate. I do notattempt to explain it. 

He had no responsibilities, not even a motor car, for his tastes weresurprisingly simple. If he happened to be spending an evening at thecountry club, and a rainstorm came down, he did not worry about gettinghome. He would sit by the fire and chuckle to see the married memberscreep away one by one. He would get out his pipe and sleep that nightat the club, after telephoning Fuji not to sit up for him. When he feltlike it he used to read in bed, and even smoke in bed. When he went totown to the theatre, he would spend the night at a hotel to avoid thefatigue of the long ride on the 11:44 train. He chose a different hoteleach time, so that it was always an Adventure. He had a great deal offun. 

But having fun is not quite the same as being happy. Even an income of1000 bones a year does not answer all questions. That charming littlehouse among the groves and thickets seemed to him surrounded by strangewhispers and quiet voices. He was uneasy. He was restless, and did notknow why. It was his theory that discipline must be maintained in thehousehold, so he did not tell Fuji his feelings. Even when he was alone, he always kept up a certain formality in the domestic routine. Fujiwould lay out his dinner jacket on the bed: he dressed, came down tothe dining room with quiet dignity, and the evening meal was served bycandle-light. As long as Fuji was at work, Gissing sat carefully inthe armchair by the hearth, smoking a cigar and pretending to readthe paper. But as soon as the butler had gone upstairs, Gissingalways kicked off his dinner suit and stiff shirt, and lay down on thehearth-rug. But he did not sleep. He would watch the wings of flamegilding the dark throat of the chimney, and his mind seemed drawn upwardon that rush of light, up into the pure chill air where the moon wasriding among sluggish thick floes of cloud. In the darkness he heardchiming voices, wheedling and tantalizing. One night he was walking onhis little verandah. Between rafts of silver-edged clouds were channelsof ocean-blue sky, inconceivably deep and transparent. The air wasserene, with a faint acid taste. Suddenly there shrilled a soft, sweet, melancholy whistle, earnestly repeated. It seemed to come from thelittle pond in the near-by copses. It struck him strangely. It mightbe anything, he thought. He ran furiously through the field, and tothe brim of the pond. He could find nothing, all was silent. Then thewhistlings broke out again, all round him, maddeningly. This kept on, night after night. The parson, whom he consulted, said it was onlyfrogs; but Gissing told the constable he thought God had something to dowith it. 

Then willow trees and poplars showed a pallid bronze sheen, forsythiaswere as yellow as scrambled eggs, maples grew knobby with red buds. Among the fresh bright grass came, here and there, exhilarating smellsof last year's buried bones. The little upward slit at the back ofGissing's nostrils felt prickly. He thought that if he could bury itdeep enough in cold beef broth it would be comforting. Several times hewent out to the pantry intending to try the experiment, but every timeFuji happened to be around. Fuji was a Japanese pug, and rather correct, so Gissing was ashamed to do what he wanted to. He pretended he had comeout to see that the icebox pan had been emptied properly. 

"I must get the plumber to put in a pukka drain-pipe to take the placeof the pan, " Gissing said to Fuji; but he knew that he had no intentionof doing so. The ice-box pan was his private test of a good servant. Acook who forgot to empty it was too careless, he thought, to be a realsuccess. 

But certainly there was some curious elixir in the air. He went forwalks, and as soon as he was out of sight of the houses he threw downhis hat and stick and ran wildly, with great exultation, over the hillsand fields. "I really ought to turn all this energy into some sort ofconstructive work, " he said to himself. No one else, he mused, seemed toenjoy life as keenly and eagerly as he did. He wondered, too, about theother sex. Did they feel these violent impulses to run, to shout, toleap and caper in the sunlight? But he was a little startled, on one ofhis expeditions, to see in the distance the curate rushing hotly throughthe underbrush, his clerical vestments dishevelled, his tongue hangingout with excitement. 

"I must go to church more often, " said Gissing. 

In the golden light and pringling air he felt excitable and high-strung. His tail curled upward until it ached. Finally he asked Mike Terrier, who lived next door, what was wrong. 

"It's spring, " Mike said. 

"Oh, yes, of course, jolly old spring!" said Gissing, as though this wassomething he had known all along, and had just forgotten for the moment. But he didn't know. This was his first spring, for he was only tenmonths old. 

Outwardly he was the brisk, genial figure that the suburb knew andesteemed. He was something of a mystery among his neighbours of theCanine Estates, because he did not go daily to business in the city, asmost of them did; nor did he lead a life of brilliant amusement like theAiredales, the wealthy people whose great house was near by. Mr. Poodle, the conscientious curate, had called several times but was not able tolearn anything definite. There was a little card-index of parishioners, which it was Mr. Poodle's duty to fill in with details of each person'sbusiness, charitable inclinations, and what he could do to amusea Church Sociable. The card allotted to Gissing was marked, in Mr. Poodle's neat script, Friendly, but vague as to definite participationin Xian activities. Has not communicated. 

But in himself, Gissing was increasingly disturbed. Even his seizures ofjoy, which came as he strolled in the smooth spring air and sniffed thewild, vigorous aroma of the woodland earth, were troublesome becausehe did not know why he was so glad. Every morning it seemed to him thatlife was about to exhibit some delicious crisis in which the meaning andexcellence of all things would plainly appear. He sang in the bathtub. Daily it became more difficult to maintain that decorum which Fujiexpected. He felt that his life was being wasted. He wondered what oughtto be done about it. 

CHAPTER TWO

It was after dinner, an April evening, and Gissing slipped away from thehouse for a stroll. He was afraid to stay in, because he knew that if hedid, Fuji would ask him again to fix the dishcloth rack in the kitchen. Fuji was very short in stature, and could not reach up to the placewhere the rack was screwed over the sink. Like all people whose mindsare very active, Gissing hated to attend to little details like this. Itwas a weakness in his character. Fuji had asked him six times to fix therack, but Gissing always pretended to forget about it. To appease hismethodical butler he had written on a piece of paper FIX DISHCLOTH RACKand pinned it on his dressing-table pincushion; but he paid no attentionto the memorandum. 

He went out into a green April dusk. Down by the pond piped thoserepeated treble whistlings: they still distressed him with a mysteriousunriddled summons, but Mike Terrier had told him that the secret ofrespectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand. Carefulobservation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrillqueer music. It now caused only a faint pain in his mind. Still, hewalked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably softunderfoot. Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices weresilent. That is worth noting, he said to himself. If you go directly atthe heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only aquestion of drainage. (Mr. Poodle had told him that if he had the pondand swamp drained, the frog-song would not annoy him. ) But to-night, when the keen chirruping ceased, there was still another sound that didnot cease--a faint, appealing cry. It caused a prickling on his shoulderblades, it made him both angry and tender. He pushed through the bushes. In a little hollow were three small puppies, whining faintly. They werecold and draggled with mud. Someone had left them there, evidently, to perish. They were huddled close together; their eyes, a cloudyunspeculative blue, were only just opened. "This is gruesome, " saidGissing, pretending to be shocked. "Dear me, innocent pledges of sin, Idare say. Well, there is only one thing to do. "

He picked them up carefully and carried them home. 

"Quick, Fuji!" he said. "Warm some milk, some of the Grade A, and put alittle brandy in it. I'll get the spare-room bed ready. "

He rushed upstairs, wrapped the puppies in a blanket, and turned on theelectric heater to take the chill from the spare-room. The little padsof their paws were ice-cold, and he filled the hot water bottle and heldit carefully to their twelve feet. Their pink stomachs throbbed, and atfirst he feared they were dying. "They must not die!" he said fiercely. "If they did, it would be a matter for the police, and no end oftrouble. "

Fuji came up with the milk, and looked very grave when he saw the muddyfootprints on the clean sheet. 

"Now, Fuji, " said Gissing, "do you suppose they can lap, or will we haveto pour it down?"

In spite of his superior manner, Fuji was a good fellow in an emergency. It was he who suggested the fountain-pen filler. They washed the inkout of it, and used it to drip the hot brandy-and-milk down the puppies'throats. Their noses, which had been icy, suddenly became very hot anddry. Gissing feared a fever and thought their temperatures should betaken. 

"The only thermometer we have, " he said, "is the one on the porch, withthe mercury split in two. I don't suppose that would do. Have you aclinical thermometer, Fuji?"

Fuji felt that his employer was making too much fuss over the matter. 

"No, sir, " he said firmly. "They are quite all right. A good sleep willrevive them. They will be as fit as possible in the morning. "

Fuji went out into the garden to brush the mud from his neat whitejacket. His face was inscrutable. Gissing sat by the spare-room beduntil he was sure the puppies were sleeping correctly. He closed thedoor so that Fuji would not hear him humming a lullaby. Three Blind Micewas the only nursery song he could remember, and he sang it over andover again. 

When he tiptoed downstairs, Fuji had gone to bed. Gissing went into hisstudy, lit a pipe, and walked up and down, thinking. By and bye he wrotetwo letters. One was to a bookseller in the city, asking him to send (atonce) one copy of Dr. Holt's book on the Care and Feeding of Children, and a well-illustrated edition of Mother Goose. The other was to Mr. Poodle, asking him to fix a date for the christening of Mr. Gissing'sthree small nephews, who had come to live with him. 

"It is lucky they are all boys, " said Gissing. "I would know nothingabout bringing up girls. "

"I suppose, " he added after a while, "that I shall have to raise Fuji'swages. "

Then he went into the kitchen and fixed the dishcloth rack. 

Before going to bed that night he took his usual walk around the house. The sky was freckled with stars. It was generally his habit to make atour of his property toward midnight, to be sure everything was in goodorder. He always looked into the ice-box, and admired the cleanlinessof Fuji's arrangements. The milk bottles were properly capped with theirround cardboard tops; the cheese was never put on the same rack withthe butter; the doors of the ice-box were carefully latched. Suchobservations, and the slow twinkle of the fire in the range, deep downunder the curfew layer of coals, pleased him. In the cellar he peepedinto the garbage can, for it was always a satisfaction to assure himselfthat Fuji did not waste anything that could be used. One of the laundrytub taps was dripping, with a soft measured tinkle: he said to himselfthat he really must have it attended to. All these domestic mattersseemed more significant than ever when he thought of youthful innocencesleeping upstairs in the spare-room bed. His had been a selfish lifehitherto, he feared. These puppies were just what he needed to take himout of himself. 

Busy with these thoughts, he did not notice the ironical whistlingcoming from the pond. He tasted the night air with cheerfulsatisfaction. "At any rate, to-morrow will be a fine day, " he said. 

The next day it rained. But Gissing was too busy to think about theweather. Every hour or so during the night he had gone into the spareroom to listen attentively to the breathing of the puppies, to pull theblanket over them, and feel their noses. It seemed to him that theywere perspiring a little, and he was worried lest they catch cold. Hismorning sleep (it had always been his comfortable habit to lie abed atrifle late) was interrupted about seven o'clock by a lively clamouracross the hall. The puppies were awake, perfectly restored, and whilethey were too young to make their wants intelligible, they plainlyexpected some attention. He gave them a pair of old slippers to playwith, and proceeded to his own toilet. 

As he was bathing them, after breakfast, he tried to enlist Fuji'senthusiasm. "Did you ever see such fat rascals?" he said. "I wonder ifwe ought to trim their tails? How pink their stomachs are, and how pinkand delightful between their toes! You hold these two while I drythe other. No, not that way! Hold them so you support their spines. Apuppy's back is very delicate: you can't be too careful. We'll have todo things in a rough-and-ready way until Dr. Holt's book comes. Afterthat we can be scientific. "

Fuji did not seem very keen. Presently, in spite of the rain, he wasdispatched to the village department store to choose three small cribsand a multitude of safety pins. "Plenty of safety pins is the idea, "said Gissing. "With enough safety pins handy, children are easy tomanage. "

As soon as the puppies were bestowed on the porch, in the sunshine, fortheir morning nap, he telephoned to the local paperhanger. 

"I want you" (he said) "to come up as soon as you can with some nicesamples of nursery wallpaper. A lively Mother Goose pattern would dovery well. " He had already decided to change the spare room into anursery. He telephoned the carpenter to make a gate for the top of thestairs. He was so busy that he did not even have time to think of hispipe, or the morning paper. At last, just before lunch, he found abreathing space. He sat down in the study to rest his legs, and lookedfor the Times. It was not in its usual place on his reading table. Atthat moment the puppies woke up, and he ran out to attend them. He wouldhave been distressed if he had known that Fuji had the paper in thekitchen, and was studying the HELP WANTED columns. 

A great deal of interest was aroused in the neighbourhood by the arrivalof Gissing's nephews, as he called them. Several of the ladies, who hadignored him hitherto, called, in his absence, and left extra cards. Thisimplied (he supposed, though he was not closely versed in such nicetiesof society) that there was a Mrs. Gissing, and he was annoyed, for hefelt certain they knew he was a bachelor. But the children were a sourceof nothing but pride to him. They grew with astounding rapidity, atetheir food without coaxing, rarely cried at night, and gave him muchamusement by their naive ways. He was too occupied to be troubled withintrospection. Indeed, his well-ordered home was very different frombefore. The trim lawn, in spite of his zealous efforts, was constantlylittered with toys. In sheer mischief the youngsters got into hiswardrobe and chewed off the tails of his evening dress coat. But hefelt a satisfying dignity and happiness in his new status as head of afamily. 

What worried him most was the fear that Fuji would complain of thissudden addition to his duties. The butler's face was rather an enigma, particularly at meal times, when Gissing sat at the dinner tablesurrounded by the three puppies in their high chairs, with a spindriftof milk and prune-juice spattering generously as the youngsters pliedtheir spoons. Fuji had arranged a series of scuppers, made of oilcloth, underneath the chairs; but in spite of this the dining-room rug, after ameal, looked much as the desert place must have after the feeding ofthe multitude. Fuji, who was pensive, recalled the five loaves and twofishes that produced twelve baskets of fragments. The vacuum cleaner gotclogged by a surfeit of crumbs. 

Gissing saw that it would be a race between heart and head. If Fuji'sheart should become entangled (that is, if the innocent charms of thechildren should engage his affections before his reason convinced himthat the situation was now too arduous), there was some hope. He triedto ease the problem also by mental suggestion. "It is really remarkable"(he said to Fuji) "that children should give one so little trouble. "As he made this remark, he was speeding hotly to and fro between thebathroom and the nursery, trying to get one tucked in bed and anotherundressed, while the third was lashing the tub into soapy foam. Fujimade his habitual response, "Very good, sir. " But one fears that hedetected some insincerity, for the next day, which was Sunday, he gavenotice. This generally happens on a Sunday, because the papers publishmore Help Wanted advertisements then than on any other day. 

"I'm sorry, sir, " he said. "But when I took this place there was nothingsaid about three children. "

This was unreasonable of Fuji. It is very rare to have everythingexplained beforehand. When Adam and Eve were put into the Garden ofEden, there was nothing said about the serpent. 

However, Gissing did not believe in entreating a servant to stay. Heoffered to give Fuji a raise, but the butler was still determined toleave. 

"My senses are very delicate, " he said. "I really cannot standthe--well, the aroma exhaled by those three children when they have hada warm bath. "

"What nonsense!" cried Gissing. "The smell of wet, healthy puppies?Nothing is more agreeable. You are cold-blooded: I don't believe you arefond of puppies. Think of their wobbly black noses. Consider how pink isthe little cleft between their toes and the main cushion of their feet. Their ears are like silk. Inside their upper jaws are parallel blackridges, most remarkable. I never realized before how beautifully andcarefully we are made. I am surprised that you should be so indifferentto these things. "

There was a moisture in Fuji's eyes, but he left at the end of the week. 

CHAPTER THREE

A solitary little path ran across the fields not far from the house. It lay deep among tall grasses and the withered brittle stalks oflast autumn's goldenrod, and here Gissing rambled in the green hush oftwilight, after the puppies were in bed. In less responsible dayshe would have lain down on his back, with all four legs upward, andcheerily shrugged and rolled to and fro, as the crisp ground-stubble wasvery pleasing to the spine. But now he paced soberly, the smoke from hispipe eddying just above the top of the grasses. He had much to meditate. 

The dogwood tree by the house was now in flower. The blossoms, withtheir four curved petals, seemed to spin like tiny white propellersin the bright air. When he saw them fluttering Gissing had a happysensation of movement. The business of those tremulous petals seemed tobe thrusting his whole world forward and forward, through the viewlessocean of space. He felt as though he were on a ship--as, indeed, we are. He had never been down to the open sea, but he had imagined it. There, he thought, there must be the satisfaction of a real horizon. 

Horizons had been a great disappointment to him. In earlier days he hadoften slipped out of the house not long after sunrise, and had marvelledat the blue that lies upon the skyline. Here, about him, were the clearfamiliar colours of the world he knew; but yonder, on the hills, weretrees and spaces of another more heavenly tint. That soft blue light, ifhe could reach it, must be the beginning of what his mind required. 

He envied Mr. Poodle, whose cottage was on that very hillslope that roseso imperceptibly into sky. One morning he ran and ran, in the liftingday, but always the blue receded. Hot and unbuttoned, he came by thecurate's house, just as the latter emerged to pick up the morning paper. 

"Where does the blue begin?" Gissing panted, trying hard to keep histongue from sliding out so wetly. 

The curate looked a trifle disturbed. He feared that somethingunpleasant had happened, and that his assistance might be requiredbefore breakfast. 

"It is going to be a warm day, " he said politely, and stooped for thenewspaper, as a delicate hint. 

"Where does--?" began Gissing, quivering; but at that moment, lookinground, he saw that it had hoaxed him again. Far away, on his own hillthe other side of the village, shone the evasive colour. As usual, he had been too impetuous. He had not watched it while he ran; it hadcircled round behind him. He resolved to be more methodical. 

The curate gave him a blank to fill in, relative to baptizing thechildren, and was relieved to see him hasten away. 

But all this was some time ago. As he walked the meadow path, Gissingsuddenly realized that lately he had had little opportunity for pursuingblue horizons. Since Fuji's departure every moment, from dawn to dusk, was occupied. In three weeks he had had three different servants, butnone of them would stay. The place was too lonely, they said, and withthree puppies the work was too hard. The washing, particularly was ahorrid problem. Inexperienced as a parent, Gissing was probably tooproud: he wanted the children always to look clean and soigne. The lastcook had advertised herself as a General Houseworker, afraid ofnothing; but as soon as she saw the week's wash in the hamper (includingtwenty-one grimy rompers), she telephoned to the station for a taxi. Gissing wondered why it was that the working classes were not willingto do one-half as much as he, who had been reared to indolent ease. Evenmore, he was irritated by a suspicion of the ice-wagon driver. He couldnot prove it, but he had an idea that this uncouth fellow obtained acommission from the Airedales and Collies, who had large mansions in theneighbourhood, for luring maids from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So nowthe best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come upfrom the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. Therest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when theneighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and thingsdown to the pond--putting them neatly in the bottom of the redexpress-wagon, with the puppies sitting on the linen, so no one wouldsee. While the puppies played about and hunted for tadpoles, he wouldwash his shirts himself. 

His legs ached as he took his evening stroll--keeping within earshot ofthe house, so as to hear any possible outcry from the nursery. Hehad been on his feet all day. But he reflected that there was a realsatisfaction in his family tasks, however gruelling. Now, at last (hesaid to himself), I am really a citizen, not a mere dilettante. Ofcourse it is arduous. No one who is not a parent realizes, for example, the extraordinary amount of buttoning and unbuttoning necessary inrearing children. I calculate that 50, 000 buttonings are required foreach one before it reaches the age of even rudimentary independence. With the energy so expended one might write a great novel or chisel astatue. Never mind: these urchins must be my Works of Art. If onewere writing a novel, he could not delegate to a hired servant thecomposition of laborious chapters. 

So he took his responsibility gravely. This was partly due to thechristening service, perhaps, which had gone off very charmingly. Ithad not been without its embarrassments. None of the neighbouring ladieswould stand as godmother, for they were secretly dubious as to thechildren's origin; so he had asked good Mrs. Spaniel to act in thatcapacity. She, a simple kindly creature, was much flattered, thoughcertainly she can have understood very little of the symbolical rite. Gissing, filling out the form that Mr. Poodle had given him, had putdown the names of an entirely imaginary brother and sister-in-law ofhis, "deceased, " whom he asserted as the parents. He had been so busywith preparations that he did not find time, before the ceremony, to study the text of the service; and when he and Mrs. Spaniel stoodbeneath the font with an armful of ribboned infancy, he was franklystartled by the magnitude of the promises exacted from him. He foundthat, on behalf of the children, he must "renounce the devil and all hiswork, the vain pomp and glory of the world;" that he must pledge himselfto see that these infants would "crucify the old man and utterly abolishthe whole body of sin. " It was rather doubtful whether they would do so, he reflected, as he felt them squirming in his arms while Mrs. Spanielwas busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "tofollow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to haveone of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly thatit slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band. But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due tothe children imagining they were going to find tadpoles there. When Mr. Poodle held them up they smiled with a vague almost bashful simplicity;and Mrs. Spaniel could not help murmuring "The darlings!" The curate, less experienced with children, had insisted on holding all three atonce, and Gissing feared lest one of them might swarm over the surplicedshoulder and fall splash into the font. But though they panted a littlewith excitement, they did nothing to mar the solemn instant. While Mrs. Spaniel was picking up the small socks with which the floor was strewn, Gissing was deeply moved by the poetry of the ceremony. He felt thatsomething had really been accomplished toward "burying the Old Adam. "And if Mrs. Spaniel ever grew disheartened at the wash-tubs, he wascareful to remind her of the beautiful phrase about the mystical washingaway of sin. 

They had been christened Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers, three traditionalnames in his family. 

Indeed, he was reflecting as he walked in the dusk, Mrs. Spaniel wasnow his sheet anchor. Fortunately she showed signs of becomingextraordinarily attached to the puppies. On the two days a week when shecame up from the village, it was even possible for him to get a littlerelaxation--to run down to the station for tobacco, or to lie in thehammock briefly with a book. Looking off from his airy porch, he couldsee the same blue distances that had always tempted him, but he felt toopassive to wonder about them. He had given up the idea of trying to getany other servants. If it had been possible, he would have engaged Mrs. Spaniel to sleep in the house and be there permanently; but she hadchildren of her own down in the shantytown quarter of the village, andhad to go back to them at night. But certainly he made every effort tokeep her contented. It was a long steep climb up from the hollow, sohe allowed her to come in a taxi and charge it to his account. Then, oncondition that she would come on Saturdays also, to help him clean upfor Sunday, he allowed her, on that day, to bring her own children too, and all the puppies played riotously together around the place. But thishe presently discontinued, for the clamour became so deafening that theneighbours complained. Besides, the young Spaniels, who were a littleolder, got Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers into noisy and careless habits ofspeech. 

He was anxious that they should grow up refined, and was distressed bylittle Shaggy Spaniel having brought up the Comic Section of a Sundaypaper. With childhood's instinctive taste for primitive effects, thepuppies fell in love with the coloured cartoons, and badgered himcontinually for "funny papers. "

There is a great deal more to think about in raising children (he saidto himself) than is intimated in Dr. Holt's book on Care and Feeding. Even in matters that he had always taken for granted, such as fairytales, he found perplexity. After supper--(he now joined the children intheir evening bread and milk, for after cooking them a hearty lunch ofmeat and gravy and potatoes and peas and the endless spinach and carrotsthat the doctors advise, to say nothing of the prunes, he had no energyto prepare a special dinner for himself)--after supper it was his habitto read to them, hoping to give their imaginations a little exercisebefore they went to bed. He was startled to find that Grimm and HansAndersen, which he had considered as authentic classics for childhood, were full of very strong stuff--morbid sentiment, bloodshed, horror, andall manner of painful circumstance. Reading the tales aloud, he editedas he went along; but he was subject to that curious weakness thatafflicts some people: reading aloud made him helplessly sleepy: after apage or so he would fall into a doze, from which he would be awakened bythe crash of a lamp or some other furniture. The children, seized withthat furious hilarity that usually begins just about bedtime, would racemadly about the house until some breakage or a burst of tears woke himfrom his trance. He would thrash them all and put them to bed howling. When they were asleep he would be touched with tender compassion, andsteal in to tuck them up, admiring the innocence of each unconsciousmuzzle on its pillow. Sometimes, in a crisis of his problems, he thoughtof writing to Dr. Holt for advice; but the will-power was lacking. 

