[Illustration: IN THE DARK ENTRANCE THERE APPEARED A FLAMINGFIGURE. ]

The Napoleon ofNotting Hill

THE NAPOLEON_of_NOTTING HILL

_By_GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

_With Seven Full-Page Illustrations byW. GRAHAM ROBERTSONand a Map of the Seat of War_

REV. WILLIAM J. GORMLEY, C. M. 

JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEADLONDON & NEW YORK. MDCCCCIV

_Copyright inU. S. A. , 1904_

William Clowes & Sons, Limited, London and Beccles. 

_TO HILAIRE BELLOC_

 _For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree: You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town's, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. _

 _Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world's end, And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend. _

 _This did not end by Nelson's urn Where an immortal England sits-- Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, "Belike; but there are likelier things. "_

 _Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love. _

 _Far from your sunny uplands set I saw the dream; the streets I trod The lit straight streets shot out and met The starry streets that point to God. This legend of an epic hour A child I dreamed, and dream it still, Under the great grey water-tower That strikes the stars on Campden Hill. _

 G. K. C. 

_CONTENTS_

BOOK I

_Chapter_ _Page_

I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART OF PROPHECY 13

II. THE MAN IN GREEN 21

III. THE HILL OF HUMOUR 49

BOOK II

I. THE CHARTER OF THE CITIES 65

II. THE COUNCIL OF THE PROVOSTS 82

III. ENTER A LUNATIC 102

BOOK III

I. THE MENTAL CONDITION OF ADAM WAYNE 125

II. THE REMARKABLE MR. TURNBULL 147

III. THE EXPERIMENT OF MR. BUCK 163

BOOK IV

I. THE BATTLE OF THE LAMPS 189

II. THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE "COURT JOURNAL" 208

III. THE GREAT ARMY OF SOUTH KENSINGTON 224

BOOK V

I. THE EMPIRE OF NOTTING HILL 259

II. THE LAST BATTLE 279

III. TWO VOICES 291

_ILLUSTRATIONS_

IN THE DARK ENTRANCE THERE APPEARED A FLAMING FIGURE _Frontispiece_

 _To face page_

CITY MEN OUT ON ALL FOURS IN A FIELD COVERED WITHVEAL CUTLETS 16

"I'M THE KING OF THE CASTLE" 70

"I BRING HOMAGE TO MY KING" 104

MAP OF THE SEAT OF WAR 190

KING AUBERON DESCENDED FROM THE OMNIBUS WITH DIGNITY 220

"A FINE EVENING, SIR, " SAID THE CHEMIST 264

"WAYNE, IT WAS ALL A JOKE!" 296

BOOK I

_THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL_

CHAPTER I--_Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy_

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has beenplaying at children's games from the beginning, and will probably doit till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keepto-morrow dark, " and which is also named (by the rustics inShropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet. " The players listenvery carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to sayabout what is to happen in the next generation. The players then waituntil all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then goand do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. 

For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and thechildish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the worlddone what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned thefalse prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophetswith a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present amore or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. Buthumanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Menare men, but Man is a woman. 

But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat theProphet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. Thereason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man didsomething free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thoughtstruck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a dukeclimbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be reallyhappy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling someprophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not seethe ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man wasquite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him incrowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some highpost in the State. And all these clever men were at work givingaccounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, allquite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And itseemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could notreally be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat andsleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day andnight on what their descendants would be likely to do. 

But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work wasthis. They took something or other that was certainly going on intheir time, and then said that it would go on more and more untilsomething extraordinary happened. And very often they added that insome odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that itshowed the signs of the times. 

Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thoughtthat science would take charge of the future; and just as themotor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would bequicker than the motor-car; and so on for ever. And there arose fromtheir ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on hismachine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long, chattyconversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentenceeach time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had beentried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fastthat there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) acontinuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion andtweeds--a thing like the ring of Saturn. 

Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and livesimply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followedby James Pickie, D. D. (of Pocohontas College), who said that men wereimmensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly andcontinuously, after the manner of cows. And he said that he had, withthe most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in afield covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarianssaid that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no onewould ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding, " as he calledit finely, "the green blood of the silent animals"), and predictedthat men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And thencame the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), thepamphlet called "Why should Salt suffer?" and there was more trouble. 

[Illustration: CITY MEN OUT ON ALL FOURS IN A FIELD COVERED WITH VEALCUTLETS. ]

And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines ofkinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empireand those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and theChinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar andthe Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the loweranimals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi ("thePaul of Anglo-Saxonism"), carried it yet further, and held that, as aresult of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating amember of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, whoshould, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at theidea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they misunderstoodhis stoicism who thought him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in ahard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italianorgan-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, provingthat the savages were not only quite right in eating their enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it was true that thequalities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the eater. The notionthat the nature of an Italian organ-man was irrevocably growing andburgeoning inside him was almost more than the kindly old professorcould bear. 

There was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of ourrace would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea wasdeveloped more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passagewhich every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weepingby the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over thescene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuriesafterwards. 

And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would inthe twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant, Graham Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russiain the American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra. 

There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see acontinuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people, and his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country withan axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not thesame number on both sides. 

All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuitywhat would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by takingsomething they saw "going strong, " as the saying is, and carrying itas far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, wasthe true and simple way of anticipating the future. "Just as, " saidDr. Pellkins, in a fine passage, --"just as when we see a pig in alitter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable lawof the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant, --justas we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and morethickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, growtaller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so weknow and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politicshas shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will goon until it reaches to the sky. "

And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people(engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quiteunprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything withoutfulfilling some of their prophecies. 

But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especiallywomen, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever ofdoubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. Theystill had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the gameof Cheat the Prophet. 

Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither andthither, crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What will London belike a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Housesupside down--more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands--make feetflexible, don't you know? Moon . .. Motor-cars . .. No heads. .. . " And sothey swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely. 

Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer concealthe painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of thetwentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eightyyears after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it isnow. 

CHAPTER II--_The Man in Green_

Very few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred yearshence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip intoa prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like itwas in those enviable days when I was still alive. 

The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutelylost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal--such as theFrench one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands tocommon sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, andcompromises, unless you believe in something outside them, somethingpositive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost allbelief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, "All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, wemust change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature's revolutionsare the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reactionin favour of tails. "

And some things did change. Things that were not much thought ofdropped out of sight. Things that had not often happened did nothappen at all. Thus, for instance, the actual physical force rulingthe country, the soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and atlast vanished almost to a point. The people combined could have sweptthe few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they didnot believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith inrevolutions. 

Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made King. No one cared how: no onecared who. He was merely an universal secretary. 

In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening asthey have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, hadbecome an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any mandoing anything but the thing he had done the day before. 

There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who hadalways walked up to their Government office together should not walkup to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerksespecially. All those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Threeof those clerks always walked into town together. All theneighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one short. And onthis particular morning the short clerk was only a few seconds late tojoin the other two as they passed his gate: he could have overtakenthem in three strides; he could have called after them easily. But hedid not. 

For some reason that will never be understood until all souls arejudged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classedwith fetish worship) he did not join his two companions, but walkedsteadily behind them. The day was dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but in some odd impulse he walked through streetafter street, through district after district, looking at the backs ofthe two men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice. Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, andit is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, youare in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time. 

So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tallGovernment officials, and through street after street, and roundcorner after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and againcoat-tails--when, he did not in the least know why, something happenedto his eyes. 

Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two blackdragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walkingbackwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none theless. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons atthe back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of theirmeaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze. The slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: wheneverthe tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. Itwas only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it imbedded inhis soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men infrock-coats except as dragons walking backwards. He explainedafterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends, that (while feeling an inexpressible regard for each of them) he couldnot seriously regard the face of either of them as anything but akind of tail. It was, he admitted, a handsome tail--a tail elevated inthe air. But if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to seetheir faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must beallowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to see them fromthe rear. There he would see the two black dragons with the blindeyes. 

But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon thesmall clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles--they changedthe universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know--thatadventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chordof monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound likesong. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the fourdead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realised the strange deadday. 

The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with thatshadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or coppertwilight. The light there is on such a day seems not so much to comefrom the clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to theshapes themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load ofwaters, and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on thefloor of a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy;the carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures witheyes of flame. He had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Nowhe found he was among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea. 

The two young men in front were like the small young man himself, well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had thatluxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, afavourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr. Max Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of "certaincongruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen. "

They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at thelongest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post. 

They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable thata fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawledpast the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran afterthem and said--

"I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywherewhere they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, butit keeps on growing again. "

One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist. 