It is really astonishing how children can exhaust one, he used to think. Sometimes, after a long day, he was even too weary to correct theirgrammar. "You lay down!" Groups would admonish Yelpers, who was caperingin his crib while Bunks was being lashed in with the largest size ofsafety pins. And Gissing, doggedly passing from one to another, wasreally too fatigued to reprove the verb, picked up from Mrs. Spaniel. 

Fairy tales proving a disappointment, he had great hopes of encouragingthem in drawing. He bought innumerable coloured crayons and stacksof scribbling paper. After supper they would all sit down around thedining-room table and he drew pictures for them. Tongues depending withconcentrated excitement, the children would try to copy these picturesand colour them. In spite of having three complete sets of crayons, afull roster of colours could rarely be found at drawing time. Bunks hadthe violet when Groups wanted it, and so on. But still, this was oftenthe happiest hour of the day. Gissing drew amazing trains, elephants, ships, and rainbows, with the spectrum of colours correctly arrangedand blended. The children specially loved his landscapes, which wereopulently tinted and magnificent in long perspectives. He found himselfalways colouring the far horizons a pale and haunting blue. 

He was meditating these things when a shrill yammer recalled him to thehouse. 

CHAPTER FOUR

In this warm summer weather Gissing slept on a little outdoor balconythat opened off the nursery. The world, rolling in her majestic seaway, heeled her gunwale slowly into the trough of space. Disked upon thisbulwark, the sun rose, and promptly Gissing woke. The poplars flitteredin a cool stir. Beyond the tadpole pond, through a notch in thelandscape, he could see the far darkness of the hills. That fringe ofwoods was a railing that kept the sky from flooding over the earth. 

The level sun, warily peering over the edge like a cautious marksman, fired golden volleys unerringly at him. At once Gissing was aware andwatchful. Brief truce was over: the hopeless war with Time began anew. 

This was his placid hour. Light, so early, lies timidly along theground. It steals gently from ridge to ridge; it is soft, unsure. That blue dimness, receding from bole to bole, is the skirt of Night'sgarment, trailing off toward some other star. As easily as it slips fromtree to tree, it glides from earth to Orion. 

Light, which later will riot and revel and strike pitilessly down, stillis tender and tentative. It sweeps in rosy scythe-strokes, parallel toearth. It gilds, where later it will burn. 

Gissing lay, without stirring. The springs of the old couch were creaky, and the slightest sound might arouse the children within. Now, untilthey woke, was his peace. Purposely he had had the sleeping porch builton the eastern side of the house. Making the sun his alarm clock, heprolonged the slug-a-bed luxury. He had procured the darkest andmost opaque of all shades for the nursery windows, to cage as long aspossible in that room Night the silencer. At this time of the year, thesong of the mosquito was his dreaded nightingale. In spite of fine-meshscreens, always one or two would get in. Mrs. Spaniel, he feared, leftthe kitchen door ajar during the day, and these Borgias of the insectworld, patiently invasive, seized their chance. It was a rare night whena sudden scream did not come from the nursery every hour or so. "Daddy, a keeto, a keeto!" was the anguish from one of the trio. The other twowere up instantly, erect and yelping in their cribs, small black paws onthe rail, pink stomachs candidly exposed to the winged stilleto. Lightson, and the room must be explored for the lurking foe. Scratchingthemselves vigorously, the fun of the chase assuaged the smart of thosered welts. Gissing, wise by now, knew that after a forager the mosquitoalways retires to the ceiling, so he kept a stepladder in the room. Mounted on this, he would pursue the enemy with a towel, while thechildren screamed with merriment. Then stomachs must be anointed withmore citronella; sheets and blankets reassembled, and quiet graduallyrestored. Life, as parents know, can be supported on very little sleep. 

But how delicious to lie there, in the morning freshness, to hear theearth stir with reviving gusto, the merriment of birds, the exuberantclink of milk-bottles set down by the back-door, the whole complexmachinery of life begin anew! Gissing was amazed now, looking back uponhis previous existence, to see himself so busy, so active. Fewpeople are really lazy, he thought: what we call laziness is merelymaladjustment. For in any department of life where one is genuinelyinterested, he will be zealous beyond belief. Certainly he had notdreamed, until he became (in a manner of speaking) a parent, that he hadin him such capacity for detail. 

This business of raising a family, though--had he any true aptitudefor it? or was he forcing himself to go through with it? Wasn't he, moreover, incurring all the labours of parenthood without any ofits proper dignity and social esteem? Mrs. Chow down the street, forinstance, why did she look so sniffingly upon him when she heard thechildren, in the harmless uproar of their play, cry him aloud as Daddy?Uncle, he had intended they should call him; but that is, for beginningspeech, a hard saying, embracing both a palatal and a liquid. WhereasDa-da--the syllables come almost unconsciously to the infant mouth. So he had encouraged it, and even felt an irrational pride in thehonourable but unearned title. 

A little word, Daddy, but one of the most potent, he was thinking. More than a word, perhaps: a great social engine: an anchor which, castcarelessly overboard, sinks deep and fast into the very bottom. Thevessel rides on her hawser, and where are your blue horizons then?

But come now, isn't one horizon as good as another? And do they reallyremain blue when you reach them?

Unconsciously he stirred, stretching his legs deeply into thecomfortable nest of his couch. The springs twanged. Simultaneousclamours! The puppies were awake. 

They yelled to be let out from the cribs. This was the time of themorning frolic. Gissing had learned that there is only one way to dealwith the almost inexhaustible energy of childhood. That is, not toattempt to check it, but to encourage and draw it out. To start the daywith a rush, stimulating every possible outlet of zeal; meanwhile takingthings as calmly and quietly as possible himself, sitting often to takethe weight off his legs, and allowing the youngsters to wear themselvesdown. This, after all, is Nature's own way with man; it is the wiseparent's tactic with children. Thus, by dusk, the puppies will have runthemselves almost into a stupor; and you, if you have shrewdly husbandedyour strength, may have still a little power in reserve for reading andsmoking. 

The before-breakfast game was conducted on regular routine. Childrenshow their membership in the species by their love of strict habit. 

Gissing let them yell for a few moments--as long as he thought theneighbours would endure it--while he gradually gathered strength andresolution, shook off the cowardice of bed. Then he strode into thenursery. As soon as they heard him raising the shades there was completesilence. They hastened to pull the blankets over themselves, and laytense, faces on paws, with bright expectant upward eyes. They trembled alittle with impatience. It was all he could do to restrain himself frompatting the sleek heads, which always seemed to shine with extrapolish after a night's rolling to and fro on the flattened pillows. Butsternness was a part of the game at this moment. He solemnly unlatchedand lowered the tall sides of the cribs. 

He stood in the middle of the room, with a gesture of command. "Quietnow, " he said. "Quiet, until I tell you!"

Yelpers could not help a small whine of intense emotion, which slippedout unintended. The eyes of Groups and Bunks swivelled angrily towardtheir unlucky brother. It was his failing: in crises he always emittedhaphazard sounds. But this time Gissing, with lenient forgiveness, pretended not to have heard. 

He returned to the balcony, and reentered his couch, where he layfeigning sleep. In the nursery was a terrific stillness. 

It was the rule of the game that they should lie thus, in absolutequiet, until he uttered a huge imitation snore. Once, after aparticularly exhausting night, he had postponed the snore too long:he fell asleep. He did not wake for an hour, and then found the tragicthree also sprawled in amazing slumber. But their pillows were wet withtears. He never succumbed again, no matter how deeply tempted. 

He snored. There were three sprawling thumps, a rush of feet, and atumbling squeeze through the screen door. Then they were on the couchand upon him, with panting yelps of glee. Their hot tongues raspedbusily over his face. This was the great tickling game. Remembering histheory of conserving energy, he lay passive while they rollickedand scrambled, burrowing in the bedclothes, quivering imps of absurdpleasure. All that was necessary was to give an occasional squirm, totweak their ribs now and then, so that they believed his heart was inthe sport. Really he got quite a little rest while they were scuffling. No one knew exactly what was the imagined purpose of the lark--whetherhe was supposed to be trying to escape from them, or they from him. Likeall the best games, it had not been carefully thought out. 

"Now, children, " said Gissing presently. "Time to get dressed. "

It was amazing how fast they were growing. Already they were beginningto take a pride in trying to dress themselves. While Gissing was inthe bathroom, enjoying his cold tub (and under the stimulus of thaticy sluice forming excellent resolutions for the day) the children weresitting on the nursery floor eagerly studying the intricacies of theirgear. By the time he returned they would have half their garments onwrong; waist and trousers front side to rear; right shoes on left feet;buttons hopelessly mismated to buttonholes; shoelacings oddly zigzagged. It was far more trouble to permit their ambitious bungling, which mustbe undone and painstakingly reassembled, than to have clad them allhimself, swiftly revolving and garmenting them like dolls. But in theseearly hours of the day, patience still is robust. It was his pedagogy toencourage their innocent initiatives, so long as endurance might permit. 

Best of all, he enjoyed watching them clean their teeth. It wasdelicious to see them, tiptoe on their hind legs at the basin, to whichtheir noses just reached; mouths gaping wide as they scrubbed with verysmall toothbrushes. They were so elated by squeezing out the toothpastefrom the tube that he had not the heart to refuse them this privilege, though it was wasteful. For they always squeezed out more thannecessary, and after a moment's brushing their mouths became choked andclotted with the pungent foam. Much of this they swallowed, for hehad not been able to teach them to rinse and gargle. Their only idearegarding any fluid in the mouth was to swallow it; so they coughed andstrangled and barked. Gissing had a theory that this toothpaste foammost be an appetizer, for he found that the more of it they swallowed, the better they ate their breakfast. 

After breakfast he hurried them out into the garden, before the daybecame too hot. As he put a new lot of prunes to soak in cold water, hecould not help reflecting how different the kitchen and pantry lookedfrom the time of Fuji. The ice-box pan seemed to be continually brimmingover. Somehow--due, he feared, to a laxity on Mrs. Spaniel's part--antshad got in. He was always finding them inside the ice-box, and wonderedwhere they came from. He was amazed to find how negligent he was growingabout pots and pans: he began cooking a new mess of oatmeal in thedouble boiler without bothering to scrape out the too adhesive remnantof the previous porridge. He had come to the conclusion that childrenare tougher and more enduring than Dr. Holt will admit; and that alittle carelessness in matters of hygiene and sterilization does notnecessarily mean instant death. 

Truly his once dainty menage was deteriorating. He had put away his finechina, put away the linen napery, and laid the table with oil cloth. Hehad even improved upon Fuji's invention of scuppers by a littletrough which ran all round the rim of the table, to catch any possiblespillage. He was horrified to observe how inevitably callers came atthe worst possible moment. Mr. And Mrs. Chow, for instance, drew up oneafternoon in their spick-and-span coupe with their intolerably spotlessonly child sitting self-consciously beside them. Groups, Bunks, andYelpers were just then filling the garden with horrid clamour. They hadbeen quarrelling, and one had pushed the other two down the back steps. Gissing, who had attempted to find a quiet moment to scald the ants outof the ice-box, had just rushed forth and boxed them all. As he stoodthere, angry and waving a steaming dishclout, two Chows appeared. Thepuppies at once set upon little Sandy Chow, and had thoroughly mauledhis starched sailor suit in the driveway before two minutes were past. Gissing could not help laughing, for he suspected that there had been atouch of malice in the Chows coming just at that time. 

He had given up his flower garden, too. It was all he could do to shovethe lawn-mower around, in the dusk, after the puppies were in bed. Formerly he had found the purr of the twirling blades a soothingstimulus to thought; but nowadays he could not even think consecutively. Perhaps, he thought, the residence of the mind is in the legs, not inthe head; for when your legs are thoroughly weary you can't seem tothink. 

So he had decided that he simply must have more help in the cooking andhousework. He had instructed Mrs. Spaniel to send the washing to thesteam-laundry, and spend her three days in the kitchen instead. Ahuge bundle had come back from the laundry, and he had paid the driver$15. 98. With dismay he sorted the clean, neatly folded garments. Herewas the worthy Mrs. Spaniel's list, painstakingly written out in herstraggling script:--

 MR. GISHING FAMILY WOSH

 8 towls 6 pymjarm Mr Gishing 12 rompers 3 blowses 6 cribb sheets 1 Mr. Gishing sheat 4 wastes 3 wosh clothes 2 onion sutes Mr Gishing 6 smal onion sutes 4 pillo slipes 3 sherts 18 hankerchifs smal 6 hankerchifs large 8 colers 3 overhauls 10 bibbs 2 table clothes (coca stane) 1 table clothe (prun juce and eg)

After contemplating this list, Gissing went to his desk and began tostudy his accounts. A resolve was forming in his mind. 

CHAPTER FIVE

The summer evenings sounded a very different music from that thinwheedling of April. It was now a soft steady vibration, the incessantdrone and throb of locust and cricket, and sometimes the sudden rasp, dry and hard, of katydids. Gissing, in spite of his weariness, was allfidgets. He would walk round and round the house in the dark, unableto settle down to anything; tired, but incapable of rest. What is thisuneasiness in the mind, he asked himself? The great sonorous drumming ofthe summer night was like the bruit of Time passing steadily by. Evenin the soft eddy of the leaves, lifted on a drowsy creeping air, was asound of discontent, of troublesome questioning. Through the trees hecould see the lighted oblongs of neighbours' windows, or hear stridulentjazz records. Why were all others so cheerfully absorbed in the minutiaeof their lives, and he so painfully ill at ease? Sometimes, under thewarm clear darkness, the noises of field and earth swelled to a kindof soft thunder: his quickened ears heard a thousand small outcriescontributing to the awful energy of the world--faint chimings andwhistlings in the grass, and endless flutter, rustle, and whirr. His ownbody, on which hair and nails grew daily like vegetation, startled andappalled him. Consciousness of self, that miserable ecstasy, was heavyupon him. 

He envied the children, who lay upstairs sprawled under their mosquitonettings. Immersed in living, how happily unaware of being alive! Hesaw, with tenderness, how naively they looked to him as the answer andsolution of their mimic problems. But where could he find someone to beto him what he was to them? The truth apparently was that in his inwardmind he was desperately lonely. Reading the poets by fits and starts, he suddenly realized that in their divine pages moved something of thisloneliness, this exquisite unhappiness. But these great hearts had hadthe consolation of setting down their moods in beautiful words, wordsthat lived and spoke. His own strange fever burned inexpressibly insidehim. Was he the only one who felt the challenge offered by the maddeningfertility and foison of the hot sun-dazzled earth? Life, he realized, was too amazing to be frittered out in this aimless sickness of heart. There were truths and wonders to be grasped, if he could only throw offthis wistful vague desire. He felt like a clumsy strummer seated at adark shining grand piano, which he knows is capable of every glory ofrolling music, yet he can only elicit a few haphazard chords. 

He had his moments of arrogance, too. Ah, he was very young! Thismiracle of blue unblemished sky that had baffled all others since lifebegan--he, he would unriddle it! He was inclined to sneer at his friendswho took these things for granted, and did not perceive the infamousinsolubility of the whole scheme. Remembering the promises made atthe christening, he took the children to church; but alas, carefullyanalyzing his mind, he admitted that his attention had been chieflyoccupied with keeping them orderly, and he had gone through the servicealmost automatically. Only in singing hymns did he experience a tingleof exalted feeling. But Mr. Poodle was proud of his well-trained choir, and Gissing had a feeling that the congregation was not supposed to domore than murmur the verses, for fear of spoiling the effect. In hisfavourite hymns he had a tendency to forget himself and let go: hisvigorous tenor rang lustily. Then he realized that the backs of people'sheads looked surprised. The children could not be kept quiet unlessthey stood up on the pews. Mr. Poodle preached rather a long sermon, andYelpers, toward twelve-thirty, remarked in a clear tone of interestedinquiry, "What time does God have dinner?"

Gissing had a painful feeling that he and Mr. Poodle did not thoroughlyunderstand each other. The curate, who was kindness itself, called oneevening, and they had a friendly chat. Gissing was pleased to findthat Mr. Poodle enjoyed a cigar, and after some hesitation ventured tosuggest that he still had something in the cellar. Mr. Poodle said thathe didn't care for anything, but his host could not help hearing thecurate's tail quite unconsciously thumping on the chair cushions. So heexcused himself and brought up one of his few remaining bottles ofWhite Horse. Mr. Poodle crossed his legs and they chatted about golf, politics, the income tax, and some of the recent books; but when Gissingturned the talk on religion, Mr. Poodle became diffident.. Gissing, warmed and cheered by the vital Scotch, was perhaps too direct. 

"What ought I to do to 'crucify the old man'?" he said. 

Mr. Poodle was rather embarrassed. 

"You must mortify the desires of the flesh, " he replied. "You must digup the old bone of sin that is buried in all our hearts. "

There were many more questions Gissing wanted to ask about this, but Mr. Poodle said he really must be going, as he had a call to pay on Mr. AndMrs. Chow. 

Gissing walked down the path with him, and the curate did indeed set offtoward the Chows'. But Gissing wondered, for a little later he heard acheerful canticle upraised in the open fields. 

He himself was far from gay. He longed to tear out this malady from hisbreast. Poor dreamer, he did not know that to do so is to tear out GodHimself. "Mrs. Spaniel, " he said when the laundress next came up fromthe village, "you are a widow, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir, " she said. "Poor Spaniel was killed by a truck, two years agoApril. " Her face was puzzled, but beneath her apron Gissing could seeher tail wagging. 

"Don't misunderstand me, " he said quickly. "I've got to go away onbusiness. I want you to bring your children and move into this housewhile I'm gone. I'll make arrangements at the bank about paying all thebills. You can give up your outside washing and devote yourself entirelyto looking after this place. "

Mrs. Spaniel was so much surprised that she could not speak. In heramazement a bright bubble dripped from the end of her curly tongue. Hastily she caught it in her apron, and apologized. 

"How long will you be away, sir?" she asked. 

"I don't know. It may be quite a long time. "

"But all your beautiful things, furniture and everything, " said Mrs. Spaniel. "I'm afraid my children are a bit rough. They're not used toliving in a house like this--"

"Well, " said Gissing, "you must do the best you can. There are somethings more important than furniture. It will be good for your childrento get accustomed to refined surroundings, and it'll be good for mynephews to have someone to play with. Besides, I don't want them to growup spoiled mollycoddles. I think I've been fussing over them too much. If they have good stuff in them, a little roughening won't do anypermanent harm. "

"Dear me, " cried Mrs. Spaniel, "what will the neighbours think?"

"They won't, " said Gissing. "I don't doubt they'll talk, but they won'tthink. Thinking is very rare. I've got to do some myself, that's onereason why I'm going. You know, Mrs. Spaniel, God is a horizon, notsomeone sitting on a throne. " Mrs. Spaniel didn't understand this--infact, she didn't seem to hear it. Her mind was full of the idea thatshe would simply have to have a new dress, preferably black silk, forSundays. Gissing, very sagacious, had already foreseen this point. "Let's not have any argument, " he continued. "I have planned everything. Here is some money for immediate needs. I'll speak to them at thebank, and they will give you a weekly allowance. I leave you here ascaretaker. Later on I'll send you an address and you can write me howthings are going. "

Poor Mrs. Spaniel was bewildered. She came of very decent people, butsince Spaniel took to drink, and then left her with a family to support, she had sunk in the world. She was wondering now how she could face itout with Mrs. Chow and Mrs. Fox-Terrier and the other neighbours. 

"Oh, dear, " she cried, "I don't know what to say, sir. Why, my boys areso disreputable-looking, they haven't even a collar between them. "

"Get them collars and anything else they need, " said Gissing kindly. "Don't worry, Mrs. Spaniel, it will be a fine thing for you. There willbe a little gossip, I dare say, but we'll have to chance that. Nowyou had better go down to the village and make your arrangements. I'mleaving tonight. "

Late that evening, after seeing Mrs. Spaniel and her brood safelyinstalled, Gissing walked to the station with his suitcase. He felt apang as he lifted the mosquito nettings and kissed the cool moist nosesof the sleeping trio. But he comforted himself by thinking that this wasno merely vulgar desertion. If he was to raise the family, he must earnsome money. His modest income would not suffice for this sudden increasein expenses. Besides, he had never known what freedom meant until itwas curtailed. For the past three months he had lived in ceaselessattendance; had even slept with one ear open for the children's cries. Now he owed it to himself to make one great strike for peace. Wealth, hecould see, was the answer. With money, everything was attainable: books, leisure for study, travel, prestige--in short, command over the physicaldetails of life. He would go in for Big Business. Already he thrilledwith a sense of power and prosperity. 

The little house stood silent in the darkness as he went down the path. The night was netted with the weaving sparkle of fireflies. He stoodfor a moment, looking. Suddenly there came a frightened cry from thenursery. 

"Daddy, a keeto, a keeto!"

He nearly turned to run back, but checked himself. No, Mrs. Spaniel wasnow in charge. It was up to her. Besides, he had only just enough timeto catch the last train to the city. 

But he sat on the cinder-speckled plush of the smoker in a mood that washardly revelry. "By Jove, " he said to himself, "I got away just in time. Another month and I couldn't have done it. "

It was midnight when he saw the lights of town, panelled in gold againsta peacock sky. Acres and acres of blue darkness lay close-pressingupon the gaudy grids of light. Here one might really look at this greatmiracle of shadow and see its texture. The dulcet air drifted lazily indeep, silent crosstown streets. "Ah, " he said, "here is where the bluebegins. "

CHAPTER SIX

 "For students of the troubled heart Cities are perfect works of art. "

There is a city so tall that even the sky above her seems to have liftedin a cautious remove, inconceivably far. There is a city so proud, somad, so beautiful and young, that even heaven has retreated, lest herplacid purity be too nearly tempted by that brave tragic spell. In thecity which is maddest of all, Gissing had come to search for sanity. Inthe city so strangely beautiful that she has made even poets silent, hehad come to find a voice. In the city of glorious ostent and vanity, hehad come to look for humility and peace. 

All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities arebeautiful: but the beauty is grim. Who shall tell me the truth aboutthis one? Tragic? Even so, because wherever ambitions, vanities, andfollies are multiplied by millionfold contact, calamity is there. Nobleand beautiful? Aye, for even folly may have the majesty of magnitude. Hasty, cruel, shallow? Agreed, but where in this terrene orb will youfind it otherwise? I know all that can be said against her; and yet inher great library of streets, vast and various as Shakespeare, is beautyenough for a lifetime. O poets, why have you been so faint? Because sheseems cynical and crass, she cries with trumpet-call to the mind of thedreamer; because she is riant and mad, she speaks to the grave sanity ofthe poet. 

So, in a mood perhaps too consciously lofty, Gissing was meditating. It was rather impudent of him to accuse the city of being mad, for hehimself, in his glee over freedom regained, was not conspicuously sane. He scoured the town in high spirits, peering into shop-windows, ridingon top of busses, going to the Zoo, taking the rickety old steamer tothe Statue of Liberty, drinking afternoon tea at the Ritz, and all thatsort of thing. The first three nights in town he slept in one of thelittle traffic-towers that perch on stilts up above Fifth Avenue. Asa matter of fact, it was that one near St. Patrick's Cathedral. He hadridden up the Avenue in a taxi, intending to go to the Plaza (just fora bit of splurge after his domestic confinement). As the cab went by, hesaw the traffic-tower, dark and empty, and thought what a pleasant placeto sleep. So he asked the driver to let him out at the Cathedral, andafter being sure that he was not observed, walked back to the littleturret, climbed up the ladder, and made himself at home. He liked itso well that he returned there the two following nights; but he didn'tsleep much, for he could not resist the fun of startling night-hawktaxis by suddenly flashing the red, green, and yellow lights at them, and seeing them stop in bewilderment. But after three nights hethought it best to leave. It would have been awkward if the police haddiscovered him. 

It was time to settle down and begin work. He had an uncle who was headof an important business far down-town; but Gissing, with the quixotryof youth, was determined to make his own start in the great world ofcommerce. He found a room on the top floor of a quiet brownstone housein the West Seventies. It was not large, and he had to go down a flightfor his bath; the gas burner over the bed whistled; the dust was ratherstartling after the clean country; but it was cheap, and his sense ofadventure more than compensated. Mrs. Purp, the landlady, pleased himgreatly. She was very maternal, and urged him not to bolt his meals inarmchair lunches. She put an ashtray in his room. 

Gissing sent Mrs. Spaniel a postcard with a picture of the PennsylvaniaStation. On it he wrote Arrived safely. Hard at work. Love to thechildren. Then he went to look for a job. 

His ideas about business were very vague. All he knew was that he wishedto be very wealthy and influential as soon as possible. He could havehad much sound advice from his uncle, who was a member of the UnionKennel and quite a prominent dog-about-town. But Gissing had thesecretive pride of inexperience. Moreover, he did not quite know whatto say about his establishment in the country. That houseful of childrenwould need some explaining. 

Those were days of brilliant heat; clear, golden, dry. The societycolumns in the papers assured him that everyone was out of town; but theAvenue seemed plentifully crowded with beautiful, superb creatures. Far down the gentle slopes of that glimmering roadway he could seethe rolling stream of limousines, dazzles of sunlight caught on theirpolished flanks. A faint blue haze of gasoline fumes hung low in thebright warm air. This is the street where even the most passive arepricked by the strange lure of carnal dominion. Nothing less than a jobon the Avenue itself would suit his mood, he felt. 

Fortune and audacity united (as they always do) to concede his desire. He was in the beautiful department store of Beagle and Company, one ofthe most splendid of its kind, looking at some sand-coloured spats. In an aisle near by he heard a commotion--nothing vulgar, but still anevident stir, with repressed yelps and a genteel, horrified bustle. Hehastened to the spot, and through the crowd saw someone lying on thefloor. An extremely beautiful sales-damsel, charmingly clad in blackcrepe de chien, was supporting the victim's head, vainly fanning him. Wealthy dowagers were whining in distress. Then an ambulance clangedup to a side door, and a stretcher was brought in. "What is it?" saidGissing to a female at the silk-stocking counter. 

"One of the floorwalkers--died of heat prostration, " she said, lookingvery much upset. 

"Poor fellow, " said Gissing. "You never know what will happen next, doyou?" He walked away, shaking his head. 

He asked the elevator attendant to direct him to the offices of thefirm. On the seventh floor, down a quiet corridor behind the bedroomsuites, a rosewood fence barred his way. A secretary faced himinquiringly. 

"I wish to see Mr. Beagle. "

"Mr. Beagle senior or Mr. Beagle junior?"

Youth cleaves to youth, said Gissing to himself. "Mr. Beagle junior, " hestated firmly. 

"Have you an appointment?"

"Yes, " he said. 

She took his ward, disappeared, and returned. "This way, please, " shesaid. 

Mr. Beagle senior must be very old indeed, he thought; for junior wasdistinctly grizzled. In fact (so rapidly does the mind run), Mr. Beaglesenior must be near the age of retirement. Very likely (he said tohimself) that will soon occur; there will be a general stepping-up amongmembers of the firm, and that will be my chance. I wonder how much theypay a junior partner?

He almost uttered this question, as Mr. Beagle junior looked at him soinquiringly. But he caught himself in time. 

"I beg your pardon for intruding, " said Gissing, "but I am the newfloorwalker. "

"You are very kind, " said Mr. Beagle junior, "but we do not need a newfloorwalker. "

"I beg your pardon again, " said Gissing, "but you are not au courantwith the affairs of the store. One has just died, right by thesilk-stocking counter. Very bad for business. "

At this moment the telephone rang, and Mr. Beagle seized it. Helistened, sharply examining his caller meanwhile. 

"You are right, " he said, as he put down the receiver. "Well, sir, haveyou had any experience?"

"Not exactly of that sort, " said Gissing; "but I think I understand therequirements. The tone of the store--"

"I will ask you to be here at four-thirty this afternoon, " said Mr. Beagle. "We have a particular routine in regard to candidates forthat position. You will readily perceive that it is a post of someimportance. The floorwalker is our point of social contact withpatrons. "

Gissing negligently dusted his shoes with a handkerchief. 

"Pray do not apologize, " he said kindly. "I am willing to congratulatewith you on your good fortune. It was mere hazard that I was in thestore. To-day, of course, business will be poor. But to-morrow, I thinkyou will find--"

"At four-thirty, " said Mr. Beagle, a little puzzled. 

That day Gissing went without lunch. First he explored the wholebuilding from top to bottom, until he knew the location of everydepartment, and had the store directory firmly memorized. With almostproprietary tenderness he studied the shining goods and trinkets; notedapprovingly the clerks who seemed to him specially prompt and obligingto customers; scowled a little at any sign of boredom or inattention. He heard the soft sigh of the pneumatic tubes as they received moneyand blew it to some distant coffer: this money, he thought, was alreadypartly his. That square-cut creature whom he presently discernedfollowing him was undoubtedly the store detective: he smiled to thinkwhat a pleasant anecdote this would be when he was admitted to juniorpartnership. Then he went, finally, to the special Masculine Shop on thefifth floor, where he bought a silk hat, a cutaway coat and waistcoat, and trousers of pearly stripe. He did not forget patent leather shoes, nor white spats. He refused--the little white linen margins which theclerk wished to affix to the V of his waistcoat. That, he felt, was theultra touch which would spoil all. The just less than perfection, howperfect it is!

It was getting late. He hurried to Penn Station where he hired one ofthose little dressing booths, and put on his regalia. His tweeds, in aneat package, he checked at the parcel counter. Then he returned to thestore for the important interview. 

He had expected a formal talk with the two Messrs. Beagle, perhapstouching on such matters as duties, hours, salary, and so on. To hissurprise he was ushered by the secretary into a charming Louis XVI salonfarther down the private corridor. There were several ladies: one waspouring tea. Mr. Beagle junior came forward. The vice-president (suchwas Mr. Beagle junior's rank, Gissing had learned by the sign on hisdoor) still wore his business garb of the morning. Gissing immediatelyfelt himself to have the advantage. But what a pleasant idea, hethought, for the members of the firm to have tea together everyafternoon. He handed his hat, gloves, and stick to the secretary. 

"Very kind of you to come, " said Mr. Beagle. "Let me present you to mywife. "

Mrs. Beagle, at the tea-urn, received him graciously. 

"Cream or lemon?" she said. "Two lumps?"

This is really delightful, Gissing thought. Only on Fifth Avenue couldthis kind of thing happen. He looked down the hostess from his superiorheight, and smiled charmingly. 

"Do you permit three?" he said. "A little weakness of mine. " As a matterof fact, he hated tea so sweet; but he felt it was strategic to fixhimself in Mrs. Beagle's mind as a polished eccentric. 

"You must have a meringue, " she said. "Ah, Mrs. Pomeranian has them. Mrs. Pomeranian, let me present Mr. Gissing. "

Mrs. Pomeranian, small and plump and tightly corseted, offered themeringues, while Mrs. Beagle pressed upon him a plate with a smalldoily, embroidered with the arms of the store, and its motto jemaintiendrai--referring, no doubt, to its prices. Mr. Beagle thenintroduced him to several more ladies in rapid succession. Gissingpassed along the line, bowing slightly but with courteous interest toeach. To each one he raised his eyebrows and permitted himself a smallsignificant smile, as though to convey that this was a moment he hadlong been anticipating. How different, he thought, was this life ofenigmatic gaiety from the suburban drudgery of recent months. If onlyMrs. Spaniel could see him now! He was about to utilize a brief pause bysipping his tea, when a white-headed patriarch suddenly appeared besidehim. 

"Mr. Gissing, " said the vice-president, "this is my father, Mr. Beaglesenior. "

Gissing, by quick work, shuffled the teacup into his left paw, and themeringue plate into the crook of his elbow, so he was ready for the oldgentleman's salutation. Mr. Beagle senior was indeed very old: his whitehair hung over his eyes, he spoke with growling severity. Gissing'smanner to the old merchant was one of respectful reassurance: heattempted to make an impression that would console: to impart--of coursewithout saying so--the thought that though the head of the firm couldnot last much longer, yet he would leave his great traffic in capablecare. 

"Where will I find an aluminum cooking pot?" growled the elder Beagleunexpectedly. 

"In the Bargain Basement, " said Gissing promptly. 

"He'll do!" cried the president. 

To his surprise, on looking round, Gissing saw that all the ladies hadvanished. Beagle junior was grinning at him. 

"You have the job, Mr. Gissing, " he said. "You will pardon the harmlessmasquerade--we always try out a floorwalker in that way. My fatherthinks that if he can handle a teacup and a meringue while beingintroduced to ladies, he can manage anything on the main aisledownstairs. Mrs. Pomeranian, our millinery buyer, said she had neverseen it better done, and she mixes with some of the swellest people inParis. "

"Nine to six, with half an hour off for lunch, " said the senior partner, and left the room. 

Gissing calmly swallowed his tea, and ate the meringue. He would haveenjoyed another, but the capable secretary had already removed them. Hepoured himself a second cup of tea. Mr. Beagle junior showed signs ofeagerness to leave, but Gissing detained him. 

"One moment, " he said suavely. "There is a little matter that we havenot discussed. The question of salary. "

Mr. Beagle looked thoughtfully out of the window. 

"Thirty dollars a week, " he said. 

After all, Gissing thought, it will only take four weeks to pay for whatI have spent on clothes. 

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was some dramatic nerve in Gissing's nature that respondedeloquently to the floorwalking job. Never, in the history of Beagle andCompany, had there been a floorwalker who threw so much passion and zealinto his task. The very hang of his coattails, even the erect carriageof his back, the rubbery way in which his feet trod the aisles, showedhis sense of dignity and glamour. There seemed to be a great traditionwhich enriched and upheld him. Mr. Beagle senior used to stand onthe little balcony at the rear of the main floor, transfixed with thepleasure of seeing Gissing move among the crowded passages. Alert, watchful, urbane, with just the ideal blend of courtesy andcondescension, he raised floorwalking to a social art. Female customersasked him the way to departments they knew perfectly well, for thepleasure of hearing him direct them. Business began to improve before hehad been there a week. 

And how he enjoyed himself! The perfection of his bearing on thefloor was no careful pose: it was due to the brimming overplus of hishappiness. Happiness is surely the best teacher of good manners: onlythe unhappy are churlish in deportment. He was young, remember; andthis was his first job. His precocious experience as a paterfamilias hadadded to his mien just that suggestion of unconscious gravity which isso appealing to ladies. He looked (they thought) as though he had beentouched--but Oh so lightly!--by poetic sorrow or strange experience: toask him the way to the notion counter was as much of an adventure asto meet a reigning actor at a tea. The faint cloud of melancholy thatshadowed his brow may have been only due to the fact that his new bootswere pinching painfully; but they did not know that. 

So, quite unconsciously, he began to "establish" himself in his role, just as an actor does. At first he felt his way tentatively and withtact. Every store has its own tone and atmosphere: in a day or so hedivined the characteristic cachet of the Beagle establishment. He sawwhat kind of customers were typical, and what sort of conduct theyexpected. And the secret of conquest being always to give peoplea little more than they expect, he pursued that course. Since theyexpected in a floorwalker the mechanical and servile gentility of ahired puppet, he exhibited the easy, offhand simplicity of a fellowclub-member. With perfect naturalness he went out of his way to assistin their shopping concerns: gave advice in the selection of dressmaterials, acted as arbiter in the matching of frocks and stockings. Histaste being faultless, it often happened that the things he recommendedwere not the most expensive: this again endeared him to customers. When sales slips were brought to him by ladies who wished to make anexchange, he affixed his O. K. With a magnificent flourish, and withsuch evident pleasure, that patrons felt genuine elation, and plungedinto the tumult with new enthusiasm. It was not long before there werealways people waiting for his counsel; and husbands would appear atthe store to convey (a little irritably) some such message as: "Mrs. Sealyham says, please choose her a scarf that will go nicely with thatbrown moire dress of hers. She says you will remember the dress. "--Thispopularity became even a bit perplexing, as for instance when old Mrs. Dachshund, the store's biggest Charge Account, insisted on his leavinghis beat at a very busy time, to go up to the tenth floor to tell herwhich piano he thought had the richer tone. 

Of course all this was very entertaining, and an admirable opportunityfor studying his fellow-creatures; but it did not go very deep intohis mind. He lived for some time in a confused glamour and glitter;surrounded by the fascinating specious life of the store, but driftingmerely superficially upon it. The great place, with its columns ofartificial marble and white censers of upward-shining electricity, glimmered like a birch forest by moonlight. Silver and jewels and silksand slippers flashed all about him. It was a marvellous education, forhe soon learned to estimate these things at their proper value; which islow, for they have little to do with life itself. His work was tiring inthe extreme--merely having to remain upright on his hind legs forsuch long hours WAS an ordeal--but it did not penetrate to the secretobservant self of which he was always aware. This was advantageous. Ifyou have no intellect, or only just enough to get along with, it doesnot much matter what you do. But if you really have a mind--by whichis meant that rare and curious power of reason, of imagination, andof emotion; very different from a mere fertility of conversation andintelligent curiosity--it is better not to weary and wear it out overtrifles. 

So, when he left the store in the evening, no matter how his legs ached, his head was clear and untarnished. He did not hurry away at closingtime. Places where people work are particularly fascinating afterthe bustle is over. He loved to linger in the long aisles, to see thetumbled counters being swiftly brought to order, to hear the pungentcynicisms of the weary shopgirls. To these, by the way, he was a bit ofa mystery. The punctilio of his manner, the extreme courtliness of hisremarks, embarrassed them a little. Behind his back they spoke of him as"The Duke" and admired him hugely; little Miss Whippet, at the stockingcounter, said that he was an English noble of long pedigree, who hadbeen unjustly deprived of his estates. 

Down in the basement of this palatial store was a little dressingroom and lavatory for the floorwalkers, where they doffed their formalraiment and resumed street attire. His colleagues grumbled and hastenedto depart, but Gissing made himself entirely comfortable. In his lockerhe kept a baby's bathtub, which he leisurely filled with hot water atone of the basins. Then he sat serenely and bathed his feet; although itwas against the rules he often managed to smoke a pipe while doing so. Then he hung up his store clothes neatly, and went off refreshed intothe summer evening. 

A warm rosy light floods the city at that hour. At the foot of everycrosstown street is a bonfire of sunset. What a mood of secret smilingbeset him as he viewed the great territory of his enjoyment. "Thefreedom of the city"--a phrase he had somewhere heard--echoed in hismind. The freedom of the city! A magnificent saying, Electric signs, first burning wanly in the pink air, then brightened and grew strong. "Not light, but rather darkness visible, " in that magic hour that justholds the balance between paling day and the spendthrift jewelleryof evening. Or, if it rained, to sit blithely on the roof of a bus, revelling in the gust and whipping of the shower. Why had no one toldhim of the glory of the city? She was pride, she was exultation, shewas madness. She was what he had obscurely craved. In every line ofher gallant profile he saw conquest, triumph, victory! Empty conquest, futile triumph, doomed victory--but that was the essence of the drama. In thunderclaps of dumb ecstasy he saw her whole gigantic fabric, leaning and clamouring upward with terrible yearning. Burnt withpitiless sunlight, drenched with purple explosions of summer storm, hesaw her cleansed and pure. Where were her recreant poets that they hadnever made these things plain?

And then, after the senseless day, after its happy but meaninglesstriviality, the throng and mixed perfumery and silly courteous gestures, his blessed solitude! Oh solitude, that noble peace of the mind!He loved the throng and multitude of the day: he loved people: butsometimes he suspected that he loved them as God does--at a judiciousdistance. From his rather haphazard religious training, strange wordscame back to him. "For God so loved the world... " So loved the worldthat--that what? That He sent someone else... Some day he must thinkthis out. But you can't think things out. They think themselves, suddenly, amazingly. The city itself is God, he cried. Was not God'sultimate promise something about a city--The City of God? Well, but thatwas only symbolic language. The city--of course that was only a symbolfor the race--for all his kind. The entire species, the whole aspirationand passion and struggle, that was God. 

On the ferries, at night, after supper, was his favourite place formeditation. Some undeniable instinct drew him ever and again out ofthe deep and shut ravines of stone, to places where he could feed ondistance. That is one of the subtleties of this straight and narrowcity, that though her ways are cliffed in, they are a long thoroughfarefor the eye: there is always a far perspective. But best of all to godown to her environing water, where spaces are wide: the openness thatkeeps her sound and free. Ships had words for him: they had crossed manyhorizons: fragments of that broken blue still shone on their cuttingbows. Ferries, the most poetical things in the city, were nearly emptyat night: he stood by the rail, saw the black outline of the town slideby, saw the lower sky gilded with her merriment, and was busy thinking. 

Now about a God (he said to himself)--instinct tells me that there isone, for when I think about Him I find that I unconsciously wag my taila little. But I must not reason on that basis, which is too puppyish. Ilike to think that there is, somewhere in this universe, an inscrutableBeing of infinite wisdom, harmony, and charity, by Whom all my desiresand needs would be understood; in association with Whom I would findpeace, satisfaction, a lightness of heart that exceed my presentunderstanding. Such a Being is to me quite inconceivable; yet I feelthat if I met Him, I would instantly understand. I do not mean that Iwould understand Him: but I would understand my relationship to Him, which would be perfect. Nor do I mean that it would be alwayshappy; merely that it would transcend anything in the way of socialsignificance that I now experience. But I must not conclude that thereis such a God, merely because it would be so pleasant if there were. 

Then (he continued) is it necessary to conceive that this deity issuper-canine in essence? What I am getting at is this: in everyoneI have ever known--Fuji, Mr. Poodle, Mrs. Spaniel, those maddeningdelightful puppies, Mrs. Purp, Mr. Beagle, even Mrs. Chow and Mrs. Sealyham and little Miss Whippet--I have always been aware that therewas some mysterious point of union at which our minds could converge andentirely understand one another. No matter what our difference of breed, of training, of experience and education, provided we could meet andexchange ideas honestly there would be some satisfying point of mentalfusion where we would feel our solidarity in the common mystery of life. People complain that wars are caused by and fought over trivial things. Why, of course! For it is only in trivial matters that people differ:in the deep realities they must necessarily be at one. Now I have asuspicion that in this secret sense of unity God may lurk. Is that whatwe mean by God, the sum total of all these instinctive understandings?But what is the origin of this sense of kinship? Is it not therealization of our common subjection to laws and forces greater thanourselves? Then, since nothing can be greater than God, He must BE thesesuperior mysteries. Yet He cannot be greater than our minds, for ourminds have imagined Him. 

My mathematics is very rusty, he said to himself, but I seem to remembersomething about a locus, which was a curve or a surface every pointon which satisfied some particular equation of relation among thecoordinates. It begins to look to me as though life might be a kind oflocus, whose commanding equation we call God. The points on that locuscannot conceive of the equation, yet they are subject to it. They cannotconceive of that equation, because of course it has no existence saveas a law of their being. It exists only for them; they, only by it. Butthere it is--a perfect, potent, divine abstraction. 

This carried him into a realm of disembodied thinking which his mind wasnot sufficiently disciplined to summarize. It is quite plain, he said tohimself, that I must rub up my vanished mathematics. For certainly themathematician comes closer to God than any other, since his mind istrained to conceive and formulate the magnificent phantoms of legality. He smiled to think that any one should presume to become a parsonwithout having at least mastered analytical geometry. 

The ferry had crossed and recrossed the river several times, but Gissinghad found no conclusion for these thoughts. As the boat drew towardher slip, she passed astern of a great liner. Gissing saw the four tallfunnels loom up above the shed of the pier where she lay berthed. What was it that made his heart so stir? The perfect rake of thefunnels--just that satisfying angle of slant--that, absurdly enough, wasthe nobility of the sight. Why, then? Let's get at the heart of this, hesaid. Just that little trick of the architect, useless in itself--whatwas it but the touch of swagger, of bravado, of defiance--going outinto the vast, meaningless, unpitying sea with that dainty arroganceof build; taking the trouble to mock the senseless elements, hurricane, ice, and fog, with a 15-degree slope of masts and funnels: damn, whatwas the analogy?

It was pride, it was pride! It was the same lusty impudence that he sawin his perfect city, the city that cried out to the hearts of youth, jutted her mocking pinnacles toward sky, her clumsy turrets verticalledon gold! And God, the God of gales and gravity, loved His children todare and contradict Him, to rally Him with equations of their own. 

"God, I defy you!" he cried. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment. 

But Gissing was acutely conscious of Time. Though not subtle enough toanalyze the matter acutely, he had a troublesome feeling about it. Hekept checking off a series of Nows. "Now I am having my bath, " he wouldsay to himself in the morning. "Now I am dressing. Now I am on theway to the store. Now I am in the jewellery aisle, being polite tocustomers. Now I am having lunch. " After a period in which time ran byunnoticed, he would suddenly realize a fresh Now, and feel uneasy atthe knowledge that it would shortly dissolve into another one. He tried, vainly, to swim up-stream against the smooth impalpable fatal current. He tried to dam up Time, to deepen the stream so that he could bathe init carelessly. Time, he said, is life; and life is God; time, then, islittle bits of God. Those who waste their time in vulgarity or folly arethe true atheists. 

One of the things that struck him about the city was its heedlessness ofTime. On every side he saw people spending it without adequate return. Perhaps he was young and doctrinaire: but he devised this theory forhimself--all time is wasted that does not give you some awareness ofbeauty or wonder. In other words, "the days that make us happy make uswise, " he said to himself, quoting Masefield's line. On that principle, he asked, how much time is wasted in this city? Well, here are some sixmillion people. To simplify the problem (which is permitted to everyphilosopher) let us (he said) assume that 2, 350, 000 of those people havespent a day that could be called, on the whole, happy: a day inwhich they have had glimpses of reality; a day in which they feelsatisfaction. (That was, he felt, a generous allowance. ) Very well, then, that leaves 3, 650, 000 people whose day has been unfruitful: spentin uncongenial work, or in sorrow, suffering, and talking nonsense. Thiscity, then, in one day, has wasted 10, 000 years, or 100 centuries. Onehundred centuries squandered in a day! It made him feel quite ill, andhe tore up the scrap of paper on which he had been figuring. 