"Why, here is a little place, " cried the small man, with a sort ofimbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window of a fashionabletoilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the foggy twilight. "Do you know, I often find hair-dressers when I walk about London. I'll lunch withyou at Cicconani's. You know, I'm awfully fond of hair-dressers'shops. They're miles better than those nasty butchers'. " And hedisappeared into the doorway. 

The man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle screwedinto his eye. 

"What the devil do you make of that fellow?" he asked his companion, apale young man with a high nose. 

The pale young man reflected conscientiously for some minutes, andthen said--

"Had a knock on his head when he was a kid, I should think. "

"No, I don't think it's that, " replied the Honourable James Barker. "I've sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, Lambert. "

"Bosh!" cried Mr. Lambert, briefly. 

"I admit I can't make him out, " resumed Barker, abstractedly; "henever opens his mouth without saying something so indescribablyhalf-witted that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt atcharacterisation. But there's another thing about him that's ratherfunny. Do you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquerin Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and mediævalFrench and that sort of thing. Have you ever been in his rooms? It'slike being inside an amethyst. And he moves about in all that andtalks like--like a turnip. "

"Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well, " said the ingenuousMr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. "You ought to understand suchthings. What do you make of him?"

"He's beyond me, " returned Barker. "But if you asked me for myopinion, I should say he was a man with a taste for nonsense, as theycall it--artistic fooling, and all that kind of thing. And I seriouslybelieve that he has talked nonsense so much that he has halfbewildered his own mind and doesn't know the difference between sanityand insanity. He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, andfound the place where the East and the West are one, and extremeidiocy is as good as sense. But I can't explain these psychologicalgames. "

"You can't explain them to me, " replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, withcandour. 

As they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant the coppertwilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by the time they reachedit they stood discernible in a tolerable winter daylight. TheHonourable James Barker, one of the most powerful officials in theEnglish Government (by this time a rigidly official one), was a leanand elegant young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes. He had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kindwhich raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded withhonours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of asingle man. Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared toimpoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to theenlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse ofbeing a fool. 

Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all hiscleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But mere sillinessand stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awfuland mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in thesmall figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani's. Thelittle man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compoundedof a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have beendesigned by nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat darkhair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the lookof a child's "Noah. " When he entered a room of strangers, they mistookhim for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until hespoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been moreintelligent. 

"I have been waiting quite a long time, " said Quin, mildly. "It'sawfully funny I should see you coming up the street at last. "

"Why?" asked Lambert, staring. "You told us to come here yourself. "

"My mother used to tell people to come to places, " said the sage. 

They were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned air, whentheir eyes were caught by something in the street. The weather, thoughcold and blank, was now quite clear, and across the dull brown of thewood pavement and between the dull grey terraces was moving somethingnot to be seen for miles round--not to be seen perhaps at that time inEngland--a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd hung on theman's heels. 

He was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of brilliantgreen, splashed with great silver facings. From the shoulder swung ashort green furred cloak, somewhat like that of a Hussar, the liningof which gleamed every now and then with a kind of tawny crimson. Hisbreast glittered with medals; round his neck was the red ribbon andstar of some foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazinghilt, trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time thepacific and utilitarian development of Europe had relegated all suchcustoms to the Museums. The only remaining force, the small butwell-organised police, were attired in a sombre and hygienic manner. But even those who remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers whodisappeared in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, andnever had been, an English uniform; and this conviction would havebeen heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like Dante carved inbronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, out of the green militarycollar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face. 

The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down thecentre of the road would be something difficult to express in humanlanguage. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, somethingin the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary modernsin the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to dowith actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of thesemerely temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried andinquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of adespot and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men wholounged and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishmentat his brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of thatinstinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, butfar more because of that instinct which makes all men follow (andworship) any one who chooses to behave like a king. He had to sosublime an extent that great quality of royalty--an almost imbecileunconsciousness of everybody, that people went after him as they doafter kings--to see what would be the first thing or person he wouldtake notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in spite of hisquiet splendour, there was an air about him as if he were looking forsomebody; an expression of inquiry. 

Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, andwas replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attentionof the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflectedhimself from his direct course down the centre of the road and walkedto one side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster ofColman's Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almostheld their breath. 

He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; withthis he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest ofthe operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the firsttime the great being addressed his adoring onlookers--

"Can any one, " he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, "lend me apin?"

Mr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried innumerablepins for the purpose of attaching innumerable buttonholes, lent himone, which was received with extravagant but dignified bows, andhyperboles of thanks. 

The gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of beinggratified, and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow paper tothe green silk and silver-lace adornments of his breast. Then heturned his eyes round again, searching and unsatisfied. 

"Anything else I can do, sir?" asked Lambert, with the absurdpoliteness of the Englishman when once embarrassed. 

"Red, " said the stranger, vaguely, "red. "

"I beg your pardon?"

"I beg yours also, Señor, " said the stranger, bowing. "I was wonderingwhether any of you had any red about you. "

"Any red about us?--well really--no, I don't think I have--I used tocarry a red bandanna once, but--"

"Barker, " asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, "where's your red cockatoo?Where's your red cockatoo?"

"What do you mean?" asked Barker, desperately. "What cockatoo? You'venever seen me with any cockatoo!"

"I know, " said Auberon, vaguely mollified. "Where's it been all thetime?"

Barker swung round, not without resentment. 

"I am sorry, sir, " he said, shortly but civilly, "none of us seem tohave anything red to lend you. But why, if one may ask--"

"I thank you, Señor, it is nothing. I can, since there is nothingelse, fulfil my own requirements. "

And standing for a second of thought with the penknife in his hand, hestabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so full a stream that itstruck the stones without dripping. The foreigner pulled out hishandkerchief and tore a piece from it with his teeth. The rag wasimmediately soaked in scarlet. 

"Since you are so generous, Señor, " he said, "another pin, perhaps. "

Lambert held one out, with eyes protruding like a frog's. 

The red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the foreignertook off his hat. 

"I have to thank you all, gentlemen, " he said; and wrapping theremainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, he resumed hiswalk with an overwhelming stateliness. 

While all the rest paused, in some disorder, little Mr. Auberon Quinran after the stranger and stopped him, with hat in hand. Considerablyto everybody's astonishment, he addressed him in the purest Spanish--

"Señor, " he said in that language, "pardon a hospitality, perhapsindiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but asolitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whomyou have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at theadjoining restaurant?"

The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure atthe mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitationwith that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of theSouthern races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothingto do with feeling. 

"Señor, " he said, "your language is my own; but all my love for mypeople shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of sochivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish butthe heart English. " And he passed with the rest into Cicconani's. 

"Now, perhaps, " said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intenselypolite, but burning with curiosity, "perhaps it would be rude of me toask why you did that?"

"Did what, Señor?" asked the guest, who spoke English quite well, though in a manner indefinably American. 

"Well, " said the Englishman, in some confusion, "I mean tore a stripoff a hoarding and . .. Er . .. Cut yourself . .. And. .. . "

"To tell you that, Señor, " answered the other, with a certain sadpride, "involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego, President of Nicaragua. "

The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drankhis sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the factsobserved and a great deal more. Barker's brow, however, was still alittle clouded. 

"And the yellow paper, " he began, with anxious friendliness, "and thered rag. .. . "

"The yellow paper and the red rag, " said Fuego, with indescribablegrandeur, "are the colours of Nicaragua. "

"But Nicaragua . .. " began Barker, with great hesitation, "Nicaragua isno longer a. .. . "

"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexedlike Jerusalem, " cried the old man, with amazing fire. "The Yankee andthe German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with thehoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea. "

Auberon Quin suggested timidly, "A brilliant idea. "

"Yes, " said the foreigner, snatching at the word. "You are right, generous Englishman. An idea _brillant_, a burning thought. Señor, you asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, Isnatched at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancientsanctity of colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think ofwhat colours mean to us--think of the position of one like myself, whocan see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and theyellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are ina democracy of combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds andthe red cloak of an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is afield of poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my country. Wherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heartbeats. Blood and a splash of mustard can be my heraldry. If there beyellow mud and red mud in the same ditch, it is better to me thanwhite stars. "

"And if, " said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, "there should happen to beyellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you could not confineyourself to sherry. Let me order some Burgundy, and complete, as itwere, a sort of Nicaraguan heraldry in your inside. "

Barker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making up hismind to say something, with the intense nervousness of the amiableEnglishman. 

"I am to understand, then, " he said at last, with a cough, "that you, ahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it made its--er--one must, of course, agree--its quite heroic resistance to--er--"

The ex-President of Nicaragua waved his hand. 

"You need not hesitate in speaking to me, " he said. "I'm quite fullyaware that the whole tendency of the world of to-day is againstNicaragua and against me. I shall not consider it any diminution ofyour evident courtesy if you say what you think of the misfortunesthat have laid my republic in ruins. "

Barker looked immeasurably relieved and gratified. 

"You are most generous, President, " he said, with some hesitation overthe title, "and I will take advantage of your generosity to expressthe doubts which, I must confess, we moderns have about such thingsas--er--the Nicaraguan independence. "

"So your sympathies are, " said Del Fuego, quite calmly, "with the bignation which--"

"Pardon me, pardon me, President, " said Barker, warmly; "my sympathiesare with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, the modern intellect. We do not disapprove of the fire and extravagance of suchcommonwealths as yours only to become more extravagant on a largerscale. We do not condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought tobe more Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities becausewe wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all theiruniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differwith the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is notbecause a nation or ten nations were against you; it is becausecivilisation was against you. We moderns believe in a greatcosmopolitan civilisation, one which shall include all the talents ofall the absorbed peoples--"

"The Señor will forgive me, " said the President. "May I ask the Señorhow, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?"

"I never catch a wild horse, " replied Barker, with dignity. 

"Precisely, " said the other; "and there ends your absorption of thetalents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When yousay you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want allpeoples to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the BedouinArab does not know how to read, some English missionary orschoolmaster must be sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says, 'This schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay aBedouin to teach him. ' You say your civilisation will include alltalents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that at the moment whenthe Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will havelearnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the example I gave. In Nicaraguawe had a way of catching wild horses--by lassooing the forefeet--which was supposed to be the best in South America. If you aregoing to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me tosay what I have always said, that something went from the world whenNicaragua was civilised. "

"Something, perhaps, " replied Barker, "but that something a merebarbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well asa primeval man, but I know that civilisation can make these kniveswhich are better, and I trust to civilisation. "

"You have good authority, " answered the Nicaraguan. "Many clever menlike you have trusted to civilisation. Many clever Babylonians, manyclever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, whatthere is particularly immortal about yours?"

"I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is, "answered Barker. "You judge it rather as if England was still a poorand pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many thingshave happened. "

"And what, " asked the other, "would you call the summary of thosethings?"

"The summary of those things, " answered Barker, with great animation, "is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in becoming so we havenot merely become rid of the superstitions which have been mostfrequently and most enthusiastically so described. The superstition ofbig nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small nationalitiesis worse. The superstition of reverencing our own country is bad, butthe superstition of reverencing other people's countries is worse. Itis so everywhere, and in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchyis bad, and the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but thesuperstition of democracy is the worst of all. "

The old gentleman opened his eyes with some surprise. 

"Are you, then, " he said, "no longer a democracy in England?"

Barker laughed. 

"The situation invites paradox, " he said. "We are, in a sense, thepurest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed howcontinually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it thedecay of democracy. It is simply its fulfilment. Why take the troubleto number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable JohnRobinsons, when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellector lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The oldidealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that allmen were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduringdemocracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Whyshould we not choose out of them one as much as another. All that wewant for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidlylook over some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think whattime was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying itought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying itought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no onesaw that it was right because it was stupid, because that chance mobof ordinary men thrown there by accident of blood, were a greatdemocratic protest against the Lower House, against the eternalinsolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have established now inEngland, the thing towards which all systems have dimly groped, thedull popular despotism without illusions. We want one man at the headof our State, not because he is brilliant or virtuous, but because heis one man and not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance ofhereditary diseases or such things, we have abandoned hereditarymonarchy. The King of England is chosen like a juryman upon anofficial rotation list. Beyond that the whole system is quietlydespotic, and we have not found it raise a murmur. "

"Do you really mean, " asked the President, incredulously, "that youchoose any ordinary man that comes to hand and make him despot--thatyou trust to the chance of some alphabetical list. .. . "

"And why not?" cried Barker. "Did not half the historical nationstrust to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest sons, and did nothalf of them get on tolerably well? To have a perfect system isimpossible; to have a system is indispensable. All hereditarymonarchies were a matter of luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Canyou find a deep philosophical meaning in the difference between theStuarts and the Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find adeep philosophical meaning in the contrast between the dark tragedy ofthe A's, and the solid success of the B's. "

"And you risk it?" asked the other. "Though the man may be a tyrant ora cynic or a criminal. "

"We risk it, " answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. "Suppose heis a tyrant--he is still a check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is acynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is acriminal--by removing poverty and substituting power, we put a checkon his criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put atotal check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest. "

The Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer expression inhis eyes. 

"My church, sir, " he said, "has taught me to respect faith. I do notwish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however fantastic. But doyou really mean that you will trust to the ordinary man, the man whomay happen to come next, as a good despot?"

"I do, " said Barker, simply. "He may not be a good man. But he will bea good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine ofgovernment he will endeavour to do ordinary justice. Do we not assumethe same thing in a jury?"

The old President smiled. 

"I don't know, " he said, "that I have any particular objection indetail to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is aquite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belongto it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as analternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot arguewith the choice of the soul. "

"Of the soul, " said Barker, knitting his brows, "I cannot pretend tosay anything, but speaking in the interests of the public--"

Mr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet. 

"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, " he said, "I will step out for amoment into the air. "

"I'm so sorry, Auberon, " said Lambert, good-naturedly; "do you feelbad?"

"Not bad exactly, " said Auberon, with self-restraint; "rather good, ifanything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is, I want to reflect alittle on those beautiful words that have just been uttered. 'Speaking, ' yes, that was the phrase, 'speaking in the interests ofthe public. ' One cannot get the honey from such things without beingalone for a little. "

"Is he really off his chump, do you think?" asked Lambert. 

The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes. 

"He is a man, I think, " he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. Heis a dangerous man. "

Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some maccaroni to his mouth. 

"Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!"

"Every man is dangerous, " said the old man without moving, "who caresonly for one thing. I was once dangerous myself. "

And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowingprofoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense andsombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly inlodgings in Soho. 

 * * * * *

Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figureshaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terroror ague: but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter. He was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent--"Butspeaking in the interests of the public. .. . "

CHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_

"In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea, " saidAuberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who had never beento Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strangelook in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for theyheard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearingpatent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be theminister at all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a returnticket to Maidstone. "

There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambertwent swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. ThenAuberon resumed. 

"That story, " he said reverently, "is the test of humour. "

They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as theybegan to climb a slope. 

"I perceive, " continued Auberon, "that you have passed the test, andconsider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The greatanecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt prettybenedicted, didn't you, Barker?"

"I saw the point, " said Barker, somewhat loftily. 

"Do you know, " said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, "I have lots ofstories as good as that. Listen to this one. "

And he slightly cleared his throat. 

"Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. 'There, ' people of wide experience would say, 'There goes thesallowest bimetallist in Cheshire. ' Once this was said so that heoverheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve andgrey. Polycarp turned upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow!_Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes. _' It was said that noactuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again. "

Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted. 

"Here is another, " continued the insatiable Quin. "In a hollow of thegrey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whoseuncle was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-greenhollows, she knew nothing of this: she didn't know that there was aBoat Race. Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heardof nobody at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (Iknow not why), and in whose historical memory she put her simpletrust. And by and by in God's good time, it was discovered that thisuncle of hers was not really her uncle, and they came and told her so. She smiled through her tears, and said only, 'Virtue is its ownreward. '"

Again there was a silence, and then Lambert said--

"It seems a bit mysterious. "

"Mysterious!" cried the other. "The true humour is mysterious. Do younot realise the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies?"

"And what's that?" asked Lambert, shortly. 

"It is very simple, " replied the other. "Hitherto it was the ruin of ajoke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of ajoke that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the onesanctity remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughlyafraid of. Look at that tree. "

His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant outtowards them from the ridge of the hill. 

"If, " said Mr. Quin, "I were to say that you did not see the greattruths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any manof intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You wouldmerely regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory aboutvegetable cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that treethe vile mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as aSocialist crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I wereto say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking atthat tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation ofGod, you would simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me. But if"--and he lifted a pontifical hand--"if I say that you cannotsee the humour of that tree, and that I see the humour of it--my God!you will roll about at my feet. "

He paused a moment, and then resumed. 

"Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is thenew religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselveswith the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will beset in it. It will be asked, 'Can you see the humour of this ironrailing?' or 'Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can yousee the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?'How often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset. "

"Quite so, " said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment. 

"Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M. P. 'sfor Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctualEssex M. P. , perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act ofplucking a poppy--"

Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in adefiant attitude. 

"Auberon, " he said, "chuck it. I won't stand it. It's all bosh. "

Both men stared at him, for there was something very explosive aboutthe words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time. 