This was a new, disconcerting way to think of the subject. We areaccustomed to consider Time only as it applies to ourselves, forgettingthat it is working upon everyone else simultaneously. Why, he thoughtwith a sudden shock, if only 36, 500 people in this city have had athoroughly spendthrift and useless day, that means a net loss of acentury! If the War, he said to himself, lasted over 1, 500 days andinvolved more than 10, 000, 000 men, how many aeons--He used to thinkabout these things during quiet evenings in the top-floor room at Mrs. Purp's. Occasionally he went home at night still wearing his storeclothes, because it pleased good Mrs. Purp so much. She felt that itadded glamour to her house to have him do so, and always called herhusband, a frightened silent creature with no collar and a humble air, up from the basement to admire. Mr. Purp's time, Gissing suspected, was irretrievably wasted--a good deal of it, to judge by his dustyappearance, in rolling around in ashcans or in the company of theneighbourhood bootlegger; but then, he reflected, in a charitableseizure, you must not judge other people's time-spendings by a calculusof your own. 

Perhaps he himself was growing a little miserly in this matter. Indulging in the rare, the sovereign luxury of thinking, he had suddenlybecome aware of time's precious fluency, and wondered why everyone elsedidn't think about it as passionately as he did. In the privacy ofhis room, weary after the day afoot, he took off his cutaway coat andtrousers and enjoyed his old habit of stretching out on the floor fora good rest. There he would lie, not asleep, but in a bliss of passivemeditation. He even grudged Mrs. Purp the little chats she loved--shemade a point of coming up with clean towels when she knew he was in hisroom, because she cherished hearing him talk. When he heard her knock, he had to scramble hastily to his feet, get on his clothes, and pretendhe had been sitting calmly in the rocking chair. It would never doto let her find him sprawled on the floor. She had an almost painfulrespect for him. Once, when prospective lodgers were bargaining forrooms, and he happened to be wearing his Beagle and Company attire, shehad asked him to do her the favour of walking down the stairs, so thatthe visitors might be impressed by the gentility of the establishment. 

Of course he loved to waste time--but in his own way. He gloated on theirresponsible vacancy of those evening hours, when there was nothing tobe done. He lay very still, hardly even thinking, just feeling life goby. Through the open window came the lights and noises of the street. Already his domestic life seemed dim and far away. The shrill appealsof the puppies, their appalling innocent comments on existence, camebut faintly to memory. Here, where life beat so much more thickly andclosely, was the place to be. Though he had solved nothing, yet heseemed closer to the heart of the mystery. Entranced, he felt timeflowing on toward him, endless in sweep and fulness. There is only onesuccess, he said to himself--to be able to spend your life in your ownway, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it. Youth, youth is the only wealth, for youth has Time in its purse!

In the store, however, philosophy was laid aside. A kind of intoxicationpossessed him. Never before had old Mr. Beagle (watching delightedlyfrom the mezzanine balcony) seen such a floorwalker. Gissing moved toand fro exulting in the great tide of shopping. He knew all the bestcustomers by name and had learned their peculiarities. If a shower cameup and Mrs. Mastiff was just leaving, he hastened to give her his arm asfar as her limousine, boosting her in so expeditiously that not a dropof wetness fell upon her. He took care to find out the special plat dujour of the store's lunch room, and seized occasion to whisper to Mrs. Dachshund, whose weakness was food, that the filet of sole was very niceto-day. Mrs. Pomeranian learned that giving Gissing a hint about somenew Parisian importations was more effective than a half page ad. In theSunday papers. Within a few hours, by a judicious word here and there, he would have a score of ladies hastening to the millinery salon. A pearl necklace of great value, which Mr. Beagle had rebuked thejewellery buyer for getting, because it seemed more appropriate for adealer in precious stones than for a department store, was disposed ofalmost at once. Gissing casually told Mrs. Mastiff that he had heardMrs. Sealyham intended to buy it. As for Mrs. Dachshund, who had had ahabit of lunching at Delmonico's, she now was to be seen taking tiffinat Beagle's almost daily. There were many husbands who would have beenglad to shoot him at sight on the first of the month, had they known whowas the real cause of their woe. 

Indeed, Gissing had raised floorwalking to a new level. He was moreprime minister than a mere patroller of aisles. With sparkling eye, with unending curiosity, tact, and attention, he moved quietly among thethrong. He realized that shopping is the female paradise; that spendingmoney she has not earned is the only real fun an elderly and wealthylady can have; and if to this primitive shopping passion can be addedthe delights of social amenity--flattery, courtesy, good-humouredflirtation--the snare is complete. 

But all this is not accomplished without rousing the jealousy ofrivals. Among the other floorwalkers, and particularly in the gorgeouslyuniformed attendant at the front door (who was outraged by Gissing'shabit of escorting special customers to their motors) moved anger, envy, and sneers. Gissing, completely absorbed in the fascination of his work, was unaware of this hostility, as he was equally unaware of the amazedsatisfaction of his employer. He went his way with naive and unconsciouspleasure. It did not take long for his enemies to find a fulcrum fortheir chagrin. One evening, after closing, when he sat in the dressingroom, with his feet in the usual tub of hot water, placidly reviewingthe day's excitements and smoking his pipe, the superintendent burst in. 

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Don't you know smoking's forbidden? What do youwant to do, get our fire insurance cancelled? Get out of here! You'refired!"

It did not occur to Gissing to question or protest. He had knownperfectly well that smoking was not allowed. But he was like thestage hand behind the scenes who concluded it was all right to lighta cigarette because the sign only said SMOKING FORBIDDEN, instead ofSMOKING STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. He had not troubled his mind about it, oneway or about it, one way or another. 

He had drawn his salary that evening, and his first thought was, Well, at any rate I've earned enough to pay for the clothes. He had been thereexactly four weeks. Quite calmly, he lifted his feet out of the tub andbegan to towel them daintily. The meticulous way he dried between histoes was infuriating to the superintendent. 

"Have you any children?" Gissing asked, mildly. 

"What's that to you?" snapped the other. 

"I'll sell you this bathtub for a quarter. Take it home to them. Theyprobably need it. "

"You get out of here!" cried the angry official. 

"You'd be surprised, " said Gissing, "how children thrive when they'rebathed regularly. Believe me, I know. "

He packed his formal clothes in a neat bundle, left the bathtub behind, surrendered his locker key, and walked toward the employees' door, escorted by his bristling superior. As they passed through the emptyaisles, scene of his brief triumph, he could not help gazing a littlesadly. True merchant to the last, a thought struck him. He scribbled anote on the back of a sales slip and left it at Miss Whippet's post bythe stocking counter. It said:--

MISS WHIPPET: Show Mrs. Sealyham some of the bisque sports hose, Scotchwool, size 9. She's coming to-morrow. Don't let her get size 8 1/2. Theyshrink. 

 MR. GISSING. 

At the door he paused, relit his pipe leisurely, raised his hat to thesuperintendent, and strolled away. 

In spite of this nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money wasat a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support ofthe large household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to hiswealthy uncle. He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification ifshe learned that her star boarder was out of work. By a curious irony, when he got home he found a letter from Mrs. Spaniel:--

MR. GISHING, dere friend, the pupeys are well, no insecks, and eat withnives and forx Groups is the fattest but Yelpers is the lowdest theysend wags and lix and glad to here Daddy is doing so well in buisnesswith respects from

 MRS. SPANIEL. 

He did not let Mrs. Purp know of the change in his condition, and everymorning left his lodging at the usual time. By some curious attractionhe felt drawn to that downtown region where his kinsman's office was. This part of the city he had not properly explored. 

It was a world wholly different from Fifth Avenue. There was none ofthat sense of space and luxury he had known on the wide slopes of MurrayHill. He wandered under terrific buildings, in a breezy shadow wherejavelins of colourless sunlight pierced through thin slits, hotbrilliance fell in fans and cascades over the uneven terrace of roofs. Here was where husbands worked to keep Fifth Avenue going: he wonderedvaguely whether Mrs. Sealyham had bought those stockings? One day hesaw his uncle hurrying along Wall Street with an intent face. Gissingskipped into a doorway, fearing to be recognized. He knew that the oldfellow would insist on taking him to lunch at the Pedigree Club, wouldtalk endlessly, and ask family questions. But he was on the scent ofmatters that talk could not pursue. 

He perceived a sense of pressure, of prodigious poetry and beauty andamazement. This was a strange jungle of life. Tall coasts of windowsstood up into the pure brilliant sky: against their feet beat a darksurf of slums. In one foreign street, too deeply trenched for sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, cameclose: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passingcraft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipicestood a gilded statue--a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brillianceflamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of thatpouring light seemed about to hover him off into blue air. 

The world of working husbands was more tender than that of shoppingwives: even in all their business, they had left space and quietness forthe dead. Sunken among the crags he found two graveyards. They were cupsof placid brightness. Here, looking upward, it was like being drownedon the floor of an ocean of light. Husbands had built their officeshalf-way to the sky rather than disturb these. Perhaps they appreciaterest all the more, Gissing thought, because they get so little of it?Somehow he could not quite imagine a graveyard left at peace in theshopping district. It would be bad for trade, perhaps? Even the churcheson the Avenue, he had noticed, were huddled up and hemmed in so tightlyby the other buildings that they had scarcely room to kneel. If I everbecome a parson, he said (this was a fantastic dream of his), I willinsist that all churches must have a girdle of green about them, to setthem apart from the world. 

The two little brown churches among the cliffs had been gifted with adignity far beyond the dream of their builders. Their pointing spireswere relieved against the enormous facades of business. What otheraltars ever had such a reredos? Above the strepitant racket of thestreets, he heard the harsh chimes of Trinity at noonday--strong jags ofclangour hurled against the great sounding-boards of buildings; driftingand dying away down side alleys. There was no soft music of appeal inthe bronze volleying: it was the hoarse monitory voice of rebuke. Sospoke the church of old, he thought: not asking, not appealing, butimperatively, sternly, as one born to command. He thought with newrespect of Mr. Sealyham, Mr. Mastiff, Mr. Dachshund, all the otherswho were powers in these fantastic flumes of stone. They were more thanmerely husbands of charge accounts--they were poets. They sat at lunchon the tops of their amazing edifices, and looked off at the blue. 

Day after day went by, but with a serene fatalism Gissing did nothingabout hunting a job. He was willing to wait until the last dollar wasbroken: in the meantime he was content. You never know the soul of acity, he said, until you are down on your luck. Now, he felt, he hadbeen here long enough to understand her. She did not give her secrets tothe world of Fifth Avenue. Down here, where the deep crevice of Broadwayopened out into greenness, what was the first thing he saw? Out acrossthe harbour, turned toward open sea--Liberty! Liberty Enlightening theWorld, he had heard, was her full name. Some had mocked her, he had alsoheard. Well, what was the gist of her enlightenment? Why this, surely:that Liberty could never be more than a statue: never a reality. Only afool would expect complete liberty. He himself, with all his latitude, was not free. If he were, he would cook his meals in his room, and savemoney--but Mrs. Purp was strict on that point. She had spoken scathinglyof two young females she ejected for just that reason. Nor was Mrs. Purpfree--she was ridden by the Gas Company. So it went. 

It struck him, now he was down to about three dollars, that a generousgesture toward Fortune might be valuable. When you are nearly out ofmoney, he reasoned, to toss coins to the gods--i. E. , to buy somethingquite unnecessary--may be propitiatory. It may start something movingin your direction. It is the touch of bravado that God relishes. In asudden mood of tenderness, he bought two dollars' worth of toys and hadthem sent to the children. He smiled to think how they would frolic overthe jumping rabbit. He sent Mrs. Spaniel a postcard of the Aquarium. 

There is a good deal more to this business than I had realized, he said, as he walked uptown through the East Side slums that hot night. Theaudacity, the vitality, the magnificence, are plain enough. But I seemto see squalor too, horror and pitiful dearth. I believe God is fartheroff than I thought. Look here: if the more you know, the less you knowabout God, doesn't that mean that God is really enjoyed only by thecompletely simple--by faith, never by reason?

He gave twenty-five cents to a beggar, and said angrily: "I am notinterested in a God who is known only by faith. "

When he got uptown he was very tired and hungry. In spite of all Mrs. Purp's rules, he smuggled in an egg, a box of biscuits, a small packetof tea and sugar, and a tin of condensed milk. He emptied the milk intohis shaving mug, and used the tin to boil water in, holding it over thegas jet. He was getting on finely when a sudden knock on the door madehim jump. He spilled the hot water on his leg, and uttered a wild yell. 

Mrs. Purp burst in, but she was so excited that she did not notice theegg seeping into the clean counterpane. 

"Oh, Mr. Gissing, " she exclaimed, "I've been waiting all evening foryou to come in. Purp and I wondered if you'd seen this in the paperto-night? Purp noticed it in the ads. , but we couldn't understand whatit meant. "

She held out a page of classified advertising, in which he read withamazement:

PERSONAL

If MR. GISSING, late floorwalker at Beagle and Company, will communicatewith Mr. Beagle Senior, he will hear matters greatly to his advantage. 

CHAPTER NINE

There had been great excitement in the private offices of Beagleand Company after Gissing's sudden disappearance. Old Mr. Beagle wasfurious, and hotly scolded his son. In spite of his advanced age, Beaglesenior was still an autocrat and insisted on regulating the detailsof the great business he had built up. "You numbskull!" he shouted toBeagle junior, "that fellow was worth any dozen others in the place, andyou let him be fired by a mongrel superintendent. "

"But, Papa, " protested the vice-president, "the superintendent had toobey the rules. You know how strict the underwriters are about smoking. Of course he should have warned Gissing, instead of discharging him. "

"Rules!" interrupted old Beagle fiercely--"Rules don't apply in a caselike this. I tell you that fellow has a genius for storekeeping. Haven'tI watched him on the floor? I've never seen one like him. What's thegood of your newfangled methods, your card indexes and overhead charts, when you haven't even got a record of his address?"

Growling and showing his teeth, the head of the firm plodded stifflydownstairs and discharged the superintendent himself. Already he sawsigns of disorganization in the main aisle. Miss Whippet was tearful:customers were waiting impatiently to have exchange slips O. K. 'd: Mrs. Dachshund was turning over some jewelled lorgnettes, but it was plainthat she was only "looking, " and had no intention to purchase. 

So when, after many vain inquiries, the advertisement reached itstarget, the old gentleman welcomed Gissing with genuine emotion. Hereceived him into his private office, locked the door, and produced adecanter. Evidently beneath his irritable moods he had sensibilities ofhis own. 

"I have given my life to trade, " he said, "and I have grown weary ofwatching the half-hearted simpletons who imagine they can rise to thetop by thinking more about themselves than they do about the business. You, Mr. Gissing, have won my heart. You see storekeeping as I do--afine art, an absorbing passion, a beautiful, thrilling sport. It is anart as lovely and subtle as the theatre, with the same skill in wooingand charming the public. "

Gissing bowed, and drank Mr. Beagle's health, to cover his astonishment. The aged merchant fixed him with a glittering eye. 

"I can see that storekeeping is your genius in life. I can see that youare naturally consecrated to it. My son is a good steady fellow, but helacks the divine gift. I am getting old. We need new fire, new brains, in the conduct of this business. I ask you to forgive the unluckyblunder we made lately, and devote yourself to us. "

Gissing was very much embarrassed. He wanted to say that if he wasgoing to consecrate himself to floorwalking, he would relish a raisein salary; but old Beagle was so tremulous and kept blowing his nose soloudly that Gissing doubted if he could make himself heard. 

"I want you to take a position as General Manager, " said Mr. Beagle, "with a salary of ten thousand a year. "

He rose and threw open a mahogany door that led out of his own sanctum. "Here is your office, " he said. 

The bewildered Gissing looked about the room--the mahogany flat-toppeddesk with a great sheet of plate glass shining greenly at its thickedges; an inkwell, pens and pencils, a little glass bowl full of brightpaper-clips; one of those rocking blotters that are so tempting; a watercooler which just then uttered a seductive gulping bubble; an electricfan, gently humming; wooden trays for letters and memoranda; on onewall a great chart of names, lettered Organization of Personnel; a nicedomestic-looking hat-and-coat stand; a soft green rug--Ah, how alluringit all was!

Mr. Beagle pointed to the outer door of the room, which had a frostedpane. Through the glass the astounded floorwalker could read the words

REGANAM LARENEG GNISSIG. RM

What a delightful little room to meditate in. From the broad windows hecould see the whole shining tideway of Fifth Avenue, passing lazily inthe warm sunlight. He turned to Mr. Beagle, greatly moved. 

The next day an advertisement appeared in the leading papers, to thiseffect:--

 ________________________ BEAGLE AND COMPANY take pleasure in announcing to their patrons and friends that MR. GISSING has been admitted to the firm in the status of General Manager Je Maintiendrai __________________________

Mrs. Purp's excitement at this is easier imagined than described. Heronly fear was that now she would lose her best lodger. She made Purpgo out and buy a new shirt and a collar; she told Gissing, ratherpathetically, that she intended to have the whole house repapered in thefall. The big double suite downstairs, which could be used as bedroomand sitting-room, she suggested as a comfortable change. But Gissingpreferred to remain where he was. He had grown fond of the top floor. 

Certainly there was an exhilaration in his new importance andprosperity. The store buzzed with the news. At his request, Miss Whippetwas promoted to the seventh floor to be his secretary. It was delightfulto make his morning tour of inspection through the vast building. Mr. Hound, the store detective, loved to tell his cronies how suspiciouslyhe had followed "The Duke" that first day. As Gissing moved through thebusy departments he saw eyes following him, tails wagging. Customerswere more flattered than ever by his courteous attentions. One dayhe even held a little luncheon party in the restaurant, at which Mrs. Dachshund, Mrs. Mastiff, and Mrs. Sealyham were his guests. He invitedtheir husbands, but the latter were too busy to come. It would have beenmore prudent of them to attend. That afternoon Mrs. Dachshund, carriedaway by enthusiasm, bought a platinum wrist-watch. Mrs. Mastiff boughta diamond dog-collar. Mrs. Sealyham, whose husband was temporarilyembarrassed in Wall Street, contented herself with a Sheratonchifforobe. 

But it began to be evident that his delightful little office was notgoing to be a shrine for quiet meditation. His vanity had been pleasedby the large advertisement about him, but he suddenly realized thepoison that lies in printer's ink. Almost overnight, it seemed, he hadbeen added to ten thousand mailing lists. Little Miss Whippet, althoughshe was fast at typewriting, was hard put to it to keep up with hiscorrespondence. She quivered eagerly over her machine, her smallpaws flying. New pink ribbons gleamed through her translucent summerygeorgette blouse. They were her flag of exultation at her surprisingrise in life. She felt it was immensely important to get all theseletters answered promptly. 

And so did Gissing. In his new zeal, and in his innocent satisfactionat having entered the inner circle of Big Business, he insisted onanswering everything. He did not realize that dictating letters is thequaint diversion of business men, and that most of them mean nothing. Itis simply the easiest way of assuring yourself that you are busy. 

This job was no sinecure. Old Mr. Beagle had so much affectionateconfidence in Gissing that he referred almost everything to himfor decision. Mr. Beagle junior, perhaps a little annoyed at thefloorwalker's meteoric translation, spent the summer afternoons atgolf. The infinite details of a great business crowded upon him. Inexperienced, he had not learned the ways in which seasoned"executives" protect themselves against useless intrusion. His telephonebuzzed like a hornet. Not five minutes went by without callers orinterruptions of some sort. 

Most amazing of all, he found, was the miscellaneous passion forpalaver displayed by Big Business. Immediately he was invited to joininnumerable clubs, societies, merchants' associations. Every day wouldarrive letters, on heavily embossed paper--"The Sales Managers Club willhold a round-table discussion on Friday at one o'clock. We would greatlyappreciate it if you would be with us and say a few words. "--"Will yoube our guest at the monthly dinner of the Fifth Avenue Guild, and giveus any preachment that is on your mind?"--"The Merchandising UpliftGroup of Murray Hill will meet at the Commodore for an informallunch. It has been suggested that you contribute to the discussion onUnderwriting Overhead. "--"The Executives Association plans a clambakeand barbecue at the Barking Rock Country Club. Around the bonfire a fewimpromptu remarks on Business Cycles will be called for. May we count onyou?"--"Will you address the Convention of Knitted Bodygarment Buyers, on whatever topic is nearest your heart?"--"Will you write for Bunionand Callous, the trade organ of the Floorwalkers' Union, a thousand-wordreview of your career?"--"Will you broadcast a twenty-minute talk onDepartment Store Ethics, at the radio station in Newark? 250, 000 radiofans will be listening in. " New to the strange and high-spirited worldof "executives, " it was natural that Gissing did not realize that thenet importance of this kind of thing was absolute zero. It did strikehim as odd, perhaps, that merchants did not dare to go on a junket orplan a congenial dinner without pretending to themselves that it hadsome business significance. But, having been so amazingly lifted intothis atmosphere of great affairs, he felt it was his duty to the storeto play the game according to the established rules. He was bornealong on a roaring spate of conferences, telephone calls, appointments, Rotarian lunches, Chamber of Commerce dinners, picnics to talk tariff, house-parties to discuss demurrage, tennis tournaments to settle thesales-tax, golf foursomes to regulate price-maintenance. Of all thesematters he knew nothing whatever; and he also saw that as far as thebusiness of Beagle and Company was concerned it would be better notto waste his time on such side-issues. The way he could really be ofservice was in the store itself, tactfully lubricating that complicatedengine of goods and personalities. But he learned to utter, when calledupon, a few suave generalities, barbed with a rollicking story. Thismade him always welcome. He was of a studious disposition, and likedto examine this queer territory of life with an unprejudiced eye. Afterall, his inward secret purpose had nothing to do with the success orfailure of retail trade. He was still seeking a horizon that would stayblue when he reached it. 

More and more he was interested to perceive how transparent the mummeryof business was. He was interested to note how persistently men fledfrom success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principlesof utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitablyrewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselveswith twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs?He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inwardunease. Since they must (not being fools) be aware that these anticswere mere subtraction of time from their business, the obviousconclusion was, they were not happy with business. There was somestrange wistfulness in the conduct of Big Business Dogs, he thought. Under the pretence of transacting affairs, they were really trying todiscover something that had eluded them. 

The same thing, strangely enough, seemed to be going on in a sphere ofwhich he knew nothing, the world of art. He gathered from the papersthat writers, painters, musicians, were holding shindies almost everynight, at which delightful rebels, too busy to occupy themselves withactual creation, talked charmingly about their plans. Poets were readingpoems incessantly, forgetting to write any. Much of the newspapercomment on literature made him shudder, for though this was a provincequite strange to him, he had sound instincts. He discerned fatalignorance and absurdity between the pompous lines. Yet, in its own way, it seemed a bold and honest ignorance. Were these, too, like the wistfulexecutives, seeking where the blue begins?

But what was this strange agitation that forbade his fellow-creaturesfrom enjoying the one thing that makes achievement possible--Solitude?He himself, so happy to be left alone--was no one else like that? Andyet this very solitude that he craved and revelled in was, by a sublimeparadox, haunted by mysterious loneliness. He felt sometimes as thoughhis heart had been broken off from some great whole, to which it yearnedto be reunited. It felt like a bone that had been buried, which Godwould some day dig up. Sometimes, in his caninomorphic conceptionof deity, he felt near him the thunder of those mighty paws. In raremoments of silence he gazed from his office window upon the sun-gilded, tempting city. Her madness was upon him--her splendid craze of haste, ambition, pride. Yet he wondered. This God he needed, this liberatinghorizon, was it after all in the cleverest of hiding-places--in himself?Was it in his own undeluded heart?