"You have, " began Quin, "no--"

"I don't care a curse, " said Lambert, violently, "whether I have 'adelicate sense of humour' or not. I won't stand it. It's all aconfounded fraud. There's no joke in those infernal tales at all. Youknow there isn't as well as I do. "

"Well, " replied Quin, slowly, "it is true that I, with my rathergradual mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finersense of Barker perceived it. "

Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon. 

"You ass, " said Lambert; "why can't you be like other people? Whycan't you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man whosits on his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are. "

Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge andthe wind struck their faces. 

"Lambert, " said Auberon, "you are a great and good man, though I'mhanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist ordeliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved inmarble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your presentattitude, the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hillthat the new humour was the last of the religions. You have made itthe last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very seriouswarning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything _outré_, to imitatethe man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a manwhose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And fortwopence I'd do it. "

"Do it, then, " said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. "It wouldbe funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk. "

Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towardsthe main avenue of Kensington Gardens. 

"Two hundred yards away, " he said, "are all your fashionableacquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each otherand at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, apeak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a greatpulpit or platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us. Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madnesswhich goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man. "

"I don't know what you are talking about, " said Lambert, contemptuously. "I only know I'd rather you stood on your silly head, than talked so much. "

"Auberon! for goodness' sake . .. " cried Barker, springing forward; buthe was too late. Faces from all the benches and avenues were turned intheir direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and thesharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black, like a picture in a child's toy-book. And on the top of the smallhill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness uponhis head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air. 

"For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot, " cried Barker, wringing his hands; "we shall have the whole town here. "

"Yes, get up, get up, man, " said Lambert, amused and annoyed. "I wasonly fooling; get up. "

Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than thetrees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a serious expression. Barker stamped wildly. 

"Oh, let's get home, Barker, and leave him, " said Lambert; "some ofyour proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!"

Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them. One held a paper in his hand. 

"There he is, officer, " said Lambert, cheerfully; "we ain'tresponsible for him. "

The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye. 

"We have not come, gentlemen, " he said, "about what I think you arealluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce theselection of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from theold _régime_, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereignimmediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across KensingtonGardens. "

Barker's eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed withambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of theintellect he had really believed in the chance method of selectingdespots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might havefallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure. 

"Which of us, " he began, and the respectful official interrupted him. 

"Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, weknow your services to the Government, and should be very thankful ifit were. The choice has fallen. .. . "

"God bless my soul!" said Lambert, jumping back two paces. "Not me. Don't say I'm autocrat of all the Russias. "

"No, sir, " said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towardsAuberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs andmaking a noise like a cow; "the gentleman whom we have to congratulateseems at the moment--er--er--occupied. "

"Not Quin!" shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; "it can't be. Auberon, for God's sake pull yourself together. You've been made King!"

With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answeredmodestly--

"I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men whohave previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the onlypeculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarchthat ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his headand body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote apoem that I wrote in my youth--

A nobler office on the earthThan valour, power of brain, or birthCould give the warrior kings of old. 

The intellect clarified by this posture--"

Lambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him. 

"Don't you understand?" cried Lambert. "It's not a joke. They'vereally made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste. "

"The great Bishops of the Middle Ages, " said Quin, kicking his legs inthe air, as he was dragged up more or less upside down, "were in thehabit of refusing the honour of election three times and thenaccepting it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those greatmen. I will accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh!I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet ofhumour. "

By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men werestill trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation. 

"Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert, " he said, "that I should be ofmore public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And whenshould a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me thannow, when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer, " hecontinued, addressing the startled messenger, "are there no ceremoniesto celebrate my entry into the city?"

"Ceremonies, " began the official, with embarrassment, "have been moreor less neglected for some little time, and--"

Auberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat. 

"All ceremony, " he said, "consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women. Kindly help me on with this coat. " And he held it out. 

"But, your Majesty, " said the officer, after a moment's bewildermentand manipulation, "you're putting it on with the tails in front. "

"The reversal of the obvious, " said the King, calmly, "is as near aswe can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on. "

The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert anightmare, which they could not properly realise or recall. The King, with his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that wereawaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royalresidence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned intocrowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming anautocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowdsgrew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. Andwhen he had reached the great market-place opposite the church, Barker knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind, because a cry went up such as had never before greeted any of thekings of the earth. 

BOOK II

CHAPTER I--_The Charter of the Cities_

Lambert was standing bewildered outside the door of the King'sapartments amid the scurry of astonishment and ridicule. He was justpassing out into the street, in a dazed manner, when James Barkerdashed by him. 

"Where are you going?" he asked. 

"To stop all this foolery, of course, " replied Barker; and hedisappeared into the room. 

He entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping hisincomparable silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but before hecould speak, the King said--

"Your hat, if you please. "

Fidgetting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, the young politician held it out. 

The King placed it on his own chair, and sat on it. 

"A quaint old custom, " he explained, smiling above the ruins. "Whenthe King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hatof the latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It representsthe absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removalof it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more appearupon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote)shall the House of Barker rebel against the Crown of England. "

Barker stood with clenched fist, and shaking lip. 

"Your jokes, " he began, "and my property--" and then exploded with anoath, and stopped again. 

"Continue, continue, " said the King, waving his hands. 

"What does it all mean?" cried the other, with a gesture of passionaterationality. "Are you mad?"

"Not in the least, " replied the King, pleasantly. "Madmen are alwaysserious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are looking seriousyourself, James. "

"Why can't you keep it to your own private life?" expostulated theother. "You've got plenty of money, and plenty of houses now to playthe fool in, but in the interests of the public--"

"Epigrammatic, " said the King, shaking his finger sadly at him. "Noneof your daring scintillations here. As to why I don't do it inprivate, I rather fail to understand your question. The answer is ofcomparative limpidity. I don't do it in private, because it is funnierto do it in public. You appear to think that it would be amusing to bedignified in the banquet hall and in the street, and at my ownfireside (I could procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar. But that is what every one does. Every one is grave in public, andfunny in private. My sense of humour suggests the reversal of this; itsuggests that one should be funny in public, and solemn in private. Idesire to make the State functions, parliaments, coronations, and soon, one roaring old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, Ishut myself up alone in a small store-room for two hours a day, whereI am so dignified that I come out quite ill. "

By this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his frock coatflapping like the black wings of a bird. 

"Well, you will ruin the country, that's all, " he said shortly. 

"It seems to me, " said Auberon, "that the tradition of ten centuriesis being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against theCrown of England. It would be with regret (for I admire yourappearance) that I should be obliged forcibly to decorate your headwith the remains of this hat, but--"

"What I can't understand, " said Barker flinging up his fingers with afeverish American movement, "is why you don't care about anything elsebut your games. "

The King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken remnants, dropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at him steadily. 

"I made a kind of vow, " he said, "that I would not talk seriously, which always means answering silly questions. But the strong man willalways be gentle with politicians. 

'The shape my scornful looks derideRequired a God to form;'

if I may so theologically express myself. And for some reason I cannotin the least understand, I feel impelled to answer that question ofyours, and to answer it as if there were really such a thing in theworld as a serious subject. You ask me why I don't care for anythingelse. Can you tell me, in the name of all the gods you don't believein, why I should care for anything else?"

"Don't you realise common public necessities?" cried Barker. "Is itpossible that a man of your intelligence does not know that it isevery one's interest--"

"Don't you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you neglectMumbo-Jumbo?" returned the King, with startling animation. "Does a manof your intelligence come to me with these damned early Victorianethics? If, on studying my features and manner, you detect anyparticular resemblance to the Prince Consort, I assure you you aremistaken. Did Herbert Spencer ever convince you--did he ever convinceanybody--did he ever for one mad moment convince himself--that it mustbe to the interest of the individual to feel a public spirit? Do youbelieve that, if you rule your department badly, you stand any morechance, or one half of the chance, of being guillotined, that anangler stands of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? HerbertSpencer refrained from theft for the same reason that he refrainedfrom wearing feathers in his hair, because he was an English gentlemanwith different tastes. I am an English gentleman with differenttastes. He liked philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books onthe nature of human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlainwalking in front of me with a piece of paper pinned to his coat-tails. It is my humour. Are you answered? At any rate, I have said my lastserious word to-day, and my last serious word I trust for theremainder of my life in this Paradise of Fools. The remainder of myconversation with you to-day, which I trust will be long andstimulating, I propose to conduct in a new language of my own by meansof rapid and symbolic movements of the left leg. " And he began topirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied expression. 