Miss Whippet came scurrying in to say that the Display Manager beggedhim to attend a conference. The question of apportioning window spaceto the various departments was to be reconsidered. Also, the bookdepartment had protested having rental charged against them for booksexhibited merely to add a finishing touch to a furniture display. Otheragenda: the Personnel Director wished an appointment to discussthe ruling against salesbitches bobbing their hair. The CommissaryDepartment wished to present revised figures as to the economy thatwould be effected by putting the employees' cafeteria on the same flooras the store's restaurant. He must decide whether early closing onSaturdays would continue until Labor Day. 

As he went about these and a hundred other fascinating trivialities, hehad a painful sense of treachery to Mr. Beagle senior. The old gentlemanwas so touchingly certain that he had found in him the ideal shoulderson which to unload his honourable and crushing burden. With more thanpaternal pride old Beagle saw Gissing, evidently urbane and competent, cheerfully circulating here and there. The shy angel of doubt that laydeep in Gissing's cider-coloured eye, the proprietor did not come nearenough to observe. 

If there is tragedy in our story, alas here it is. Gissing, incorrigibleseceder from responsibilities that did not touch his soul, did not daretell his benefactor the horrid truth. But the worm was in his heart. Late one night, in his room at Mrs. Purp's, he wrote a letter to Mr. Poodle. After mailing it at a street-box, he had a sudden pang. To thedreamer, decisions are fearful. Then he shook himself and ran lightly toa little lunchroom on Amsterdam Avenue, where he enjoyed doughnuts andiced tea. His mind was resolved. The doughnuts, by a simple symbolism, made him think of Rotary Clubs, also of millstones. No, he must befugitive from honour, from wealth, from Chambers of Commerce. Fugitivefrom all save his own instinct. Those who have bound themselves are onlytoo eager to see the chains on others. There was no use attempting toexplain to Mr. Beagle--the dear old creature would not understand. 

The next day, after happily and busily discharging his duties, andstaying late to clean up his desk, Gissing left Beagle and Companyfor good. The only thing that worried him, as he looked round hiscomfortable office for the last time, was the thought of little MissWhippet's chagrin when she found her new promotion at an end. She hadtaken such delight in their mutual dignity. On the filing cabinet besideher typewriter desk was a pink geranium in a pot, which she wateredevery morning. He could not resist pulling out a drawer of her desk, andsmiled gently to see the careful neatness of its compartments, withall her odds and ends usefully arranged. The ink-eraser, with an absurdlittle whisk attached to it for brushing away fragments of rubbed paper;the fascicle of sharpened pencils held together by an elastic band; thetiny phial of typewriter oil; a small box of peppermints; a crumpledhandkerchief; the stenographic notebook with a pencil inserted at theblank page, so as to be ready for instant service the next day; the longpaper-cutter for slitting envelopes; her memorandum pad, on which waswritten Remind Mr. G. Of Window Display Luncheon--it seemed cruel todeprive her of all these innocent amusements in which she delighted somuch. And yet he could not go on as a General Manager simply for thehappiness of Miss Whippet. 

In the foliage of the geranium, where he knew she would find it thefirst thing in the morning, he left a note:--

MISS WHIPPET: I am leaving the store to-night and will not be back. Please notify Mr. Beagle. Explain to him that I shall never take aposition with one of his competitors; I am leaving not because I didn'tenjoy the job, but because if I stayed longer I might enjoy it too much. Tell Mr. Beagle that I specially urge him to retain you as assistantto the new Manager, whoever that may be. You are entirely competent toattend to the routine, and the new Manager can spend all his time atbusiness lunches. 

Please inform the Display Managers' Club that I can't speak at theirmeeting to-morrow. 

I wish you all possible good-fortune. 

 MR. GISSING. 

As he passed through the dim and silent aisles of the store, he surveyedthem again with mixed emotions. Here he might, apparently, have beenking. But he had no very poignant regret. Another of his numerousselves, he reflected, had committed suicide. That was the right idea:to keep sloughing them off, throwing overboard the unreal and factitiousGissings, paring them down until he discovered the genuine andinalienable creature. 

And so, for the second time, he made a stealthy exit from the employees'door. 

Four days later he read in the paper of old Mr. Beagle's death. Therecan be no doubt about it. The merchant died of a broken heart. 

CHAPTER TEN

Mr. Poodle's reply was disappointing. He said:--

St. Bernard's Rectory, September 1st. 

MY DEAR MR. GISSING:

I regret that I cannot conscientiously see my way to writing to theBishop in your behalf. Any testimonial I could compose would be doubtfulat best, for I cannot agree with you that the Church is your truevocation. I do not believe that one who has deserted his family, asyou have, and whose record (even on the most charitable interpretation)cannot be described as other than eccentric, would be useful in HolyOrders. You say that your life in the city has been a great purgation. If so, I suggest that you return and take up the burdens laid upon you. It has meant great mortification to me that one of my own parish hasbeen the cause of these painful rumours that have afflicted our quietcommunity. Notwithstanding, I wish you well, and hope that chasteningexperience may bring you peace. 

Very truly yours, J. ROVER POODLE. 

Gissing meditated this letter in the silence of along evening inhis room. He brought to the problem his favourite aid to clearthinking--strong coffee mixed with condensed milk. Mrs. Purp had madeconcession to his peculiarities when he had risen so high in the world:better to break any rules, she thought, than lose so notable a tenant. She had even installed a small gas-plate for him, so that he could brewhis morning and evening coffee. 

So he took counsel with his percolator, whose bubbling was a sound hefound both soothing and stimulating. He regarded it as a kind of privateoracle, with a calm voice of its own. He listened attentively ashe waited for the liquid to darken. Appeal--to--the--Bishop, Appeal--to-the--Bishop, seemed to be the speech of the jettinggurgitation under the glass lid. 

He determined to act upon this, and lay his case before Bishop Borzoieven without the introduction he had hoped for. Fortunately he still hadsome sheets of Beagle and Company notepaper, with the engraved letteringand Office of the General Manager embossed thereon. He was in some doubtas to the proper formality and style of address in communicating with aBishop: was it "Very Reverend, " or "Right Reverend"? and which of theseindicated a superior grade of reverendability? But he decided that amasculine frankness would not be amiss. He wrote:--

VERY RIGHT REVEREND BISHOP BORZOI, Dear Bishop:--

May one of the least of your admirers solicit an interview with yourvery right reverence, to discuss matters pertaining to religion, theology, and a possible vacancy in the Church? If there are any seesoutstanding, it would be a favour. This is very urgent. I enclose astamped addressed envelope. 

 Respectfully yours, MR. GISSING. 

A prompt reply from the Bishop's secretary granted him an appointment. 

Scrupulously attired in his tail-coat and silk hat, Gissing proceededtoward the rendezvous. To tell the truth, he was nervous: his mindflitted uneasily among possible embarrassments. Suppose Mr. Poodle hadwritten to the Bishop to prejudice his application? Another, but moreabsurd, idea troubled him. One of the problems in visiting the housesof the Great (he had learned in his brief career in Big Business) isto find the door-bell. It is usually mysteriously concealed. Suppose heshould have to peer hopelessly about the vestibule, in a shameful andsuspicious manner, until some flunky came out to chide? In the sunnypark below the Cathedral he saw nurses sitting by their puppy-carriages;for an instant he almost envied their gross tranquillity. THEY have notgot (he said to himself) to call on a Bishop!

He was early, so he strolled for a few minutes in the park that liesunderneath that rocky scarp. On the summit, clear-surging against theblue, the great church rode like a ship on a long ridge of sea. Theangel with a trumpet on the jut of the roof was like a valiant seaman inthe crow's nest. His agitation was calmed by this noble sight. Yes, hesaid, the Church is a ship behind whose bulwarks I will find rest. Shesails an unworldly sea: her crew are exempt from earthly ambition andfallacy. 

He ran nimbly up the long steps that scale the cliff, and approachedthe episcopal residence. The bell was plainly visible. He rang, andpresently came a tidy little housemaid. He had meditated a form ofwords. It would be absurd to say "Is the Bishop in?" for he knew theBishop WAS in. So he said "This is Mr. Gissing. I think the Bishop isexpecting me. "

Bishop Borzoi was an impressive figure--immensely tall and slender, with long, narrow ascetic face and curly white hair. He was surprisinglycordial. 

"Ah, Mr. Gissing?" he said. "Sit down, sir. I know Beagle and Companyvery well. Too well, in fact-Mrs. Borzoi has an account there. "

Gissing, feeling rather aghast and tentative, had no comment ready. Hewas still worrying a little as to the proper mode of address. 

"It is very pleasant to find you Influential Merchants interested in theChurch, " continued the Bishop. "I often thought of approaching the lateMr. Beagle on the subject of a small contribution to the cathedral. Indeed, I have spent so much in your store that it would be only a fairreturn. Mr. Collie, of Greyhound, Collie and Company, has been veryhandsome with us: he has just provided for repaving the choir. "

Gissing began to fear that the object of his visit had perhaps beenmisunderstood, but the prelate's eyes were bright with benignantenthusiasm and he dared not interrupt. 

"You inquired most kindly in your letter as to a possible vacancy in theChurch. Indeed there is a niche in the transept that I should be happyto see filled. It is intended for some kind of memorial statue, andperhaps, in honour of the late Mr. Beagle--"

"I must explain, Sir Bishop, " said Gissing, very much disturbed, "thatI have left Beagle and Company. The contribution I wish to make to theChurch is not a decorative one, I fear. It is myself. "

"Yourself?" queried the Bishop, politely puzzled. 

"Yes, " stammered Gissing, "I--in fact, I am hoping to--to enter theministry. "

The Bishop was plainly amazed, and his long, aristocratic nose seemedlonger than ever as he gazed keenly at his caller. 

"But have you had any formal training in theology?"

"None, right reverend Bishop, " said Gissing, "But it's this way, " and, incoherently at first, but with increasing energy and copious eloquence, he poured out the story of his mental struggles. 

"This is singularly interesting, " said the Bishop at length. "I cansee that you are wholly lacking in the rudiments of divinity. Of modernexegesis and criticism you are quite innocent. But you evidently havesomething which is much rarer--what the Quakers call a CONCERN. Ofcourse you should really go to the theological seminary and establishthis naif intuitive mysticism upon a disciplined basis. You will realizethat we churchmen can only meet modern rationalism by a rationalism ofour own--by a philosophical scholarship which is unshakable. I do notsuppose that you can even harmonize the Gospels?"

Gissing ruefully admitted his ignorance. 

"Well, at least I must make sure of a few fundamentals, " said theBishop. "Of course a symbological latitude is permissible, but there aresome essentials of dogma and creed that may not be foregone. "

He subjected the candidate to a rapid catechism. Gissing, in a state ofmind curiously mingled of excitement and awe, found himself assenting tomuch that, in a calmer moment, he would hardly have admitted; buthaving plunged so deep into the affair he felt it would be the height ofdiscourtesy to give negative answers to any of the Bishop's queries. By dint of hasty mental adjustments and symbolic interpretations, hesatisfied his conscience. 

"It is very irregular, " the Bishop admitted, "but I must confessthat your case interests me greatly. Of course I cannot admit youto ordination until you have passed through the regular theologicalcurriculum. Yet I find you singularly apt for one without propertraining. "

He brooded a while, fixing the candidate with a clear darkly burningeye. 

"It struck me that you were a trifle vague upon some of the Articles ofReligion, and the Table of Kindred and Affinity. You must remember thatthese articles are not to be subjected to your own sense or comment, butmust be taken in the literal and grammatical meaning. However, youshow outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. It sohappens that I know of a small chapel, in the country, that has beenclosed for lack of a minister. I can put you in charge there as layreader. "

Gissing's face showed his elation. 

"And wear a cassock?" he cried. 

"Certainly not, " said the Bishop sternly. "Not even a surplice. You mustremember you have not been ordained. If you are serious in your zeal, you must work your way up gradually, beginning at the bottom. "

"I have seen some of your cloth with a little purple dickey which looksvery well in the aperture of the waistcoat, " said Gissing humbly. "Howlong would it take me to work up to that?"

Bishop Borzoi, who had a sense of humour, laughed genially. 

"Look here, " he said. "It's a fine afternoon: I'll order my car andwe'll drive out to Dalmatian Heights. I'll show you your chapel, andtell you exactly what your duties will be. "

Gissing was startled. Dalmatian Heights was only a few miles from theCanine Estates. If the news should reach Mr. Poodle... 

"Sir Bishop, " he said nervously, "I begin to fear that perhaps after allI am unworthy. Now about those Articles of Religion: I may perhaps havegiven some of them a conjectural and commentating assent. Possibly Ihave presumed too far--"

The Bishop was already looking forward to a ride into the country withhis unusual novice. 

"Not at all, not at all, " he said cheerily. "In a mere lay reader, aslight laxity is allowable. You understand, of course, that you areexpressly restricted from the pulpit. You will have to read the lessons, conduct the service, and may address the congregation upon matters nothomiletic nor doctrinal; preaching and actual entry into the pulpit aredefended. But I see excellent possibility in you. Perform the dutiespunctually in this very lowly office, and high ranks of service in thechurch militant will be open. "

He put on a very fine shovel-hat, and led the way to his large touringcar. 

It was a very uncomfortable ride for Gissing. A silk hat is the leaststable apparel for swift motoring, and the chauffeur drove at highspeed. The Bishop, leaning back in the open tonneau, crossed onedelicately slender shank over another, gazed in a kind of ecstasy at thecountryside, and talked gaily about his days as a young curate. Gissingsat holding his hat on. He saw only too well that, by the humiliatingoddity of chance, they were going to take the road that led exactlypast his own house. He could only hope that Mrs. Spaniel and thevarious children would not be visible, for explanations would be toocomplicated. Desperately he praised the view to be obtained on anotherroad, but Bishop Borzoi was too interested in his own topic to pay muchattention. 

"By the way, " said the latter, as they drew near the familiar region, "Imust introduce you to Miss Airedale. She lives in the big place on thehill over there. Her family always used to attend what I will now callYOUR chapel; she is a very ardent churchgoer, and it was a sincere griefto her when the place had to be closed. You will find her a great aidand comfort; not only that, she is--what one does not always find in thedevouter members of her sex--young and beautiful. I think I understoodyou to say you are a bachelor?"

They were approaching the last turning at which it was still possible toavoid the fatal road, and Gissing's attention was divided. 

"Yes, after a fashion, " he replied. "Bishop, do you know that road downinto the valley? The view is really superb--Yes, that road--Oh, no, I ama bachelor--"

It was too late. The chauffeur, unconscious of this private crisis, wasspinning along the homeward way. With a tender emotion Gissing sawthe spires of the poplar trees, the hemlocks down beyond the pond, thefringe of woods that concealed the house until you were quite upon it--

The car swerved suddenly and the driver only saved it by a quick andcanny manoeuvre from going down the bank. He came to a stop, and almostfrom underneath the rear wheels appeared a scuffling dusty group ofyoungsters who had been playing in the road. There they were--Bunks, Groups, and Yelpers (inordinately grown!) and two of the Spaniels. Theirclothes were deplorable, their faces grimed, their legs covered withburrs, their whole demeanour was ragamuffin and wild: yet Gissing felta pang of pride to see his godchildren's keen, independent bearingcontrasted with the rowdier, disreputable look of the young Spaniels. Quickly he averted his head to escape recognition. But the urchins wereall gaping at the Bishop's shovel hat. 

"Hot dog!" cried Yelpers "Some hat!"

To his horror, Gissing now saw Mrs. Spaniel, hastening in alarmdown from the house, spilling potatoes from her apron as she ran. Hehurriedly urged the driver to proceed. 

"What terrible looking children, " observed the Bishop, who seemedfascinated by their stare. "Really, my good sister, " he said to Mrs. Spaniel, who was now panting by the running board; "you must keep themoff the road or someone will get hurt. "

Gissing was looking for an imaginary object on the floor of the car. Tohis great relief he heard the roar of the motor as they started again. But he sat up a little too soon. A simultaneous roar of "Daddy!" burstfrom the trio. 

"What was that they were shouting at us?" inquired the Bishop, lookingback. 

Gissing shook his head. He was too overcome to speak. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The little chapel at Dalmatian Heights sat upon a hill, among a groveof pines, the most romantic of all trees. Life, a powerful but clumsydramatist, does not reject the most claptrap "situations, " which asophisticated playwright would discard as too obvious. For this sandyplateau, strewn with satiny pine-needles, was the very horizon that hadlooked so blue and beckoning from the little house by the pond. Not faraway was the great Airedale estate, which Gissing had known only at anadmiring distance--and now he was living there as an honoured guest. 

The Bishop had taken him to call upon the Airedales; and they, delightedthat the chapel was to be re-opened, had insisted upon his staying withthem. The chapel, in fact, was a special interest with Mr. Airedale, whohad been a leading contributor toward its erection. Gissing was findingthat life seemed to be continually putting him into false positions;and now he discovered, somewhat to his chagrin, that the lovely littleshrine of St. Spitz, whose stained windows glowed like rubies in itscloister of dark trees, was rather a fashionable hobby among the wealthylandowners of Dalmatian Hills. It had been closed all summer, and theyhad missed it. The Bishop, in his airy and indefinite way, had not madeit quite plain that Gissing was only a lay reader; and in spite of hisembarrassed disclaimers, he found himself introduced by Mr. Airedale tothe country-house clique as the new "vicar. "

But at any rate it was lucky that the Airedales had insisted on takinghim in as a guest; for he had learned from the Bishop (just as thelatter was leaving) that there was no stipend attached to the office oflay reader. Fortunately he still had much of the money he had saved fromhis salary as General Manager. And whatever sense of anomaly he feltwas quickly assuaged by the extraordinary comfort and novelty of hisenvironment. In the great Airedale mansion he experienced for the firsttime that ultimate triumph of civilization--a cup of tea served in bedbefore breakfast, with slices of bread-and-butter of tenuous and amazingfragile thinness. He was pleased, too, with the deference paid him as arepresentative of the cloth, even though it compelled him to asolemnity he did not inwardly feel. But most of all, undoubtedly, he wascaptivated by the loveliness and warmth of Miss Airedale. 

The Bishop had not erred. Admiring the aristocratic Roman trend ofher brow and nose; the proud, inquisitive carriage of her somewhatrectangular head, her admirable, vigorous figure and clear topazeyes, Gissing was aware of something he had not experienced before--adisturbance both urgent and agreeable, in which the intellect seemed toplay little part. He was startled by the strength of her attractiveness, amazed to learn how pleasing it was to be in her company. She was veryyoung and brisk: wore clothes of a smart sporting cut, and was(he thought) quite divine in her riding breeches. But she was alsocompletely devoted to the chapel, where she played the music on Sundays. She was a volatile creature, full of mischievous surprise: at theirfirst music practice, after playing over some hymns on the pipe-organ, she burst into jazz, filling the quiet grove with the clamorous syncopeof Paddy-Paws, a favourite song that summer. 

So into the brilliant social life of the Airedales and their friendshe found himself suddenly pitchforked. In spite of the oddity of thesituation, and of occasional anxiety when he considered the possibilityof Mr. Poodle finding him out, he was very happy. This was not quitewhat he had expected, but he was always adaptable. Miss Airedale was anenchanting companion. In the privacy of his bedroom he measured himselffor a pair of riding breeches and wrote to his tailor in town to havethem made as soon as possible. He served the little chapel assiduously, though he felt it better to conceal from the Airedales the fact that hewent there every day. He suspected they would think him slightly mad ifthey knew, so he used to pretend that he had business in town. Then hewould slip away to the balsam-scented hilltop and be perfectly happysweeping the chapel floor, dusting the pews, polishing the brasswork, rearranging the hymnals in the racks. He arranged with the milkman toleave a bottle of milk and some cinnamon buns at the chapel gateevery morning, so he had a cheerful and stealthy little lunch inthe vestry-room, though always a trifle nervous lest some of hisparishioners should discover him. 

He practiced reading the lessons aloud at the brass lectern, anddiscovered how easy is dramatic elocution when you are alone. He wishedit were possible to hold a service daily. For the first time he was ableto sing hymns as loud as he liked. Miss Airedale played the organ withemphatic fervour, and the congregation, after a little hesitation, enjoyed the lusty sincerity of a hymn well trolled. Some of his flock, who had previously relished taking part in the general routine of theservice, were disappointed by his zeal, for Gissing insisted on doingeverything himself. He rang the bell, ushered the congregation to theirseats, read the service, recited the Quadrupeds' Creed, led thechoir, gave out as many announcements as he could devise, took up thecollection, and at the close skipped out through the vestry and wasready and beaming in the porch before the nimblest worshipper hadreached the door. On his first Sunday, indeed, he carried enthusiasmrather too far: in an innocent eagerness to prolong the service as muchas possible, and being too excited to realize quite what he was doing, he went through the complete list of supplications for all possibleoccasions. The congregation were startled to find themselves prayingsimultaneously both for rain and for fair weather. 

In a cupboard in the vestry-room he had found an old surplice hanging;he took it down, tried it on before the mirror, and wistfully put itback. To this symbolic vestment his mind returned as he sat solitaryunder the pine-trees, looking down upon the valley of home. It was theseason of goldenrod and aster on the hillsides: a hot swooning silencelay upon the late afternoon. The weight and closeness of the air hadstruck even the insects dumb. Under the pines, generally so murmurous, there was something almost gruesome in the blank stillness: a suspensionso absolute that the ears felt dull and sealed. He tried, involuntarily, to listen more clearly, to know if this uncanny hush were really so. There was a sense of being imprisoned, but only most delicately, in aspell, which some sudden cracking might disrupt. 

The surplice tempted him strongly, for it suggested the sermon he feltimpelled to deliver, against the Bishop's orders. For the beautifulchapel in the piny glade was, somehow, false: or, at any rate, false forhim. The architect had made it a dainty poem in stone and polished wood, but somehow God had evaded the neat little trap. Moreover, the Godhis well-bred congregation worshipped, the old traditionally imaginedsnow-white St. Bernard with radiant jowls of tenderness, shining dewlapsof love; paternal, omnipotent, calm--this deity, though sublime in itsway, was too plainly an extension of their own desires. His prominentparishioners--Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher, Mrs. Griffon, Mrs. Retriever;even the delightful Mr. Airedale himself--was it not likely that theyesteemed a deity everlastingly forgiving because they themselves feltneed of forgiveness? He had been deeply shocked by the docility withwhich they followed the codes of the service: even when he had committedhis blunder of the contradictory prayers, they had murmured the wordsautomatically, without protest. To the terrific solemnities of theLitany they had made the responses with prompt gabbling precision, andwith a rapidity that frankly implied impatience to take the strain offtheir knees. 

Somehow he felt that to account for a world of unutterable strangenessthey had invented a God far too cheaply simple. His mood was certainlynot one of ribald easy scoff. It was they (he assured himself) whosetheology was essentially cynical; not he. He was a little weary ofthis just, charitable, consoling, hebdomadal God; this God who might besufficiently honoured by a decorously memorized ritual. Yet was hetoo shallow? Was it not seemly that his fellows, bound on this dark, desperate venture of living, should console themselves with decentself-hypnosis?

No, he thought. No, it was not entirely seemly. If they pretended thattheir God was the highest thing knowable, then they must bring toHis worship the highest possible powers of the mind. He had a strangeyearning for a God less lazily conceived: a God perhaps inclement, awful, master of inscrutable principles. Yet was it desirable to shakehis congregation's belief in their traditional divinity? He thought ofthem--so amiable, amusing, spirited and generous, but utterly untrainedfor abstract imaginative thought on any subject whatever. His ownstrange surmisings about deity would only shock and horrify them Andafter all, was it not exactly their simplicity that made them lovable?The great laws of truth would work their own destinies withoutassistance from him! Even if these pleasant creatures did not genuinelybelieve the rites they so politely observed (he knew they did not, forBELIEF is an intellectual process of extraordinary range and depth), wasit not socially useful that they should pretend to do so?

And yet--with another painful swing of the mind--was it necessarythat Truth should be worshipped with the aid of such astonishinglytransparent formalisms, hoaxes, and mummeries? Alas, it seemed that thiswas an old, old struggle that must be troublesomely fought out, againand again down the generations. Prophets were twice stoned--first inanger; then, after their death, with a handsome slab in the graveyard. But words uttered in sincerity (he thought) never fail of some response. Though he saw his fellows leashed with a heavy chain of ignorance, stupidity, passion, and weakness, yet he divined in life someinscrutable principle of honour and justice; some unreckonable essenceof virtue too intimate to understand; some fumbling aspiration towarddecency, some brave generosity of spirit, some cheerful fidelity toBeauty. He could not see how, in a world so obviously vast and uncouthbeyond computation, they could find a puny, tidy, assumptive, scheduledworship so satisfying. But perhaps, since all Beauty was so staggering, it was better they should cherish it in small formal minims. Perhapsin this whole matter there was some lovely symbolism that he did notunderstand. 

The soft brightness was already lifting into upper air, a mingled tissueof shadows lay along the valley. In the magical clarity of the eveninglight he suddenly felt (as one often does, by unaccountable planetaryinstinct) that there was a new moon. Turning, he saw it, a silversnipping daintily afloat; and not far away, an early star. He had foundno creed in the prayer-book that accounted for the stars. Here atthe bottom of an ocean of sky, we look aloft and see themthick-speckled--mere barnacles, perhaps, on the keel of some greatership of space. He remembered how at home there had been a certainburning twinkle that peeped through the screen of the dogwood tree. As he moved on his porch, it seemed to flit to and fro, appearing andvanishing. He was often uncertain whether it was a firefly a few yardsaway, or a star the other side of Time. Possibly Truth was like that. 

There was a light swift rustle behind him, and Miss Airedale appeared. 

"Hullo!" she said. "I wondered where you were. Is this how you spendyour afternoons, all alone?"

Stars, creeds, cosmologies, promptly receded into remote perspectiveand had to shift for themselves. It was true that Gissing had somewhatavoided her lately, for he feared her fascination. He wished nothingelse to interfere with his search for what he had not yet found. Postpone the female problem to the last, was his theory: not becauseit was insoluble, but because the solution might prove to be lessinteresting than the problem itself. But side by side with her, she wasirresistible. A skittish brightness shone in her eyes. 

"Great news!" she exclaimed. "I've persuaded Papa to take us all down toAtlantic City for a couple of days. "

"Wonderful!" cried Gissing. "Do you know, I've never been to theseashore. "

"Don't worry, " she replied. "I won't let you see much of the ocean. We'll go to the Traymore, and spend the whole time dancing in theSubmarine Grill. "

"But I must be back in time for the service on Sunday, " he said. 

"We're going to leave first thing in the morning. We'll go in the car, and I'll drive. Will you sit with me in the front seat?"

"Watch me!" replied Gissing gallantly. 

"Come on then, or you'll be late for dinner. I'll race you home!" Andshe was off like a flash. 

But in spite of Miss Airedale's threat, at Atlantic City they both fellinto a kind of dreamy reverie. The wine-like tingle of that salty airwas a quiet drug. The apparently inexhaustible sunshine was sharpenedwith a faint sting of coming autumn. Gissing suddenly remembered that itwas ages since he had simply let his mind run slack and allowed life togo by unstudied. Mr. And Mrs. Airedale occupied a suite high up in theterraced mass of the huge hotel; they wrapped themselves in rugs andbasked on their private balcony. Gissing and the daughter were leftto their own amusements. They bathed in the warm September surf; theystrolled the Boardwalk up beyond the old Absecon light, where the greenglimmer of water runs in under the promenade. They sat on the deckof the hotel--or rather Miss Airedale sat, while Gissing, courteouslyattentive, leaned over her steamer-chair. He stood so for hours, apparently in devoted chat; but in fact he was half in dream. The smoothflow of the little rolling shays just below had a soothing hypnoticerect. But it was the glorious polished blue of the sea-horizon thatbounded all his thoughts. Even while Miss Airedale gazed archly up athim, and he was busy with cheerful conversation, he was conscious ofthat broad band of perfect colour, monotonous, comforting, thrilling. For the first time he realized the great rondure of the world. His mindwent back to the section of the prayer-book that had always touched himmost pointedly--the "Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea. " In them he hadfound a note of sincere terror and humility. And now he viewed the seafor the first time in this setting of notable irony. The open dazzle ofplacid elements, obedient only to some cosmic calculus, lay as a serenecurtain against which the quaint flamboyance of the Boardwalk was allthe more amusing. The clear rim of sea curving off into space drew himwith painful curiosity. Here at last was what he had needed. The proudwaters went over his soul. Here indeed the blue began. 

He looked down at Miss Airedale, who had gone to sleep while waiting forhim to say something. He tiptoed away and went to his room to write downsome ideas. Against the wide challenge of that blue hemisphere, wherehalf the world lay open and free to the eye, the Bishop's prohibitionlost weight. He was resolved to preach a sermon. 

At dusk he met Miss Airedale on the high balcony that runs around thereading-room of the hotel. They were quite alone up there. Along theBoardwalk, in the pale sentimental twilight, the translucent electricglobes shone like a long string of pearls. She was very tempting ina gay evening frock, and reproached him for having neglected her. Sheshivered a little in the cool wind coming off the darkening water. Theweakness of the hour was upon him. He put his arm tenderly round her asthey leaned over the parapet. 

"See those darling children down on the sand, " she said. "I do adorepuppies, don't you?"

He remembered Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers. Nothing is so potent as thelove of children when you are away from them. She gazed languishingat him; he responded with a generous pressure. But his alarmed soulthrilled with panic. 

"You must excuse me a moment, while I dress for dinner, " he said. He wasstrangely terrified by the look of secret understanding in her beautifuleyes. It seemed to imply some subtle, inexpressible pact. As a matter oftruth, she was unconscious of it: it was only the old demiurge speakingin her; the old demiurge which was pursuing him just as ardently as hewas trailing the dissolving blue of his dream. But he was much agitatedas he went down in the elevator. 

"Heavens, " he said to himself; "are we all only toys in the power ofthese terrific instincts?"

For the first time he was informed of the infinite feminine capacity forbeing wooed. 

That night they danced in the Submarine Grill. She floated in hisembrace with triumphant lightness. Her eyes, utilized as temporary lampsby a lighting-circuit of which she was quite unaware, beamed with happylustre. The lay reader, always docile to the necessities of occasion, murmured delightful trifles. But his private thoughts were as aloofand shining and evasive as the goldfish that twinkled in the glass pooloverhead. He picked up her scarf and her handkerchief when she droppedthem. He smiled vaguely when she suggested that she thought she couldpersuade Mr. Airedale to stay in Atlantic City over the week-end, andwhy worry about the service on Sunday? But when she and the yawning Mrs. Airedale had retired, he hastened to his chamber and packed his bag. Stealthily he went to the desk and explained that he was leavingunexpectedly on business, and that the bill should go to Mr. Airedale, whose guest he had been. He slipped away out of the side door, andcaught the late train. Mrs. Airedale chafed her daughter that night forwhining in her sleep. 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The chapel of St. Spitz was crowded that fine Sunday morning, and theclang and thud of its bells came merrily through the thin quick air toworshippers arriving in their luxurious motors. The amiable oddity ofthe lay reader's demeanour as priest had added a zest to churchgoing. The congregation were particularly pleased, on this occasion, to seeGissing appear in surplice and stole. They had felt that his attire onthe previous Sundays had been a little too informal. And when, at thetime usually allotted to the sermon, Gissing climbed the pulpit steps, unfurled a sheaf of manuscript, and gazed solemnly about, they settledback into the pew cushions in a comfortable, receptive mood. They had asubconscious feeling that if their souls were to be saved, it was betterto have it done with all the proper formalities. They did not noticethat he was rather pale, and that his nose twitched nervously. 

"My friends, " he said, "in this beautiful little chapel, on this airyhilltop, one might, if anywhere, speak with complete honesty. For youwho gather here for worship are, in the main, people of greataffairs; accustomed to looking at life with high spirit and with quickimagination. I will ask you then to be patient with me while I exhortyou to carry into your religion the same enterprising and ambitiousgusto that has made your worldly careers a success. You are accustomedto deal with great affairs. Let me talk to you about the Great Affairsof God. "

Gissing had been far too agitated to be able to recognize any particularmembers of his audience. All the faces were fused into a common blur. Miss Airedale, he knew, was in the organ loft, but he had not seenher since his flight from Atlantic City, for he had removed from theAiredale mansion before her return, and had made himself a bed in thecorner of the vestry-room. He feared she was angry: there had been avigorous growling note in some of the bass pipes of the organ as sheplayed the opening hymn. He had not seen a tall white-haired figure whocame into the chapel rather late, after the service had begun, and tooka seat at the back. Bishop Borzoi had seized the opportunity to driveout to Dalmatian Heights this morning to see how his protege was gettingon. When the Bishop saw his lay reader appear in surplice and scarlethood, he was startled. But when the amateur parson actually ascended thepulpit, the Bishop's face was a study. The hair on the back of his neckbristled slightly. 

"It is so easy, " Gissing continued, "to let life go by us in its swiftamusing course, that sometimes it hardly seems worth while to attemptany bold strokes for truth. Truth, of course, does not need ourassistance; it can afford to ignore our errors. But in this quiet place, among the whisper of the trees, I seem to have heard a disconcertingsound. I have heard laughter, and I think it is the laughter of God. "

The congregation stirred a little, with polite uneasiness. This was notquite the sort of thing to which they were accustomed. 

"Why should God laugh? I think it is because He sees that very often, when we pretend to be worshipping Him, we are really worshipping andgratifying ourselves. I used the phrase 'Great Affairs. ' The point Iwant to make is that God deals with far greater affairs than we haverealized. We have imagined Him on too petty a scale. If God is so great, we must approach Him in a spirit of greatness. He is not interested intrivialities--trivialities of ritual, of creed, of ceremony. We haveimagined a vain thing--a God of our own species; merely adding to theconception, to gild and consecrate, a futile fuzbuz of supernaturalism. My friends, the God I imagine is something more than a formula onSundays and an oath during the week. "

Those sitting in the rear of the Chapel were startled to hear a lowrumbling sound proceeding from the diaphragm of the Bishop, who halfrose from his seat and then, by a great effort of will, containedhimself. But Gissing, rapt in his honourable speculations, continuedwith growing happiness. 

"I ask you, though probably in vain, to lay aside for the moment yourinherited timidities and conventions. I ask you to lay aside pride, which is the devil itself and the cause of most unhappiness. I askyou to rise to the height of a great conception. To 'magnify' God isa common phrase in our observances. Then let us truly magnify Him--notminify, as the theologians do. If God is anything more than a socialfetich, then He must be so much more that He includes and explainseverything. It may sound inconceivable to you, it may soundsacrilegious, but I suggest to you that it is even possible God may be abiped--"

The Bishop could restrain himself no longer. He rose with flamingeyes and stood in the aisle. Mr. Airedale, Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher, andseveral other prominent members of the Church burst into threateninggrowls. A wild bark and clamour broke from Mr. Towser, the Sunday Schoolsuperintendent, and his pupils, who sat in the little gallery over thedoor. And then, to Gissing's horror and amazement, Mr. Poodle appearedfrom behind a pillar where he had been chafing unseen. In a fierce tenorvoice shaken with indignation he cried:

"Heretic and hypocrite! Pay no attention to his abominable nonsense! Hedeserted his family to lead a life of pleasure!"

"Seize him!" cried the Bishop in a voice of thunder. 

The church was now in an uproar. A shrill yapping sounded among thechoir. Mrs. Airedale swooned; the Bishop's progress up the aisle wasimpeded by a number of ladies hastening for an exit. Old Mr. Dingo, thesexton, seized the bell-rope in the porch and set up a furious pealing. Cries of rage mingled with hysterical howls from the ladies. Gissing, trembling with horror, surveyed the atrocious hubbub. But it washigh time to move, or his retreat would be cut off. He abandoned hismanuscript and bounded down the pulpit stairs. 

"Unfrock him!" yelled Mr. Poodle. 

"He's never been frocked!" roared the Bishop. 

"Impostor!" cried Mr. Airedale. 

"Excommunicate him!" screamed Mr. Towser. 

"Take him before the consistory!" shouted Mr. Poodle. 

Gissing started toward the vestry door, but was delayed by the mass ofscuffling choir-puppies who had seized this uncomprehended diversion asa chance to settle some scores of their own. The clamour was maddening. The Bishop leapt the chancel rail and was about to seize him when MissAiredale, loyal to the last, interposed. She flung herself upon theBishop. 

"Run, run!" she cried. "They'll kill you!"

Gissing profited by this assistance. He pushed over the lectern upon Mr. Poodle, who was clutching at his surplice. He checked Mr. Airedale byhurling little Tommy Bull, one of the choir, bodily at him. Tommy'steeth fastened automatically upon Mr. Airedale's ear. The surplice, which Mr. Poodle was still holding, parted with a rip, and Gissingwas free. With a yell of defiance he tore through the vestry and roundbehind the chapel. 

He could not help pausing a moment to scan the amazing scene, which hadbeen all Sabbath calm a few moments before. From the long line of motorcars parked outside the chapel incredible chauffeurs were leaping, hurrying to see what had happened. The shady grove shook with thehideous clamour of the bell, still wildly tolled by the frantic sexton. The sudden excitement had liberated private quarrels long decentlyrepressed: in the porch Mrs. Retriever and Mrs. Dobermann-Pinscher werelocked in combat. With a splintering crash one of the choir-pupscame sailing through a stained-glass window, evidently thrown by someinfuriated adult. He recognized the voice of Mr. Towser, raised invigorous lamentation. To judge by the sound, Mr. Towser's pupils hadturned upon him and were giving him a bad time. Above all he couldhear the clear war-cry of Miss Airedale and the embittered yells of Mr. Poodle. Then from the quaking edifice burst Bishop Borzoi, foamingwith wrath, his clothes much tattered, and followed by Mr. Poodle, Mr. Airedale, and several others. They cast about for a moment, and then theBishop saw him. With a joint halloo they launched toward him. 

There was no time to lose. He fled down the shady path between thetrees, but with a hopeless horror in his heart. He could not longoutdistance such a runner as the Bishop, whose tremendous strides wouldsurely overhaul him in the end. If only he had known how to drive a car, he might have commandeered one of the long row waiting by the gate. Buthe was no motorist. Miss Airedale could have saved him, in her racingroadster, but she had not emerged from the melee in the chapel. Perhapsthe Bishop had bitten her. His blood warmed with anger. 

It happened that they had been mending the county highways, and a largesteam roller stood a few hundred feet down the road, drawn up beside theditch. Gissing knew that it was customary to leave these engines withthe fire banked and a gentle pressure of steam simmering in the boiler. It was his only chance, and he seized it. But to his dismay, when hereached the machine, which lay just round a bend in the road, he foundit shrouded with a huge tarpaulin. However, this suggested a desperatechance. He whipped nimbly inside the covering and hid in the coal-box. Lying there, he heard the chase go panting by. 

As soon as he dared, he climbed out, stripped off the canvas, andgazed at the bulky engine. It was one of those very tall and impressiverollers with a canopy over the top. The machinery was not complicated, and the ingenuity of desperation spurred him on. Hurriedly he opened thedraughts in the fire-box, shook up the coals, and saw the needle beginto quiver on the pressure-gauge. He experimented with one or two leversand handles. The first one he touched let off a loud scream from thewhistle. Then he discovered the throttle. He opened it a few notches, cautiously. The ponderous machine, with a horrible clanking andgrinding, began to move forward. 

A steam roller may seem the least helpful of all vehicles in which toconduct an urgent flight; but Gissing's reasoning was sound. In thefirst place, no one would expect to find a hunted fugitive in thislumbering, sluggish behemoth of the road. Secondly, sitting perched highup in the driving saddle, right under the canopy, he was not easilyseen by the casual passer-by. And thirdly, if the pursuit came toclose grips, he was still in a strategic position. For this, the mostversatile of all land-machines except the military tank, can move acrossfields, crash through underbrush, and travel in a hundred placesthat would stall a motor car. He rumbled off down the road somewhatexhilarated. He found the scarlet stole twisted round his neck, and tiedit to one of the stanchions of the canopy as a flag of defiance. It wasnot long before he saw the posse of pursuit returning along the road, very hot and angry. He crunched along solemnly, busying himself to getup a strong head of steam. There they were, the Bishop, Mr. Poodle, Mr. Airedale, Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher, and Mr. Towser. Mr. Poodle was talkingexcitedly: the Bishop's tongue ran in and out over his gleaming teeth. He was not saying much, but his manner was full of deadly wrath. Theypaid no attention to the roller, and were about to pass it without evenlooking up, when Gissing, in a sudden fit of indignation, gave the wheela quick twirl and turned his clumsy engine upon them. They escapedonly by a hair's breadth from being flattened out like pastry. Then theBishop, looking up, recognized the renegade. With a cry of anger theyall leaped at the roller. 

But he was so high above them, they had no chance. He seized thecoal-scoop and whanged Mr. Poodle across the skull. The Bishop camedangerously near reaching him, but Gissing released a jet of scaldingsteam from an exhaust-cock, which gave the impetuous prelate much causefor grief. A lump of coal, accurately thrown, discouraged Mr. Airedale. Mr. Towser, attacking on the other side of the engine, managed toscramble up so high that he carried away the embroidered stole, butotherwise the fugitive had all the best of it. Mr. Dobermann-Pinscherburned his feet trying to climb up the side of the boiler. From thesummit of his uncouth vehicle Gissing looked down undismayed. 

"Miserable freethinker!" said Borzoi. "You shall be tried by theassembly of bishops. "

"In a mere lay reader, " quoted Gissing, "a slight laxity is allowable. You had better go back and calm down the congregation, or they'll tearthe chapel to bits. This kind of thing will have a very bad influence onchurch discipline. "

They shouted additional menace, but Gissing had already started hisdeafening machinery and could not hear what was said. He left thembickering by the roadside. 

For fear of further pursuit, he turned off the highway a little beyond, and rumbled noisily down a rustic lane between high banks and hedgeswhere sumac was turning red. Strangely enough, there was something verycomforting about his enormous crawling contraption. It was docile andreliable, like an elephant. The crashing clangour of its movement wassoon forgotten--became, in fact, an actual stimulus to thought. For themere pleasure of novelty, he steered through a copse, and took joy inseeing the monster thrash its way through thickets and brambles, andthen across a field of crackling stubble. Steering toward the lonelierregions of that farming country, presently he halted in a dingle ofbirches beside a small pond. He spent some time very happily, carefullystudying the machinery. He found some waste and an oilcan in thetool-chest, and polished until the metal shone. The water looked ratherlow in the gauge, and he replenished it from the pool. 

It was while grooming the roller that it struck him his own appearancewas unusual for a highway mechanic. He was still wearing the famousfloorwalker suit, which he had punctiliously donned every Sunday forchapel. But he had had to flee without a hat--even without his luggage, which was neatly packed in a bag in the vestry. That, he felt sure, Mr. Poodle had already burst open for evidences of heresy and schism. Thepearly trousers were stained with oil and coal-dust; the neat cutawaycoat bore smears of engine-grease. As long as he stuck to the rollerand the telltale garments, pursuit and identification would of course beeasy enough. But he had taken a fancy to the machine: he decided not toabandon it yet. 

Obviously it was better to keep to the roads, where the engine would atany rate be less surprisingly conspicuous, and where it would leave notrail. So he made a long circuit across meadows and pastures, carryinga devilish clamour into the quiet Sunday afternoon. Regaining a macadamsurface, he set oil at random, causing considerable annoyance tothe motoring public. Finding that his cutaway coat caused jeers andmerriment, he removed it; and when any one showed a disposition toinquire, he explained that he was doing penance for an ill-judged wager. His oscillating perch above the boiler was extraordinarily warm, and hebought a gallon jug of cider from a farmer by the way. Cheering himselfwith this, and reviewing in his mind the queer experiences of the pastmonths, he went thundering mildly on. 

At first he had feared a furious pursuit on the part of the Bishop, oreven a whole college of bishops, quickly mobilized for the event. Hehad imagined them speeding after him in a huge motor-bus, and himselfkeeping them at bay with lumps of coal. But gradually he realized thatthe Bishop would not further jeopardize his dignity, or run the risk ofmaking himself ridiculous. Mr. Poodle would undoubtedly set the townshiproad commissioner on his trail, and he would be liable to seizure forthe theft of a steam roller. But that could hardly happen so quickly. Inthe meantime, a plan had been forming in his mind, but it would requiredarkness for its execution. 

Darkness did not delay in coming. As he jolted cheerfully from roadto road, holding up long strings of motors at every corner while hejovially held out his arm as a sign that he was going to turn, darkpurple clouds were massing and piling up. Foreseeing a storm, he boughtsome provisions at a roadhouse, and turned into a field, where hecamped in the lee of a forest of birches. He cooked himself an excellentsupper, toasting bread and frankfurters in the firebox of the roller. With boiling water from a steam-cock he brewed a panikin of tea; and satplacidly admiring the fawn-pink light on wide pampas of bronze grasses, tawny as a panther's hide. A strong wind began to draw from thesoutheast. He lit the lantern at the rear of the machine and by the timethe rain came hissing upon the hot boiler, he was ready. Luckily he hadsaved the tarpaulin. He spread this on the ground underneath the roller, and curled up in it. The glow from the firebox kept him warm and dry. 

"Summer is over, " he said to himself, as he heard the clash and spoutingof rain all about him. He lay for some time, not sleepy, thinkingtheology, and enjoying the close tumult of wind and weather. 

People who have had an arm or a leg amputated, he reflected, say theycan still feel pains in the absent member. Well, there's an analogy inthat. Modern skepticism has amputated God from the heart; but there isstill a twinge where the arteries were sewn up. 

He slept peacefully until about two in the morning, except when ared-hot coal, slipping through the grate-bars, burned a lamentable holein his trousers. When he woke, the night still dripped, but was clearaloft. He started the engine and drove cautiously, along black slipperyroads, to Mr. Poodle's house. In spite of the unavoidable racket, no onestirred: he surmised that the curate slept soundly after the crisesof the day. He left the engine by the doorstep, pinning a note to thesteering-wheel. It said:

 TO REV. J. ROVER POODLE this useful steam-roller as a symbol of the theological mind

 MR. GISSING

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The steamship Pomerania, which had sailed at noon, was a few hours outof port on a calm gray sea. The passengers, after the bustle of lunchand arranging their staterooms; had settled into their deck chairs andwere telling each other how much they loved the ocean. Captain Scottiehad taken his afternoon constitutional on his private strip of starboarddeck just aft the bridge, and was sitting in his comfortable cabinexpecting a cup of tea. He was a fine old sea-dog: squat, grizzled, severe, with wiry eyebrows, a short coarse beard, and watchful quickeyes. A characteristic Scot, beneath his reticent conscientious dignitythere was abundant humour and affection. He would have been recognizedanywhere as a sailor: those short solid legs were perfectly adapted forbalancing on a rolling deck. He stood by habit as though he were leaninginto a stiff gale. His mouth always held a pipe, which he smoked inshort, brisk whiffs, as though expecting to be interrupted at any momentby an iceberg. 

The steward brought in the tea-tray, and Captain Scottie settled intohis large armchair to enjoy it. His eye glanced automatically at thebarometer. 