Barker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with demands andentreaties. But he received no response except in the new language. Hecame out banging the door again, and sick like a man coming on shore. As he strode along the streets he found himself suddenly oppositeCicconani's restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before himthe green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as he hadseen him last, at the door, with the words on his lips, "You cannotargue with the choice of the soul. "

The King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of businesslegitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a cigar, and went outinto the purple night. 

[Illustration: "I'M KING OF THE CASTLE. "]

"I will go, " he said, "and mingle with the people. "

He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill, when suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. Hepaused, put up his single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a woodensword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awedsatisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hitsome one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at hisassailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket. 

"I have a few notes, " he said, "for my dying speech;" and he turnedover the leaves. "Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, ifby former friend--h'm, h'm. Dying speech for death at hands of injuredhusband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quitesure which meets the present. .. . "

"I'm the King of the Castle, " said the boy, truculently, and verypleased with nothing in particular. 

The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like allpeople who are fond of the ridiculous. 

"Infant, " he said, "I'm glad you are so stalwart a defender of yourold inviolate Notting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child, where it lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, sounutterably Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacredmountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater--"

The King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone. 

"Perhaps, " he said, "perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. Arevival of the arrogance of the old mediæval cities applied to ourglorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a citywall. Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampsteadgoing into battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King, have said it. " And, hastily presenting the boy with half a crown, remarking, "For the war-chest of Notting Hill, " he ran violently homeat such a rate of speed that crowds followed him for miles. Onreaching his study, he ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged intoprofound meditation upon the project. At length he called hisfavourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection, founded principally upon the shape of his whiskers. 

"Bowler, " he said, "isn't there some society of historical research, or something of which I am an honorary member?"

"Yes, sir, " said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, "you are a memberof 'The Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance, ' and 'The Teutonic TombsClub, ' and 'The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities, 'and--"

"That is admirable, " said the King. "The London Antiquities does mytrick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities andspeak to their secretary, and their sub-secretary, and theirpresident, and their vice-president, saying, 'The King of England isproud, but the honorary member of the Society for the Recovery ofLondon Antiquities is prouder than kings. I should like to tell you ofcertain discoveries I have made touching the neglected traditions ofthe London boroughs. The revelations may cause some excitement, stirring burning memories and touching old wounds in Shepherd's Bushand Bayswater, in Pimlico and South Kensington. The King hesitates, but the honorary member is firm. I approach you invoking the vows ofmy initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, the Poker of Perfection, and theOrdeal of the Indescribable Instant (forgive me if I mix you up withthe Clan-na-Gael or some other club I belong to), and ask you topermit me to read a paper at your next meeting on the "Wars of theLondon Boroughs. "' Say all this to the Society, Bowler. Remember itvery carefully, for it is most important, and I have forgotten italtogether, and send me another cup of coffee and some of the cigarsthat we keep for vulgar and successful people. I am going to write mypaper. "

The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a month afterin a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of one of the southernsuburbs of London. A large number of people had collected there underthe coarse and flaring gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring andgenial. On taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be inevening dress, wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small table, adorned only with a glass of water, was received with respectfulcheering. 

The chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they had allbeen pleased to listen to such distinguished lecturers as they hadheard for some time past (hear, hear). Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr. Cambridge, Professor King (loud and continued cheers), our old friendPeter Jessop, Sir William White (loud laughter), and other eminentmen, had done honour to their little venture (cheers). But there wereother circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to the presentoccasion (hear, hear). So far as his recollection went, and inconnection with the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities itwent very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of theirlecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call uponKing Auberon briefly to address the meeting. 

The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as thefirst declaration of his new policy for the nation. "At this supremehour of my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Societyfor the Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers). If the world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostilitybegin to rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my braveRecoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand" (loudcheers). 

His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creepingupon him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringingabout a keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalitiesof London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs!How many there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Winkof Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation inChelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longerpumped the Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick. 

There was a short silence, and then a voice said "Shame!"

The King continued: "Being called, however unworthily, to this highestate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shallcease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutionalequality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as theman who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if ourdescendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, thatthe Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parishcouncillor still shaves one half of his head, I shall look my greatfathers reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to thelast house of Kings. "

The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumedonce more. 

"I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on thesublime origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughsbear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith, its people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, theBlacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till hedrove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at thatplace which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy isstill called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail toremember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips oftheir hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after thewar, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs ofthe men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popularcharacter), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, saidthe words which are written in gold upon his monument, 'Little birdsthat can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing. ' So that theEastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. Butyou also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that youcould sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day ofKensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights whoguarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from yourhiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire ofcalamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword inhand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, swept itpast its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle so long andbloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. Men havecalled it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust, wound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton, or that of any other historic township, by taking these two specialexamples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than therest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended fromone of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from theconsciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian, and cannot presume todeal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is notfor me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Huggand Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill(in allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whetherit is a corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation amongthe ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossyconfess themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington(said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamedto confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from furtherhistory, and to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with theproblem which faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the Londontownships to die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to losealtogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamylight of

'Old unhappy far-off thingsAnd battles long ago'

--to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of myyouth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, topreserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their presentdreamy state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy Ipropose is as follows:--

"To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven sparesmy life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of mylife, and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky andsoda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people willreceive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hopeto lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancientmagnificence, --Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build acity wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a cityguard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the detailsnow, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamationitself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the localcity guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, themeaning of which I am studying in my researches into history. Personally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paidofficial. If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as ahalberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with it in thegarden. "

Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly leftthe platform, overcome by emotions. 

The members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rosein an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple withindignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the greatmajority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that onepale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, andafter the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room. 

CHAPTER II--_The Council of the Provosts_

The King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a timelike a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with anappetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, andpresented him with a shilling. "Go and buy me, " he said, "a shillingpaint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, ina shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads outof Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of theBuckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know notwhy) that it fell within his department. "

The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and hispaint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-armsfor the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and noinconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility. 

"I cannot think, " he said, "why people should think the names ofplaces in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallowromanticists go away in trains and stop in places calledHugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time theycould, if they liked, go and live at a place with the dim, divine nameof St. John's Wood. I have never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid tocome upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle. But all these things can be imagined by remaining reverently in theHarrow train. "

And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of thehalberdier of St. John's Wood, a design in black and red, compoundedof a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to anothercard. "Let us think of milder matters, " he said. "Lavender Hill! Couldany of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce sofragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself inpurple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils witha new breath of life--a purple hill of incense. It is true that uponmy few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed tohit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it byits name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purpleplumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I haverequired people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. Itis so everywhere, after all. I have never been actually toSouthfields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons and olives representtheir austral instincts. I have never visited Parson's Green, or seeneither the Green or the Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hatsI have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in thedark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my peoplewill certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit orviolating their great traditions. "

As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and anofficial announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert. 

Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find theKing sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. Theywere not particularly surprised because the last time they had calledon him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litterof children's bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter ofwholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend ofthe royal infant's remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos, was not quite the same affair. 

For some time they let him babble on, conscious that his remarks meantnothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind ofJames Barker. He began to think that the King's remarks did not meannothing. 

"In God's name, Auberon, " he suddenly volleyed out, startling thequiet hall, "you don't mean that you are really going to have thesecity guards and city walls and things?"

"I am, indeed, " said the infant, in a quiet voice. "Why shouldn't Ihave them? I have modelled them precisely on your politicalprinciples. Do you know what I've done, Barker? I've behaved like atrue Barkerian. I've . .. But perhaps it won't interest you, theaccount of my Barkerian conduct. "

"Oh, go on, go on, " cried Barker. 

"The account of my Barkerian conduct, " said Auberon, calmly, "seemsnot only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. Itmerely consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme bythe same principle by which you have caused the central despot to beappointed. Each provost, of each city, under my charter, is to beappointed by rotation. Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep. "

Barker's wild eyes flared. 

"But, in God's name, don't you see, Quin, that the thing is quitedifferent? In the centre it doesn't matter so much, just because thewhole object of despotism is to get some sort of unity. But if anydamned parish can go to any damned man--"

"I see your difficulty, " said King Auberon, calmly. "You feel thatyour talents may be neglected. Listen!" And he rose with immensemagnificence. "I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, myspecial and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text ofthe Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord HighProvost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are allright. Good day. "

"But--" began Barker. 

"The audience is at an end, Provost, " said the King, smiling. 

How far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhatcomplicated description to explain. "The Great Proclamation of theCharter of the Free Cities" appeared in due course that morning, andwas posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the Kingassisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle ofthe road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It wasalso carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwichmen, andthe King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in thatcapacity himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole andCaptain Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement hadpositively to be quieted like that of a child. 

The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of thepublic may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popularenough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was readaloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everythinghad been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic, Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had everyintention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, ofinsisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and cityguards, should really come into existence, things were thrown into afar angrier confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to theKing making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when itbecame evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protestsbegan to come in. 

The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensingtonwrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon Stateoccasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalitiesthe King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decenthouseholder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in apillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, withformal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provostdesired to catch the post. 

The Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a prosperousdraper, wrote a curt business note, like a man complaining of arailway company, stating that definite inconvenience had been causedhim by the presence of the halberdiers, whom he had to take with himeverywhere. When attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he hadfound that while room could have been found for himself, thehalberdiers had a difficulty in getting in to the vehicle--believehim, theirs faithfully. 

The Lord High Provost of Shepherd's Bush said his wife did not likemen hanging round the kitchen. 

The King was always delighted to listen to these grievances, delivering lenient and kingly answers, but as he always insisted, asthe absolute _sine qua non_, that verbal complaints should bepresented to him with the fullest pomp of trumpets, plumes, andhalberds, only a few resolute spirits were prepared to run thegauntlet of the little boys in the street. 

Among these, however, was prominent the abrupt and business-likegentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he had before long, occasionto interview the King about a matter wider and even more urgent thanthe problem of the halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the greatquestion which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to theblood and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative builders andhouse agents from Shepherd's Bush to the Marble Arch, and fromWestbourne Grove to High Street, Kensington. I refer to the greataffair of the improvements in Notting Hill. The scheme was conductedchiefly by Mr. Buck, the abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr. Wilson, the Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to bedriven through three boroughs, through West Kensington, NorthKensington and Notting Hill, opening at one end into HammersmithBroadway, and at the other into Westbourne Grove. The negotiations, buyings, sellings, bullying and bribing took ten years, and by the endof it Buck, who had conducted them almost single-handed, had provedhimself a man of the strongest type of material energy and materialdiplomacy. And just as his splendid patience and more splendidimpatience had finally brought him victory, when workmen were alreadydemolishing houses and walls along the great line from Hammersmith, asudden obstacle appeared that had neither been reckoned with nordreamed of, a small and strange obstacle, which, like a speck of gritin a great machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and brought it to astand-still, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great impatienceinto his robes of office and summoning with indescribable disgust hishalberdiers, hurried over to speak to the King. 

Ten years had not tired the King of his joke. There were still newfaces to be seen looking out from the symbolic head-gears he haddesigned, gazing at him from amid the pastoral ribbons of Shepherd'sBush or from under the sombre hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And theinterview which was promised him with the Provost of North Kensingtonhe anticipated with a particular pleasure, for "he never reallyenjoyed, " he said, "the full richness of the mediæval garments unlessthe people compelled to wear them were very angry and business-like. "

Mr. Buck was both. At the King's command the door of theaudience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in the purplecolours of Mr. Buck's commonwealth emblazoned with the Great Eaglewhich the King had attributed to North Kensington, in vaguereminiscence of Russia, for he always insisted on regarding NorthKensington as some kind of semi-arctic neighbourhood. The heraldannounced that the Provost of that city desired audience of the King. 

"From North Kensington?" said the King, rising graciously. "What newsdoes he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He iswelcome. "

The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed bytwelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendantbearing the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendantbearing the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face andsteady eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man ofbusiness, and consciously braced himself. 

"Well, well, " he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from adaïs, and striking his hands lightly together, "I am glad to see you. Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything. "

"I don't understand your Majesty, " said the Provost, stolidly. 

"Never mind, never mind, " said the King, gaily. "A knowledge of Courtsis by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt. "

The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black browsand said again without show of civility--

"I don't follow you. "

"Well, well, " replied the King, good-naturedly, "if you ask me I don'tmind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to theseforms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual--it isusual--that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty tolie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towardsheaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times 'Monarchicalinstitutions improve the manners. ' But there, there--such pomp is farless truly dignified than your simple kindliness. "

The Provost's face was red with anger, and he maintained silence. 

"And now, " said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of aman softening a snub; "what delightful weather we are having! You mustfind your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your ownsnow-bound land. "

"They're as hot as hell, " said Buck, briefly. "I came here onbusiness. "

"Right, " said the King, nodding a great number of times with quiteunmeaning solemnity; "right, right, right. Business, as the sad gladold Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pento the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know notwhence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you knownot when you go nor where. "

The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagelyflapped them open. 

"Your Majesty may have heard, " he began, sarcastically, "ofHammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten yearsbuying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensationand squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing isstopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was abusiness man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he'sdead, and the cursed lot has fallen on a young man named Wayne, who'sup to some game that's perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer hima better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won't let the roadgo through. And his Council seems to be backing him up. It's midsummermadness. "

The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing theProvost's nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last twowords. 

"What a perfect phrase that is!" he said. "'Midsummer madness'!"

"The chief point is, " continued Buck, doggedly, "that the only partthat is really in question is one dirty little street--Pump Street--astreet with nothing in it but a public-house and a penny toy-shop, andthat sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill haveaccepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out overPump Street. Says he's Provost of Notting Hill. He's only Provost ofPump Street. "

"A good thought, " replied Auberon. "I like the idea of a Provost ofPump Street. Why not let him alone?"

"And drop the whole scheme!" cried out Buck, with a burst of brutalspirit. "I'll be damned if we do. No. I'm for sending in workmen topull down without more ado. "

"Strike for the purple Eagle!" cried the King, hot with historicalassociations. 

"I'll tell you what it is, " said Buck, losing his temper altogether. "If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable peoplewith your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of thenation--"

The King's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. 

"The situation is not bad, " he said; "the haughty burgher defying theKing in his own Palace. The burgher's head should be thrown back andthe right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, butthat I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back inthis chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please. "

Buck's mouth opened like a dog's, but before he could speak anotherherald appeared at the door. 

"The Lord High Provost of Bayswater, " he said, "desires an audience. "

"Admit him, " said Auberon. "This _is_ a jolly day. "

The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, andthe banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a greenbay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of hisresearches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaintold punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater. 

"It is a fit symbol, " said the King, "your immortal bay-wreath. Fulhammay seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men ofBayswater care for anything but glory?"

Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green andsilver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious littleman with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuffshop. 

"Our cousin of Bayswater, " said the King, with delight; "what can weget for you?" The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, "Coldbeef, cold 'am, cold chicken, " his voice dying into silence. 

"I came to see your Majesty, " said the Provost of Bayswater, whosename was Wilson, "about that Pump Street affair. "

"I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty, " said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. "I am not sure, however, whetherhis Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also. "

"It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme wasstarted for the benefit of the 'ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and mewe put our 'eads together--"

The King clasped his hands. 

"Perfect!" he cried in ecstacy. "Your heads together! I can see it!Can't you do it now? Oh, do do it now!"

A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merelydiabolical. 

"I suppose, " he began bitterly, but the King stopped him with agesture of listening. 

"Hush, " he said, "I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hearanother herald, a herald whose boots creak. "

As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway--

"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience. "

"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!" cried the King. "Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? Ifthe tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy hewants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?"

Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, andwhose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blueand gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all thedresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than therest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing evenhis preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but withthe slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in theold way. 

"Your Majesty--pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man in PumpStreet. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what isnecessary. I--"

The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazedwith the trappings of three cities. 

"There is one thing necessary, " he said. 

"Yes, your Majesty, " said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly. "What does yer Majesty think necessary?"

"A little yellow, " said the King, firmly. "Send for the Provost ofWest Kensington. "

Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for, and arrived with hisyellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with ahandkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to sayon the matter. 

"Welcome, West Kensington, " said the King. "I have long wished to seeyou touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of theRowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost ofHammersmith? You have only to do him homage by putting his left armin his overcoat and then marching home in state. "

"No, your Majesty; I'd rather not, " said the Provost of WestKensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache andwhiskers, who kept a successful dairy. 

The King struck him heartily on the shoulder. 

"The fierce old West Kensington blood, " he said; "they are not wisewho ask it to do homage. "

Then he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunsetof colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists--thesight of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In theforeground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itselfagainst the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests ofthese again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodlandcolours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, thegreat purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal andblack. 

"There is something lacking, " said the King--"something lacking. Whatcan--Ah, there it is! there it is!"

In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. Hecried in a loud but unemotional voice--

"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires an audience. "

CHAPTER III--_Enter a Lunatic_

The King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfatherof King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular dayto his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of theProvost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicableaddition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men whocarried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merelyfor the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with acomparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King'sintellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arroganceof their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. Butthese Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with goldhad the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, tobe taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into positionwith an almost startling dignity and discipline. 

They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the Kingas the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in theneighbourhood, which he once frequented. 