"A little wind to-night, " he said, his nose wrinkling unconsciously asthe cover was lifted from the dish of hot anchovy toast. 

"Yes, sir, " said the steward, but lingered, apparently anxious to speakfurther. 

"Well, Shepherd?"

"Beg pardon, sir, but the Chief Steward wanted me to say they've foundsomeone stowed away in the linen locker, sir. Queer kind of fellow, sir, talks a bit like a padre. 'E must've come aboard by the engine-roomgangway, sir, and climbed into that locker near the barber shop. "

The problem of stowaways is familiar enough to shipmasters. "Send him upto me, " said the Captain. 

A few minutes later Gissing appeared, escorted by a burly quartermaster. Even the experienced Captain admitted to himself that this was somethingnew in the category of stowaways. Never before had he seen one in abraided cutaway coat and wedding trousers. It was true that thegarments were in grievous condition, but they were worn with an air. The stowaway's face showed some embarrassment, but not at all the usualhangdog mien of such wastrels. Involuntarily his tongue moistened whenhe saw the tray of tea (for he had not eaten since his supper on thesteam roller the night before), but he kept his eyes politely avertedfrom the food. They rose to a white-painted girder that ran athwart thecabin ceiling. CERTIFIED TO ACCOMMODATE THE MASTER he read there, inletters deeply incised into the thick paint. "A good Christian ship, "he said to himself. "It sounds like the Y. M. C. A. " He was pleasedto think that his suspicion was already confirmed: ships were morereligious than anything on land. 

The Captain dismissed the quartermaster, and addressed himself sternlyto the culprit. 

"Well, what have you to say for yourself?"

"Please, Captain, " said Gissing politely, "do not allow your tea to getcold. I can talk while you eat. " Behind his grim demeanour the Captainwas very near to smiling at this naivete. No Briton is wholly implacableat tea-time, and he felt a genuine curiosity about this unusualoffender. 

"What was your idea in coming aboard?" he said. "Do you know that I canput you in irons until we get across, and then have you sent home forpunishment? I suppose it's the old story: you want to go sight-seeing onthe other side?"

"No, Captain, " said Gissing. "I have come to sea to study theology. "

In spite of himself the Captain was touched by this amazing statement. He was a Scot, as we have said. He poured a cup of tea to conceal hisastonishment. 

"Theology!" he exclaimed. "The theology of hard work is what you willfind most of aboard ship. Carry on and do your duty; keep a sharplookout, all gear shipshape, salute the bridge when going on watch, that is the whole duty of a good officer. That's plenty theology for aseaman. " But the skipper's eye turned brightly toward his bookshelves, where he had several volumes of sermons, mostly of a Calvinist sort. 

"I am not afraid of work, " said Gissing. "But I'm looking for horizons. In my work ashore I never could find any. "

"Your horizon is likely to be peeling potatoes in the galley, " remarkedthe Captain. "I understand they are short-handed there. Or sweeping outbunks in the steerage. Ethics of the dust! What would you say to that?"

"Sir, " replied Gissing, "I shall be grateful for any task, howevermenial, that permits me to meditate. I understand your point of view. Bycoming aboard your ship I have broken the law, I have committed acrime; but not a sin. Crime and sin, every theologian admits, are notcoextensive. "

The Captain sailed head-on into argument. 

"What?" he cried. "Are you aware of the doctrine of Moral Inability in aFallen State? Sit down, sit down, and have a cup of tea. We must discussthis. "

He rang for the steward and ordered an extra cup and a fresh supply oftoast. At that moment Gissing heard two quick strokes of a bell, rungsomewhere forward, a clear, musical, melancholy tone, echoed promptlyin other parts of the ship. "What is that, Captain?" he asked anxiously. "An accident?"

"Two bells in the first dog-watch, " said the Captain. "I fear you are asmuch a lubber at sea as you are in theology. "

The next two hours passed like a flash. Gissing found the skipper, inspite of his occasional moods of austerity, a delicious companion. Theydiscussed Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Christian Science, all of whichthe Captain, with sturdy but rather troubled vehemence, linked withPrimitive Magic. Gissing, seeing that his only hope of establishinghimself in the sailor's regard was to disagree and keep the argumentgoing, plunged into psycho-analysis and the philosophy of theunconscious. Rather unwarily he ventured to introduce a nauticalillustration into the talk. 

"Your compass needle, " he said, "points to the North Pole, and althoughit has never been to the Pole, and cannot even conceive of it, yet ittestifies irresistibly to the existence of such a place. "

"I trust you navigate your soul more skilfully than you would navigatethis vessel, " retorted the Captain. "In the first place, the needledoes not point to the North Pole at all, but to the magnetic pole. Furthermore, it has to be adjusted by magnets to counteract deviation. Mr. Gissing, you may be a sincere student of theology, but you have notallowed for your own temperamental deviation. Why, even the gyro compasshas to be adjusted for latitude error. You landsmen think that a ship issimply a floating hotel. I should like to have the Bishop you spoke ofstudy a little navigation. That would put into him a healthy respect forthe marvels of science. On board ship, sir, the binnacle is kept lockedand the key is on the watch-chain of the master. It should be so in allintellectual matters. Confide them to those capable of understanding. "

Gissing saw that the Captain greatly relished his sense of superiority, so he made a remark of intentional simplicity. 

"The binnacle?" he said. "I thought that was the little shellfish thatclings to the bottom of the boat?"

"Don't you dare call my ship a BOAT!" said the Captain. "At sea, a boatmeans only a lifeboat or some other small vagabond craft. Come out onthe bridge and I'll show you a thing or two. "

The evening had closed in hazy, and the Pomerania swung steadily in along plunging roll. At the weather wing of the bridge, gazing sharplyover the canvas dodger, was Mr. Pointer, the vigilant Chief Officer, peering off rigidly, as though mesmerized, but saying nothing. He gavethe Captain a courteous salute, but kept silence. At the large mahoganywheel, gently steadying it to the quarterly roll of the sea, stood Dane, a tall, solemn quartermaster. In spite of a little uneasiness, due tothe unfamiliar motion, Gissing was greatly elated by the wheelhouse, which seemed even more thrillingly romantic than any pulpit. Uncomprehendingly, but with admiration, he examined the binnacle, theengine-room telegraphs, the telephones, the rack of signal-flags, thebuttons for closing the bulkheads, and the rotating clear-view screenfor lookout in thick weather. Aloft he could see the masthead light, gently soaring in slow arcs. 

"I'll show you my particular pride, " said the Captain, evidently pleasedby his visitor's delighted enthusiasm. 

Gissing wondered what ingenious device of science this might be. 

Captain Scottie stepped to the weather gunwale of the bridge. He pointedto the smoke, which was rolling rapidly from the funnels. 

"You see, " he said, "there's quite a strong breeze blowing. But lookhere. "

He lit a match and held it unshielded above the canvas screen which waslashed along the front of the bridge. To Gissing's surprise it burnedsteadily, without blowing out. 

"I've invented a convex wind-shield which splits the air just forwardof the bridge. I can stand here and light my pipe in the stiffest gale, without any trouble. "

On the decks below Gissing heard a bugle blowing gaily, a bright, persuasive sound. 

"Six bells, " the Captain said. "I must dress for dinner. Before I startyou potato-peeling, I should like to clear up that little discussion ofours about Free Will. One or two things you said interested me. "

He paced the bridge for a minute, thinking hard. 

"I'll test your sincerity, " he said. "To-night you can bunk in thechart-room. I'll have some dinner sent up to you. I wish you would writeme an essay of, say, two thousand words on the subject of Necessity. "

For a moment Gissing pondered whether it would not be better to be putin irons and rationed with bread and water. The wind was freshening, andthe Pomerania's sharp bow slid heavily into broad hills of sea, crashingthem into crumbling rollers of suds which fell outward and hissedalong her steep sides. The silent Mr. Pointer escorted him intothe chart-room, a bare, businesslike place with a large table, amap-cabinet, and a settee. Here, presently, a steward appeared withexcellent viands, and a pen, ink, and notepaper. After a cautious meal, Gissing felt more comfortable. There is something about a wet, windyevening at sea that turns the mind naturally toward metaphysics. Hepushed away the dishes and began to write. 

Later in the evening the Captain reappeared. He looked pleased when hesaw a number of sheets already covered with script. 

"Rum lot of passengers this trip, " he said. "I don't seem to see any wholook interesting. All Big Business and that sort of thing. I must sayit's nice to have someone who can talk about books, and so on, once in awhile. "

Gissing realized that sometimes a shipmaster's life must be a lonelyone. The weight of responsibility is always upon him; etiquette preventshis becoming familiar with his officers; small wonder if he pinesoccasionally for a little congenial talk to relieve his mind. 

"Big Business, did you say?" Gissing remarked. "Ah, I could write youquite an essay about that. I used to be General Manager of Beagle andCompany. "

"Come into my cabin and have a liqueur, " said the skipper. "Let theessay go until to-morrow. "

The Captain turned on the electric stove in his cabin, for the nightwas cold. It was a snug sanctum: at the portholes were little chintzcurtains; over the bunk was a convenient reading lamp. On the wall abrass pendulum swung slowly, registering the roll of the ship. The ruddyshine of the stove lit up the orderly desk and the photographs of theCaptain's family. 

"Yours?" said Gissing, looking at a group of three puppies with drollScottish faces. "Aye, " said the Captain. 

"I've three of my own, " said Gissing, with a private pang ofhomesickness. The skipper's cosy quarters were the most truly domestiche had seen since the evening he first fled from responsibility. 

Captain Scottie was surprised. Certainly this eccentric stranger in thebadly damaged wedding garments had not given the impression of a familyhead. Just then the steward entered with a decanter of Benedictine andsmall glasses. 

"Brew days and bonny!" said the Captain, raising his crystal. 

"Secure amidst perils!" replied Gissing courteously. It was the phraseengraved upon the ship's notepaper, on which he had been writing, and ithad impressed itself on his mind. 

"You said you had been a General Manager. "

Gissing told, with some vivacity, of his experiences in the world oftrade. The Captain poured another small liqueur. 

"They're fine halesome liquor, " he said. 

"Sincerely yours, " said Gissing, nodding over the glass. He wasbeginning to feel quite at home in the navigating quarters of the ship, and hoped the potato-peeling might be postponed as long as possible. 

"How far had you got in your essay?" asked the Captain. 

"Not very far, I fear. I was beginning by laying down a fewpsychological fundamentals. "

"Excellent! Will you read it to me?"

Gissing went to get his manuscript, and read it aloud. The Captainlistened attentively, puffing clouds of smoke. 

"I am sorry this is such a short voyage, " he said when Gissing finished. "You have approached the matter from an entirely naif and instinctivestandpoint, and it will take some time to show you your errors. BeforeI demolish your arguments I should like to turn them over in my mind. Iwill reduce my ideas to writing and then read them to you. "

"I should like nothing better, " said Gissing. "And I can think over thesubject more carefully while I peel the potatoes. "

"Nonsense, " said the Captain. "I do not often get a chance to discusstheology. I will tell you my idea. You spoke of your experience asGeneral Manager, when you had charge of a thousand employees. One ofthe things we need on this ship is a staff-captain, to take overthe management of the personnel. That would permit me to concentrateentirely on navigation. In a vessel of this size it is wrong that themaster should have to carry the entire responsibility. "

He rang for the steward. 

"My compliments to Mr. Pointer, and tell him to come here. "

Mr. Pointer appeared shortly in oilskins, saluted, and gazed fixedly athis superior, with one foot raised upon the brass door-sill. 

"Mr. Pointer, " said Captain Scottie, "I have appointed Captain Gissingstaff-captain. Take orders from him as you would from me. He will havecomplete charge of the ship's discipline. "

"Aye, aye, sir, " said Mr. Pointer, stood a moment intently to see ifthere were further orders, saluted again, and withdrew. 

"Now you had better turn in, " said the skipper. "Of course you must wearuniform. I'll send the tailor up to you at once. He can remodel one ofmy suits overnight. The trousers will have to be lengthened. "

On the chart-room sofa, Gissing dozed and waked and dozed again. On thebridge near by he heard the steady tread of feet, the mysterious wordsof the officer on watch passing the course to his relief. Bells rangwith sharp double clang. Through the open port he could hear thealternate boom and hiss of the sea under the bows. With the stately liftand lean of the ship there mingled a faint driving vibration. 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The first morning in any new environment is always the most exciting. Gissing was already awake, and watching the novel sight of a patch ofsunshine sliding to and fro on the deck of the chart-room, when therewas a gentle tap at the door. The Captain's steward entered, carrying ahandsome uniform. 

"Six bells, sir, " he said. "Your bath is laid on. "

Gissing was not very sure just what time it was, but the stewardheld out a dressing gown for him to slip on, so he took the hint, andfollowed him to the Captain's private bathroom where he plunged gailyinto warm salt water. He was hardly dressed before breakfast waslaid for him in the chart-room. It was a breakfast greatly to hisliking--porridge, scrambled eggs, grilled kidneys and bacon, coffee, toast, and marmalade. Evidently the hardships of sea life had beengreatly exaggerated by fiction writers. 

He was a trifle bashful about appearing on the bridge in his blue andbrass formality, and waited a while thinking Captain Scottie might come. But no one disturbed him, so by and bye he went out. It was a briskmorning with a fresh breeze and plenty of whitecaps. Dancing rainbowshovered about the bow when an occasional explosion of spray burst upinto sunlight. Mr. Pointer was on the bridge, still gazing steadily intothe distance. He saluted Gissing, but said nothing. The quartermaster atthe wheel also saluted in silence. A seaman wiping down the paintworkon the deckhouse saluted. Gissing returned these gestures punctiliously, and began to pace the bridge from side to side. He soon grew accustomedto the varying slant of the deck, and felt that his footing showed anautical assurance. 

Now for the first time he enjoyed an untrammelled horizon on all sides. The sea, he observed, was not really blue--not at any rate the blue hehad supposed. Where it seethed flatly along the hull, laced with swirlsof milky foam, it was almost black. Farther away, it was green, ordarkly violet. A ladder led to the top of the charthouse, and from thiscommanding height the whole body of the ship lay below him. How aliveshe seemed, how full of personality! The strong funnels, the tall maststhat moved so delicately against the pale open sky, the distant sternthat now dipped low in a comfortable hollow, and now soared and threshedonward with a swimming thrust, the whole vital organism spoke to the eyeand the imagination. In the centre of this vast circle she moved, royaland serene. She was more beautiful than the element she rode on, forperhaps there was something meaningless in that pure vacant round ofsea and sky. Once its immense azure was grasped and noted, it broughtnothing to the mind. Reason was indignant to conceive it, slopingendlessly away. 

The placid, beautifully planned routine of shipboard passed on itsaccustomed course, and he began to suspect that his staff-captaincy wasa sinecure. Down below he could see the passengers briskly promenading, or drowsing under their rugs. On the hurricane deck, aft, a sailor waschalking a shuffleboard court. It occurred to him that all this mightbecome monotonous unless he found some actual part in it. Just thenCaptain Scottie appeared on the bridge, took a quick look round, andjoined him on top of the charthouse. 

"Good morning!" he said. "You won't think me rude if you don't see muchof me? Thinking about those ideas of yours, I have come upon some ratherpuzzling stuff. I must work the whole thing out more clearly. Yoursuggestion that Conscience points the way to an integration ofpersonality into a higher type of divinity, seems to me off the track;but I haven't quite downed it yet. I'm going to shut myself up to-dayand consider the matter. I leave you in charge. "

"I shall be perfectly happy, " said Gissing. "Please don't worry aboutme. "

"You suggest that all the conditions of life at sea, our mastery of theforces of Nature, and so on, seem to show that we have perfect freedomof will, and adapt everything to our desires. I believe just thecontrary. The forces of Nature compel us to approach them in their ownway, otherwise we are shipwrecked. It is in the conditions of Naturethat this ship should reach port in eight days, otherwise we should getnowhere. We do it because it is our destiny. "

"I am not so sure of that, " said Gissing. But the Captain had alreadydeparted with a clouded brow. 

On the chart-room roof Gissing had discovered an alluring instrument, the exact use of which he did not know. It seemed to be some kind ofsteering control. The dial was lettered, from left to right, as followsHARD A PORT, PORT, STEADY, COURSE, STEADY, STARBD, HARD A STARBD. Atpresent the handle stood upon the section marked COURSE. After a carefulstudy of the whole seascape, it seemed to Gissing that off to the souththe ocean looked more blue and more interesting. After some hesitationhe moved the handle to the PORT mark, and waited to see what wouldhappen. To his delight he saw the bow swing slowly round, and thePomerania's gleaming wake spread behind her in a whitened curve. Hedescended to the bridge, a little nervous as to what Mr. Pointer mightsay, but he found the Mate gazing across the water with the same fierceand unwearying attention. 

"I have changed the course, " he said. 

Mr. Pointer saluted, but said nothing. 

Having succeeded so far, Gissing ventured upon another innovation. He had been greatly tempted by the wheel, and envied the stolidquartermaster who was steering. So, assuming an air of calm certainty, he entered the wheelhouse. 

"I'll take her for a while, " he said. 

"Aye, aye, sir, " said the quartermaster, and surrendered the wheel tohim. 

"You might string out a few flags, " Gissing said. He had been noticingthe bright signal buntings in the rack, and thought it a pity not to usethem. 

"I like to see a ship well dressed, " he added. 

"Aye, aye, sir, " said Dane. "Any choice, sir?"

Gissing picked out a string of flags which were particularly lively incolour-scheme, and had them hoisted. Then he gave his attention to thewheel. He found it quite an art, and was surprised to learn that a bigship requires so much helm. But it was very pleasant. He took care tosteer toward patches of sea that looked interesting, and to cut into anyparticular waves that took his fancy. After an hour or so, he sighted afishing schooner, and gave chase. He found it so much fun to run closebeside her (taking care to pass to leeward, so as not to cut off herwind) that a mile farther on he turned and steered a neat circleabout the bewildered craft. The Pomerania's passengers were greatlyinterested, and lined the rails trying to make out what the fishermenwere shouting. The captain of the schooner seemed particularly agitated, kept waving at the signal flags and barking through a megaphone. Duringthese manoeuvres Mr. Pointer gazed so hard at the horizon that Gissingfelt a bit embarrassed. 

"I thought it wise to find out exactly what our turning-circle is, " hesaid. 

Mr. Pointer saluted. He was a well-trained officer. 

Late in the afternoon the Captain reappeared, looking more cheerful. Gissing was still at the helm, which he found so fascinating he wouldnot relinquish it. He had ordered his tea served on a little standbeside the wheel so that he could drink it while he steered. "Hullo!"said the Captain. "I see you've changed the course. "

"It seemed best to do so, " said Gissing firmly. He felt that to show anyweakness at this point would be fatal. 

"Oh, well, probably it doesn't matter. I'm coming round to some of yourideas. "

Gissing saw that this would never do. Unless he could keep the masterdisturbed by philosophic doubts, Scottie would expect to resume commandof the ship. 

"Well, " he said, "I've been thinking about it, too. I believe I wenta bit too far. But what do you think about this? Do you believe thatConscience is inherited or acquired? You sea how important that is. IfConscience is a kind of automatic oracle, infallible and perfect, whatbecomes of free will? And if, on the other hand, Conscience is only alaboriously trained perception of moral and social utilities, where doesyour deity come in?"

Gissing was aware that this dilemma would not hold water very long, andwas painfully impromptu; but it hit the Captain amidships. 

"By Jove, " he said, "that's terrible, isn't it? It's no use trying tocarry on until I've got that under the hatch. Look here, would youmind, just as a favour, keep things going while I wrestle with thatquestion?--I know it's asking a lot, but perhaps--"

"It's quite all right, " Gissing replied. "Naturally you want to workthese things out. "

The Captain started to leave the bridge, but by old seafaring habit hecast a keen glance at the sky. He saw the bright string of code flagsfluttering. He seemed startled. 

"Are you signalling any one?" he asked. 

"No one in particular. I thought it looked better to have a few flagsabout. "

"I daresay you're right. But better take them down if you speak a ship. They're rather confusing. "

"Confusing? I thought they were just to brighten things up. "

"You have two different signals up. They read, Bubonic plague, give me awide berth. Am coming to your assistance. "

Toward dinner time, when Gissing had left the wheel and was humming atune as he walked the bridge, the steward came to him. 

"The Captain's compliments, sir, and would you take his place in thesaloon to-night? He says he's very busy writing, sir, and would take itas a favour. "

Gissing was always obliging. There was just a hint of conscioussternness in his manner as he entered the Pomerania's beautiful diningsaloon, for he wished the passengers to realize that their livesdepended upon his prudence and sea-lore. Twice during the meal heinstructed the steward to bring him the latest barometer reading; andafter the dessert he scribbled a note on the back of a menu-card and hadit sent to the Chief Engineer. It said:--

Dear Chief: Please keep up a good head of steam to-night. I am expectingdirty weather. 

MR. GISSING, (Staff-Captain)

What the Chief said when he received the message is not included in thestory. 

But the same social aplomb that had made Gissing successful as afloorwalker now came to his rescue as mariner. The passengers at theCaptain's table were amazed at his genial charm. His anecdotes of sealife were heartily applauded. After dinner he circulated gracefully inthe ladies' lounge, and took coffee there surrounded by a chatteringbevy. He organized a little impromptu concert in the music room, andwhen that was well started, slipped away to the smoke-room. Here hefound a pool being organized as to the exact day and hour when thePomerania would reach port. Appealed to for his opinion, he advisedcaution. On all sides he was in demand, for dancing, for bridge, fora recitation. At length he slipped away, pleading that he must keephimself fit in case of fog. The passengers were loud in his praise, asserting that they had never met so agreeable a sea-captain. Oneelderly lady said she remembered crossing with him in the old Caninia, years ago, and that he was just the same then. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

And so the voyage went on. Gissing was quite content to do a two-hourtrick at the wheel both morning and afternoon, and worked out some newprinciples of steering which gave him pleasure. In the first place, henoticed that the shuffle-board and quoit players, on the boat deck aft, were occasionally annoyed by cinders from the stacks, so he made ita general plan to steer so that the smoke blew at right angles to theship's course. As the wind was prevailingly west, this meant that hisgeneral trend was southerly. Whenever he saw another vessel, a mass offloating sea-weed, a porpoise, or even a sea-gull, he steered directlyfor it, and passed as close as possible, to have a good look at it. EvenMr. Pointer admitted (in the mates' mess) that he had never experiencedso eventful a voyage. To keep the quartermasters from being idle, Gissing had them knit him a rope hammock to be slung in the chart-room. He felt that this would be more nautical than a plush settee. 

There was a marvellous sense of power in standing at the wheel andfeeling the great hull reply to his touch. Occasionally Captain Scottiewould emerge from his cabin, look round with a faint surprise, andcome to the bridge to see what was happening. Mr. Pointer would salutemutely, and continue to study the skyline with indignant absorption. The Captain would approach the wheel, where Gissing was deep in thought. Rubbing his hands, the Captain would say heartily, "Well, I think I'vegot it all clear now. "

Gissing sighed. 

"What is it?" the Captain inquired anxiously. 

"I'm bothered about the subconscious. They tell us nowadays thatit's the subconscious mind that is really important. The more mentaloperations we can turn over to the subconscious realm, the happier wewill be, and the more efficient. Morality, theology, and everythingreally worth while, as I understand it, spring from the subconscious. "

The Captain's look of cheer would vanish. 