Between the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the Kinga tall, red-haired young man, with high features and bold blue eyes. He would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable airof his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs, gave him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red, according to the King's heraldry, and, alone among the Provosts, hewas girt with a great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractableProvost of Notting Hill. 

The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands. 

"What a day, what a day!" he said to himself. "Now there'll be a row. I'd no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so veryindignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the lookin his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in thoselarge blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He'llremonstrate with the others, and they'll remonstrate with him, andthey'll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me. "

"Welcome, my Lord, " he said aloud. "What news from the Hill of aHundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know thattroubles have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, butthese troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, andcannot doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no lessardent, than theirs. "

Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker's nostrils curled;Wilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensingtonfollowed in a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne neverchanged, and he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall--

"I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have--mysword. "

And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt onone knee behind it. 

There was a dead silence. 

"I beg your pardon, " said the King, blankly. 

"You speak well, sire, " said Adam Wayne, "as you ever speak, when yousay that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it beif it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme--the child ofthe great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me, and I swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast. "

[Illustration: "I BRING HOMAGE TO MY KING. "]

The eyes of all five men stood out of their heads. 

Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: "Is the whole world mad?"

The King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed. 

"Yes, " he cried, in a voice of exultation, "the whole world is mad, but Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago, James Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you carefor politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad, because he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilsonis mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinkshimself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, becausehe thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is achicken. All men are mad but the humorist, who cares for nothing andpossesses everything. I thought that there was only one humorist inEngland. Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! InNotting Hill--in that unpromising elevation--there has been born anartist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, bybecoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and morebustling and rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you bybecoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and moreancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He hasanswered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He haslifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrablepomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my Lord, about Pump Street?"

"About the city of Notting Hill, " answered Wayne, proudly, "of whichPump Street is a living and rejoicing part. "

"Not a very large part, " said Barker, contemptuously. 

"That which is large enough for the rich to covet, " said Wayne, drawing up his head, "is large enough for the poor to defend. "

The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in theair. 

"Every respectable person in Notting Hill, " cut in Buck, with hiscold, coarse voice, "is for us and against you. I have plenty offriends in Notting Hill. "

"Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men'shearthstones, my Lord Buck, " said Provost Wayne. "I can well believethey are your friends. "

"They've never sold dirty toys, anyhow, " said Buck, laughing shortly. 

"They've sold dirtier things, " said Wayne, calmly: "they have soldthemselves. "

"It's no good, my Buckling, " said the King, rolling about on hischair. "You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can't copewith an artist. You can't cope with the humorist of Notting Hill. Oh, _Nunc dimittis_--that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, youstand firm?"

"Let them wait and see, " said Wayne. "If I stood firm before, do youthink I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For Ifight for something greater, if greater there can be, than thehearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight foryour royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of theFree Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggarand you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance andyou had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be takenby any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of NottingHill is a gift from your Majesty, and if it is taken from me, by God!it shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall beheard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood. "

"It is too much--it is too much, " said the King. "Nature is weak. Imust speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let meask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of NottingHill, don't you think it splendid?"

"Splendid!" cried Adam Wayne. "It has the splendour of God. "

"Bowled out again, " said the King. "You will keep up the pose. Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn't it funny?"

"What?" asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby. 

"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business--the Charter ofthe Cities. Isn't it immense?"

"Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design. "

"Oh, hang you! But, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room ofthese reasonable sows. You want the two humorists alone together. Leave us, gentlemen. "

Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the wholepageant of blue and green, of red, gold, and purple, rolled out ofthe room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in hisseat on the daïs, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floorbefore his fallen sword. 

The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back. 

"Before the stars were made, " he cried, "we were made for each other. It is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street. That is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous. "

The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger. 

"Ludicrous!" he cried, with a fiery face. 

"Oh, come, come, " said the King, impatiently, "you needn't keep it upwith me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of theeyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but asdramatic critics. Isn't it a joke?"

Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrainedvoice--

"I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fightfor your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of thegold hunt. "

"Oh, damn your--But what's this? What the devil's this?"

The King stared into the young Provost's face, and in the twilight ofthe room began to see that his face was quite white and his lipshaking. 

"What in God's name is the matter?" cried Auberon, holding his wrist. 

Wayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it. 

"I am only a boy, " he said, "but it's true. I would paint the Red Lionon my shield if I had only my blood. "

King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, thunderstruck. 

"My God in Heaven!" he said; "is it possible that there is within thefour seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?"

"And my God in Heaven!" said Wayne passionately; "is it possible thatthere is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take itseriously?"

The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the daïs, like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked hisheels. 

"If this sort of thing is to go on, " he said weakly, "I shall begin todoubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven's name, do not playwith me. Do you really mean that you are--God help me!--a Notting Hillpatriot; that you are--?"

Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly. 

"All right--all right--I see you are; but let me take it in. You doreally propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards andinspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it?"

"Are they so terrible?" asked Wayne, scornfully. 

The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity. 

"And I suppose, " he said, "that you think that the dentists and smalltradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally withwar-hymns to your standard?"

"If they have blood they will, " said the Provost. 

"And I suppose, " said the King, with his head back among the cushions, "that it never crossed your mind that"--his voice seemed to loseitself luxuriantly--"never crossed your mind that any one ever thoughtthat the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was--er--slightly--slightlyridiculous?"

"Of course they think so, " said Wayne. 

"What was the meaning of mocking the prophets?"

"Where, " asked the King, leaning forward--"where in Heaven's name didyou get this miraculously inane idea?"

"You have been my tutor, Sire, " said the Provost, "in all that is highand honourable. "

"Eh?" said the King. 

"It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame. Ten years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing onthe slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet, dreaming of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword, and stood petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King, as you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people'swelfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understandKingliness. You neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards. You invoked no punishments. But in august and burning words, which arewritten in my soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn mysword against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointingto the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. 'So long, ' you said, 'as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it wereringed with all the armies of Bayswater. ' I have not forgotten thewords, and I have reason now to remember them, for the hour is comeand the crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with thearmies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die. "

The King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck. 

"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord, " he murmured, "what a life! what a life! All mywork! I seem to have done it all. So you're the red-haired boy thathit me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? Ithought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried tocompose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through intoan epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord's name, wasn't the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour toamuse you, and I seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What's to bedone with people when you write a pantomime for them--call thesausages classic festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy ofpublic duty? But why am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a niceyoung gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What isthe good of anything? Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"

Suddenly he pulled himself upright. 

"Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?"

"Absurd?" asked Wayne, blankly. "Why should I?"

The King stared back equally blankly. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said. 

"Notting Hill, " said the Provost, simply, "is a rise or high ground ofthe common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in whichthey are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I thinkit absurd?"

The King smiled. 

"Because, my Leonidas--" he began, then suddenly, he knew not how, found his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Whywas it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. Hefelt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with aquestion. Barker always felt so when the King said, "Why trouble aboutpolitics?"

The King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them. 

"It is generally felt to be a little funny, " he said vaguely. 

"I suppose, " said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness--"Isuppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?"

"Well, I--" began Auberon--"I admit I have generally thought it hadits graver side. "

"Then you are wrong, " said Wayne, with incredible violence. "Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurdand obscene kind of impaling reserved for people who were made to belaughed at--for slaves and provincials, for dentists and smalltradesmen, as you would say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape, which the little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgarjoke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shallI turn back?"

The King made no answer. 

Adam went on, his voice ringing in the roof. 

"This laughter with which men tyrannise is not the great power youthink it. Peter was crucified, and crucified head downwards. Whatcould be funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upsidedown? What could be more in the style of your modern humour? But whatwas the good of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter tomankind. Upside down he stills hangs over Europe, and millions moveand breathe only in the life of his Church. "

King Auberon got up absently. 

"There is something in what you say, " he said. "You seem to have beenthinking, young man. "

"Only feeling, sire, " answered the Provost. "I was born, like othermen, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys'games there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends throughnights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. Theselittle gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we broughtout our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they beabsurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poeticwhen for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellowevening in a certain street without being wracked with something ofwhich God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy?Why should any one be able to raise a laugh by saying 'the Cause ofNotting Hill'?--Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blazewith alternate hope and fear. "

Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousnesson his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose ofhis humour. 

"It is very difficult, " he said at last. "It is a damned difficultthing. I see what you mean; I agree with you even up to a point--or Ishould like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophetand poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to thewords 'Notting Hill. ' And then I regret to say that the old Adamawakes roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam, whose name is Wayne. "

For the first time Provost Wayne was silent, and stood gazing dreamilyat the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker. 

"I know, " he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, "there is truthin what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names--Ionly say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughtsare rather terrible. "

"What thoughts?" asked Auberon. 