"Maybe there's something in that. "

"If so, " Gissing continued, "then perhaps consciousness is entirelyspurious. It seems to me that before we can get anywhere at all, we'vegot to draw the line between the conscious and the subconscious. What bothers me is, am I conscious of having a subconscious, or not?Sometimes I think I am, and then again I'm doubtful. But if I'm awareof my subconscious, then it isn't a genuine subconscious, and the wholething's just another delusion--"

The Captain would knit his weather-beaten brow and again retireanxiously to his quarters, after begging Gissing to be generous andcarry on a while longer. Occasionally, pacing the starboard bridge-deck, sacred to captains, Gissing would glance through the port and see themetaphysical commander bent over sheets of foolscap and thickly wreathedin pipe-smoke. 

He himself had fallen into a kind of tranced felicity, in which thesequestions no longer had other than an ingenious interest. His heart wasdrowned in the engulfing blue. As they made their southing, windand weather seemed to fall astern, the sun poured with a more goldencandour. He stood at the wheel in a tranquil reverie, blithely steeringtoward some bright belly of cloud that had caught his fancy. Mr. Pointershook his head when he glanced surreptitiously at the steering recorder, a device that noted graphically every movement of the rudder with a viewto promoting economical helmsmanship. Indeed Gissing's course, as loggedon the chart, surprised even himself, so that he forbade the officerstaking their noon observations. When Mr. Pointer said something aboutisobars, the staff-captain replied serenely that he did not expect tofind any polar bears in these latitudes. 

He had hoped privately for an occasional pirate, and scanned the sea-rimsharply for suspicious topsails. But the ocean, as he remarked, isnot crowded. They proceeded, day after day, in a solitary wideness ofunblemished colour. The ship, travelling always in the centre of thisinfinite disk, seemed strangely identified with his own itinerantspirit, watchful at the gist of things, alert at the point which wasnecessarily, for him, the nub of all existence. He wandered about thePomerania's sagely ordered passages and found her more and more magical. She went on and on, with some strange urgent vitality of her own. Through the fiddleys on the boat deck came a hot oily breath and thesteady drumming of her burning heart. From outer to hawse-hole, fromshaft-tunnel to crow's-nest, he explored and loved her. In the whole ofher proud, faithful, obedient fabric he divined honour and exultation. Poised upon uncertainty, she was sure. The camber of her white-scrubbeddecks, the long, clean sheer of her hull, the concave flare of herbows--what was the amazing joy and rightness of these things? And yetthe grotesque passengers regarded her only as a vehicle, to carry themsedatively to some clamouring dock. Fools! She was more lovely thananything they would ever see again! He yearned to drive her endlesslytoward that unreachable perimeter of sky. 

On land there had been definite horizons, even if disappointing whenreached and examined; but here there was no horizon at all. Every hourit slid and slid over the dark orb of sea. He lost count of time. Thetremulous cradling of the Pomerania, steadily climbing the long leagues;her noble forecastle solemnly lifting against heaven, then descendingwith grave beauty into a spread of foaming beryl and snowdrift, seemedone with the rhythm of his pulse and heart. Perhaps there had been morethan mere ingenuity in his last riddle for the theological skipper. Truly the subconscious had usurped him. Here he was almost happy, for hewas almost unaware of life. It was all blue vacancy and suspension. Thesea is the great answer and consoler, for it means either nothing oreverything, and so need not tease the brain. 

But the passengers, though unobservant, began to murmur; especiallythose who had wagered that the Pomerania would dock on the eighth day. The world itself, they complained, was created in seven days, and whyshould so fine a ship take longer to cross a comparatively small ocean?Urbanely, over coffee and petite fours, Gissing argued with them. Theywere well on their way, he protested; and then, as a hypothetical case, he asked why one destination was more worth visiting than another? Heeven quoted Shakespeare on this point--something about "ports and happyhavens"--and succeeded in turning the tide of conversation for a while. The mention of Shakespeare suggested to some of the ladies that itwould be pleasant, now they all knew each other so well, to put on someamateur theatricals. They compromised by playing charades in the saloon. Another evening Gissing kept them amused by fireworks, which were verylovely against the dark sky. For this purpose he used the emergencyrockets, star-shells and coloured flares, much to the distress of Dane, the quartermaster, who had charge of these supplies. 

Little by little, however, the querulous protests of the passengersbegan to weary him. Also, he had been receiving terse memoranda fromthe Chief Engineer that the coal was getting low in the bunkers and thatsomething must be queer in the navigating department. This seemed veryunreasonable. The fixed gaze of Mr. Pointer, perpetually examining thehorizon as though he wanted to make sure he would recognize it if theymet again, was trying. Even Captain Scottie complained one day thatthe supply of fresh meat had given out and that the steward had beenbringing him tinned beef. Gissing determined upon resolute measures. 

He had notice served that on account of possible danger from piratesthere would be a general boat drill on the following day--not merely forthe crew, but for everyone. He gave a little talk about it in the saloonafter dinner, and worked his audience up to quite a pitch of enthusiasm. This would be better than any amateur theatricals, he insisted. Everyonewas to act exactly as though in a sudden calamity. They might makeup the boat-parties on the basis of congeniality if they wished; fiveminutes would be given for reaching the stations, without panic ordisorder. They should prepare themselves as though they were actuallygoing to leave a sinking ship. 

The passengers were delighted with the idea of this novel entertainment. Every soul on board--with the exception of Captain Scottie, who hadlocked himself in and refused to be disturbed--was properly advertisedof the event. 

The following day, fortunately, was clear and calm. At noon Gissingblew the syren, fired a rocket from the bridge, and swung the enginetelegraph to STOP. The ship's orchestra, by his orders, struck up arollicking air. Quickly and without confusion, amid cries of Women andchildren first! the passengers filed to their allotted places. The crewand officers were all at their stations. 

Gissing knocked at Captain Scottie's cabin. 

"We are taking to the boats, " he said. 

"Goad!" cried the skipper. "Wull it be a colleesion?"

"All's clear and the davits are outboard, " said Gissing. He had beenstudying the manual of boat handling in one of the nautical volumes inthe chart-room. 

"Auld Hornie!" ejaculated the skipper. "We'll no can salve the specie!Make note of her poseetion, Mr. Gissing!" He hastened to gather hispapers, the log, a chronometer, and a large canister of tobacco. 

"The Deil's intil't, " he said as he hastened to his boat. "I had yonpragmateesm of yours on a lee shore. Two-three hours, I'd have careenedye. "

Gissing was ready with his megaphone. From the wing of the bridge hegave the orders. 

"Lower away!" and the boats dropped to the passenger rail. 

"Avast lowering!" Each boat took in her roster of passengers, who werein high spirits at this unusual excitement. 

"Mind your painters! Lower handsomely!"

The boats took the water in orderly fashion, and were cast off. Remaining members of the crew swarmed down the falls. The bandsmen had aboat to themselves, and resumed their tune as soon as they were settled. 

Gissing, left alone on the ship, waved for silence. 

"Look sharp, man!" cried Captain Scottie. "Honour's satisfied! Take yourplace in the boat!"

The passengers applauded, and there was quite a clatter of camerashutters as they snapped the Pomerania looming grandly above them. 

"Boats are all provisioned and equipped, " shouted Gissing. "I'vebroadcasted your position by radio. The barometer's at Fixed Fair. Pulloff now, and 'ware the screw. "

He moved the telegraph handle to DEAD SLOW, and the Pomerania began toslip forward gently. The boats dropped aft amid a loud miscellaneousoutcry. Mr. Pointer was already examining the horizon. Captain Scottie, awakened to the situation, was uttering the language of theology but notthe purport. 

"Don't stand up in the boats, " megaphoned Gissing. "You're quite allright, there's a ship on the way already. I wirelessed last night. "

He slid the telegraph to slow, half, and then full. Once more the shipcreamed through the lifting purple swells. The little flock of boats wassoon out of sight. 

Alone at the wheel, he realized that a great weight was off his mind. The responsibility of his position had burdened him more than he knew. Now a strange eagerness and joy possessed him. His bubbling wake cutstraight and milky across the glittering afternoon. In a ruddy sunsetglow, the sea darkened through all tints of violet, amethyst, indigo. The horizon line sharpened so clearly that he could distinguish thetossing profile of waves wetting the sky. "A red sky at night is thesailor's delight, " he said to himself. He switched on the port andstarboard lights and the masthead lanterns, then lashed the wheel whilehe went below for supper. He did not know exactly where he was, for heseemed to have steamed clean off the chart; but as he conned the helmthat evening, and leaned over the lighted binnacle, he had a feelingthat he was not far from some destiny. With cheerful assurance he lashedthe wheel again, and turned in. He woke once in the night, and leapedfrom the hammock with a start. He thought he had heard a sound ofbarking. 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next morning he sighted land. Coming out on the bridge, the wholeface of things was changed. The sea-colour had lightened to a tawnygreen; gulls dipped and hovered; away on the horizon lay a soft bluecontour. "Land Ho!" he shouted superbly, and wondered what new countryhe had discovered. He ran up a hoist of red and yellow signal flags, andsteered gaily toward the shore. 

It had grown suddenly cold: he had to fetch Captain Scottie's pea-jacketto wear at the wheel. On the long spilling crests, that crumbled andspread running layers of froth in their hurry shoreward, the Pomeraniarode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadilyswinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to thehawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of afrilled ruffle of foam. 

Gissing, too, was eager. A tingling buoyancy and impatience took holdof him: he fidgeted with sheer eagerness for life. Land, the belovedstability of our dear and only earth, drew and charmed him. Behind wasthe senseless, heartbreaking sea. Now he could discern hills rising ina gilded opaline light. In the volatile thin air was a quick sense ofstrangeness. A new world was close about him: a world that he could see, and feel, and inhale, and yet knew nothing of. 

Suddenly a great humility possessed him. He had been froward and sillyand vain. He had shouted arrogantly at Beauty, like a noisy tourist ina canyon; and the only answer, after long waiting, had been the paltrydiminished echo of his own voice. He thought shamefully of his follies. What matter how you name God or in what words you praise Him? In thisnew foreign land he would quietly accept things as he found them. Thelaughter of God was too strange to understand. 

No, there was no answer. He was doubly damned, for he had made truth amere sport of intellectual riddling. The mind, like a spinning flywheelof fatigued steel, was gradually racked to bursting by the conflictof stresses. And yet: every equilibrium was an opposure of forces. Rotation, if swift enough, creates amazing stability: he had seen howthe gyroscope can balance at apparently impossible angles. Perhaps itwas so of the mind. If it twirls at high speed it can lean right outover the abyss without collapse. But the stationary mind--he thoughtof Bishop Borzoi--must keep away from the edge. Try to force it tothe edge, it raves in panic. Every mind, very likely, knows its ownfrailties, and does well to safeguard them. At any rate, that was themost generous interpretation. Most minds, undoubtedly, were uneasy inhigh places. They doubted their ability to refrain from jumping off. How many bones of fine intellects lay whitening at the foot of thetheological cliff--It seemed to be a lonely coast, and wintry. Patches of snow lay upon the hills, the woods were bare and brown. Abottle-necked harbour opened out before him. He reduced the engines toDead Slow and glided gaily through the strait. He had been anxious lesthis navigation might not be equal to the occasion: he did not want todisgrace himself at this final test. But all seemed to arrange itselfwith enchanted ease. A steep ledge of ground offered a natural pier, with tree-stumps for bollards. He let her come gently beyond the spot;reversed the propellers just at the right time, and backed neatlyalongside. He moved the telegraph handle to FINISHED WITH ENGINES; ranout the gangplank smartly, and stepped ashore. He moored the vessel foreand aft, and hung out fenders to prevent chafing. 

The first thing to do, he said to himself, is to get the lie of theland, and find out whether it is inhabited. 

A hillside rising above the water promised a clear view. The stubblegrass was dry and frosty, after the warm days at sea the chill wasnipping; but what an elixir of air! If this is a desert island, hethought, it will be a glorious discovery. His heart was jocund withanticipation. A curious foreign look in the landscape, he thought; quiteunlike anything--Suddenly, where the hill arched against pearly sky, hesaw narrow thread of smoke rising. He halted in alarm. Who might thisbe, friend or foe? But eager agitation pushed him on. Burning to know, he hurried up to the brow of the hill. 

The smoke mounted from a small bonfire of sticks in a sheltered thicket, where a miraculous being--who was, as a matter of fact, a rather raggedand dingy vagabond--was cooking a tin of stew over the blaze. 

Gissing stood, quivering with emotion. Joy such as he had never knowndarted through all the cords of his body. He ran, shouting, in mirth andterror. In fear, in a passion of love and knowledge and understanding, he abased himself and yearned before this marvel. Impossible to haveconceived, yet, once seen, utterly satisfying and the fulfilment of allneeds. He laughed and leaped and worshipped. When the first transportwas over, he laid his head against this being's knee, he nestled thereand was content. This was the inscrutable perfect answer. 

"Cripes!" said the puzzled tramp, as he caressed the nuzzling head. "Thepurp's loco. Maybe he's been lost. You might think he'd never seen a manbefore. "

He was right. 

And Gissing sat quietly, his throat resting upon the soiled knee of avery old and spicy trouser. 

"I have found God, " he said. 

Presently he thought of the ship. It would not do to leave her soinsecurely moored. Reluctantly, with many a backward glance and a heartfull of glory, he left the Presence. He ran to the edge of the hill tolook down upon the harbour. 

The outlook was puzzlingly altered. He gazed in astonishment. What werethose poplars, rising naked into the bright air?--there was somethingfamiliar about them. And that little house beyond... He staredbewildered. 

The great shining breadth of the ocean had shrunk to the roundness ofa tiny pond. And the Pomerania? He leaned over, shaken with questions. There, beside the bank, was a little plank of wood, a child's plaything, roughly fashioned shipshape: two chips for funnels; red and yellowfrosted leaves for flags; a withered dogwood blossom for propeller. Heleaned closer, with whirling mind. In the clear cool surface of thepond he could see the sky mirrored, deeper than any ocean, pellucid, infinite, blue. 

He ran up the path to the house. The scuffled ragged garden lay nakedand hard. At the windows, he saw with surprise, were holly wreaths tiedwith broad red ribbon. On the porch, some battered toys. He opened thedoor. 

A fluttering rosy light filled the room. By the fireplace thepuppies--how big they were!--were sitting with Mrs. Spaniel. Joyousuproar greeted him: they flung themselves upon him. Shouts of "Daddy!Daddy!" filled the house, while the young Spaniels stood by morebashfully. 

Good Mrs. Spaniel was gratefully moved. Her moist eyes shone brightly inthe firelight. 

"I knew you'd be home for Christmas, Mr. Gissing, " she said. "I've beentelling them so all afternoon. Now, children, be still a moment and letme speak. I've been telling you your Daddy would be home in time for aChristmas Eve story. I've got to go and fix that plum pudding. "

In her excitement a clear bubble dripped from the tip of her tongue. Shecaught it in her apron, and hurried to the kitchen. 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The children insisted on leading him all through the house to show hownicely they had taken care of things. And in every room Gissing sawthe marks of riot and wreckage. There were tooth-scars on allfurniture-legs; the fringes of rugs were chewed off; there were printsof mud, ink, paints, and whatnot, on curtains and wallpapers andcoverlets. Poor Mrs. Spaniel kept running anxiously from the kitchen torenew apologies. 

"I DID try to keep 'em in order, " she said, "but they seem to bashthings when you're not looking. "

But Gissing was too happy to stew about such trifles. When theinspection was over, they all sat down by the chimney and he piled onmore logs. 

"Well, chilluns, " he said, "what do you want Santa Claus to bring youfor Christmas?"

"An aunbile!" exclaimed Groups

"An elphunt!" exclaimed Bunks

"A little train with hammers!" exclaimed Yelpers

"A little train with hammers?" asked Gissing. "What does he mean?"

"Oh, " said Groups and Bunks, with condescending pity, "he means atypewriter. He calls it a little train because it moves on a track whenyou hit it. "

A painful apprehension seized him, and he went hastily to his study. Hehad not noticed the typewriter, which Mrs. Spaniel had--too late--putout of reach. Half the keys were sticking upright, jammed together andtangled in a whirl of ribbon; the carriage was strangely dislocated. Andyet even this mischance, which would once have horrified him, left himunperturbed. It's my own fault, he thought: I shouldn't have left itwhere they could play with it. Perhaps God thinks the same when Hiscreatures make a mess of the dangerous laws of life. 

"A Christmas story!" the children were clamouring. 

Can it really be Christmas Eve? Gissing thought. Christmas seems to havecome very suddenly this year, I haven't really adjusted my mind to ityet. 

"All right, " he said. "Now sit still and keep quiet. Bunks, give Yelpersa little more room. If there's any bickering Santa Claus might hear it. "

He sat in the big chair by the fire, and the three looked upwardexpectantly from the hearthrug. 

"Once upon a time there were three little puppies, who lived in a housein the country in the Canine Estates. And their names were Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers. "

The three tails thumped in turn as the names were mentioned, but thechildren were too excitedly absorbed to interrupt. 

"And one year, just before Christmas, they heard a dreadful rumour. "

"What's a rumour?" cried Yelpers, alarmed. 

This was rather difficult to explain, so Gissing did not attempt it. Hebegan again. 

"They heard that Santa Claus might not be able to come because he wasso behind with his housework. You see, Santa Claus is a great bigNewfoundland dog with a white beard, and he lives in a frosty kennel atthe North Pole, all shining with icicles round the roof and windows. Butit's so far away from everywhere that poor Santa couldn't get a servant. All the maids who went there refused to stay because it was so coldand lonely, and so far from the movies. Santa Claus was busy in hisworkshop, making toys; he was busy taking care of the reindeer in theirsnow-stables; and he didn't have time to wash his dishes. So all summerhe just let them pile up and pile up in the kitchen. And when Christmascame near, there was his lovely house in a dreadful state of untidiness. He couldn't go away and leave it like that. And so, if he didn't get hisdishes washed and the house cleaned up for Christmas, all the puppiesall over the world would have to go without toys. When Groups and Bunksand Yelpers heard this, they were very much worried. "

"How did they hear it?" asked Bunks, who was the analytical member ofthe trio. 

"A very sensible question, " said Gissing, approvingly. "They heard itfrom the chipmunk who lives in the wood behind the house. The chipmunkheard it underground. "

"In his chipmonastery?" cried Groups. It was a family joke to callthe chipmunk's burrow by that name, and though the puppies did notunderstand the pun they relished the long word. 

"Yes, " continued Gissing. "The reindeer in Santa Claus's stable wereso unhappy about the dishes not being washed, and the chance of missingtheir Christmas frolic, that they broadcasted a radio message. Theirhorns are very fine for sending radio, and the chipmunk, sitting at hislittle wireless outfit, with the receivers over his ears, heard it. AndChippy told Groups and Bunks and Yelpers. 

"So these puppies decided to help Santa Claus. They didn't know exactlywhere to find him, but the chipmunk told them the direction, and offthey went. They travelled and travelled, and when they came to the oceanthey begged a ride from the seagulls, and each one sat on a seagull'sback just as though he was on a little airplane. They flew and flew, and at last they came to Santa Claus's house. Through the stable-walls, which were made of clear ice, they could see the reindeer stamping intheir stalls. In the big workshop, where Santa Claus was busy makingtoys, they could hear a lively sound of hammering. The big red sleighwas standing outside the stables, all ready to be hitched up to thereindeer. 

"They slipped into Santa Claus's house quickly and quietly, so no onewould see or hear them. The house was in a terrible state, but they setto work to clean up. Groups found the vacuum cleaner and sucked up allthe crumbs from the dining-room rug. Bunks ran upstairs and made SantaClaus's bed for him and swept the floors and put clean towels in thebathroom. And Yelpers hurried into the kitchen and washed the dishes, and scrubbed the pots, and polished the egg-stains off the silverspoons, and emptied the ice-box pan. All working hard, they got throughvery soon, and made Santa Claus's house as clean as any house could be. They fixed the window-shades so that they would all hang level, notjust anyhow, as poor Santa had them. Then, when everything was spick andspan, they ran outdoors again and beckoned the seagulls. They climbed onthe gulls' backs, and away they flew homeward. "

"Was Santa Claus pleased?" asked Bunks. 

"Indeed he was, when he came back from his workshop, very tired aftermaking toys all day. "

"What kind of toys did he make?" exclaimed Yelpers anxiously. "Did hemake a typewriter?"

"He made every kind of toy. And when he saw how his house had beencleaned up, he thought the fairies must have done it. He lit his pipe, and filled a thermos bottle with hot cocoa to keep him warm on his longjourney. Then he put on his red coat, and his long boots, and his furcap, and went out to harness the reindeer. That very night he drove offwith his sleigh packed full of toys for all the puppies in the world. Infact, he was so pleased that he loaded his big bag with more toys thanhe had ever carried before. And that was how a queer thing happened. "

They waited in eager suspense. 

"You know, Santa Claus always drives into the Canine Estates by thelittle back road through the woods, where the chipmunk lives. You knowthe gateway, at the bend in the lane: well, it's rather narrow, andSanta Claus's sleigh is very wide. And this time, because his bag hadso many toys in it, the bag bulged over the edge of the sleigh, and onecorner of the bag caught on the gatepost as he drove by. Three toys fellout, and what do you suppose they were?"

"An aunbile!"

"An elphunt!"

"A typewriter!"

"Yes, that's quite right. And it happened that the chipmunk was outthat night, digging up some nuts for his Christmas dinner, a little sadbecause he had no presents to give his children; and he found thethree toys. He took them home to the little chipmunks, and they weretremendously pleased. That was only fair, because if it hadn't beenfor the chipmunk and his radio set, no one would have had any toys thatChristmas. "

"Did Santa Claus have any more typewriters in his bag?" asked Yelpersgravely. 

"Oh, yes, he had plenty more of everything. And when he got to the housewhere Groups and Bunks and Yelpers lived, he slid down the chimney andtook a look round. He didn't see any crumbs on the floor, or any toyslying about not put away, so he filled the stockings with all kinds oflovely things, and an aunbile and an elphunt and a typewriter. "

"What did the puppies say?" they inquired. 

"They were sound asleep upstairs, and didn't know anything about ituntil Christmas morning. Come on now, it's time for bed. "

"We can undress ourselves now, " said Groups. 

"Will you tuck me in?" said Bunks. 

"You're sure he had another typewriter in his bag?" said Yelpers. 

They scrambled upstairs. 

Later, when the house was quiet, Gissing went out to the kitchen to seeMrs. Spaniel. She was diligently rolling pastry, and her nose was whitewith flour. 

"Oh, sir, I'm glad you got home in time for Christmas, " she said. "Thechildren were counting on it. Did you have a successful trip, sir?"

"Every trip is successful when you get home again, " said Gissing. "Isuppose the shops will be open late to-night, won't they? I'm going torun down to the village to get some toys. "

Before leaving the house, he went down to the cellar to see if thefurnace was all right. He was amazed to see how naturally and cheerfullyhe had slipped back into the old sense of responsibility. Where was theillusory freedom he had dreamed of? Even the epiphany on the hilltop nowseemed a distant miracle. That fearful happiness might never come again. And yet here, among the familiar difficult minutiae of home, what alightness he felt. A great phrase from the prayer-book came to hismind--"Whose service is perfect freedom. "

Ah, he said to himself, it is all very well to wear a crown of thorns, and indeed every sensitive creature carries one in secret. But there aretimes when it ought to be worn cocked over one ear. 

He opened the furnace door. A bright glow filled the fire-box: he couldhear a stir and singing in the boiler, and the rustle of warm pipes thatchuckled quietly through winter nights of storm. Over the coals hovereda magic evasive flicker, the very soul of fire. It was a Pentecostalflame, perfect and heavenly in tint, the essence of pure colour, a clearimmortal blue. 

THE END