The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind oftrance; in his eyes was an elvish light. 

"I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two mayrightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear, stronger than those who use it--often frightful, often wicked to use. But whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common; whateveris touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch, with this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, menwill love them, and be afraid of them for ever. "

"What the devil are you talking about?" asked the King. 

"It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlastcathedrals, " went on the madman. "Why should it not make lamp-postsfairer than Greek lamps; and an omnibus-ride like a painted ship? Thetouch of it is the finger of a strange perfection. "

"What is your wand?" cried the King, impatiently. 

"There it is, " said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his swordlay flat and shining. 

"The sword!" cried the King; and sprang up straight on the daïs. 

"Yes, yes, " cried Wayne, hoarsely. "The things touched by that arenot vulgar; the things touched by that--"

King Auberon made a gesture of horror. 

"You will shed blood for that!" he cried. "For a cursed point ofview--"

"Oh, you kings, you kings!" cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. "Howhumane you are, how tender, how considerate! You will make war for afrontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood forthe precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for thethings that make life itself worthy or miserable--how humane you are!I say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never anynecessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just warsbut the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but thereligious wars. For these men were fighting for something thatclaimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barkerand these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch ofthe ground, hurt every brick of the houses, that they can reallycapture. Do you think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, youwhose English Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, asyour rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark aboveus, what should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Edenof childhood and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and noscriptures are sacred, what is sacred if a man's own youth is notsacred?"

The King walked a little restlessly up and down the daïs. 

"It is hard, " he said, biting his lips, "to assent to a view sodesperate--so responsible. .. . "

As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and throughthe aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal, but well-bred voice of Barker. 

"I said to him quite plainly--the public interests--"

Auberon turned on Wayne with violence. 

"What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying?Have you hypnotised me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Giveme back my sense of humour. Give it me back--give it me back, I say!"

"I solemnly assure you, " said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as iffeeling all over himself, "that I haven't got it. "

The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisianlaughter. 

"I don't think you have, " he cried. 

BOOK III

CHAPTER I--_The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne_

A little while after the King's accession a small book of poemsappeared, called "Hymns on the Hill. " They were not good poems, norwas the book successful, but it attracted a certain amount ofattention from one particular school of critics. The King himself, whowas a member of the school, reviewed it in his capacity of literarycritic to "Straight from the Stables, " a sporting journal. They wereknown as the Hammock School, because it had been calculatedmalignantly by an enemy that no less than thirteen of their delicatecriticisms had begun with the words, "I read this book in a hammock:half asleep in the sleepy sunlight, I . .. "; after that there wereimportant differences. Under these conditions they liked everything, but especially everything silly. "Next to authentic goodness in abook, " they said--"next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness. " Thus it happened thattheir praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was notuniversally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted whenthey found the eye of the Hammock School fixed upon them with peculiarfavour. 

The peculiarity of "Hymns on the Hill" was the celebration of thepoetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. Thissentiment or affectation was, of course, not uncommon in the twentiethcentury, nor was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimesartificial, by any means without a great truth at its root, for thereis one respect in which a town must be more poetical than the country, since it is closer to the spirit of man; for London, if it be not oneof the masterpieces of man, is at least one of his sins. A street isreally more poetical than a meadow, because a street has a secret. Astreet is going somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case ofthe book called "Hymns on the Hill, " there was another peculiarity, which the King pointed out with great acumen in his review. He wasnaturally interested in the matter, for he had himself published avolume of lyrics about London under his pseudonym of "Daisy Daydream. "

This difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the fact that, while mere artificers like "Daisy Daydream" (on whose elaborate stylethe King, over his signature of "Thunderbolt, " was perhaps somewhattoo severe) thought to praise London by comparing it to thecountry--using nature, that is, as a background from which allpoetical images had to be drawn--the more robust author of "Hymns onthe Hill" praised the country, or nature, by comparing it to the town, and used the town itself as a background. "Take, " said the critic, "the typically feminine lines, 'To the Inventor of The Hansom Cab'--

'Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell. '"

"Surely, " wrote the King, "no one but a woman could have written thoselines. A woman has always a weakness for nature; with her art is onlybeautiful as an echo or shadow of it. She is praising the hansom cabby theme and theory, but her soul is still a child by the sea, pickingup shells. She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed, do we not speak (with sacred propriety) of 'a man about town'? Whoever spoke of a woman about town? However much, physically, 'abouttown' a woman may be, she still models herself on nature; she tries tocarry nature with her; she bids grasses to grow on her head, and furrybeasts to bite her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, shemodels her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with ournobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign ofcivilisation. And rather than be without birds, she will commitmassacre, that she may turn her head into a tree, with dead birds tosing on it. "

This kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the criticremembered his subject, and returned to it. 

"Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell. "

"The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines, " continued"Thunderbolt, " "is, as we have said, that they praise the hansom cabby comparing it to the shell, to a natural thing. Now, hear the authorof 'Hymns on the Hill, ' and how he deals with the same subject. In hisfine nocturne, entitled 'The Last Omnibus' he relieves the rich andpoignant melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of rushing at theend--

'The wind round the old street cornerSwung sudden and quick as a cab. '

"Here the distinction is obvious. 'Daisy Daydream' thinks it a greatcompliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of the spiralchambers of the sea. And the author of 'Hymns on the Hill' thinks it agreat compliment to the immortal whirlwind to be compared to a hackneycoach. He surely is the real admirer of London. We have no space tospeak of all his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem inwhich, for instance, a lady's eyes are compared, not to stars, but totwo perfect street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no space tospeak of the fine lyric, recalling the Elizabethan spirit, in whichthe poet, instead of saying that the rose and the lily contend in hercomplexion, says, with a purer modernism, that the red omnibus ofHammersmith and the white omnibus of Fulham fight there for themastery. How perfect the image of two contending omnibuses!"

Here, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because theKing had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in some wantof money. But the King was a very good critic, whatever he may havebeen as King, and he had, to a considerable extent, hit the right nailon the head. "Hymns on the Hill" was not at all like the poemsoriginally published in praise of the poetry of London. And thereason was that it was really written by a man who had seen nothingelse but London, and who regarded it, therefore, as the universe. Itwas written by a raw, red-headed lad of seventeen, named Adam Wayne, who had been born in Notting Hill. An accident in his seventh yearprevented his being taken away to the seaside, and thus his whole lifehad been passed in his own Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. Andthe consequence was, that he saw the street-lamps as things quite aseternal as the stars; the two fires were mingled. He saw the houses asthings enduring, like the mountains, and so he wrote about them as onewould write about mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaksto every man; to this man she put on the disguise of Notting Hill. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Cumberland hills, a stormysky-line and sudden rocks. Nature would mean to a poet born in theEssex flats, a waste of splendid waters and splendid sunsets. Sonature meant to this man Wayne a line of violet roofs and lemon lamps, the chiaroscuro of the town. He did not think it clever or funny topraise the shadows and colours of the town; he had seen no othershadows or colours, and so he praised them--because they were shadowsand colours. He saw all this because he was a poet, though in practicea bad poet. It is too often forgotten that just as a bad man isnevertheless a man, so a bad poet is nevertheless a poet. 

Mr. Wayne's little volume of verse was a complete failure; and hesubmitted to the decision of fate with a quite rational humility, wentback to his work, which was that of a draper's assistant, and wrote nomore. He still retained his feeling about the town of Notting Hill, because he could not possibly have any other feeling, because it wasthe back and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made anyparticular attempt to express it or insist upon it. 

He was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on the borderof fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to realise how often theboundary of fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet fromhim (for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow sunsof the gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchardof fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land. 

But, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that he came tohis strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure inliterature that he became a portent in English history. He was one ofthose to whom nature has given the desire without the power ofartistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He mighthave been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness atreasure of new and sensational song. But he was born under the luckystar of a single coincidence. He happened to be at the head of hisdingy municipality at the time of the King's jest, at the time whenall municipalities were suddenly commanded to break out into bannersand flowers. Out of the long procession of the silent poets, who havebeen passing since the beginning of the world, this one man foundhimself in the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act andspeak and live lyrically. While the author and the victims aliketreated the whole matter as a silly public charade, this one man, bytaking it seriously, sprang suddenly into a throne of artisticomnipotence. Armour, music, standards, watch-fires, the noise ofdrums, all the theatrical properties were thrown before him. This onepoor rhymster, having burnt his own rhymes, began to live that life ofopen air and acted poetry of which all the poets of the earth havedreamed in vain; the life for which the Iliad is only a cheapsubstitute. 

Upwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown stronglyand silently in a certain quality or capacity which is in moderncities almost entirely artificial, but which can be natural, and wasprimarily almost brutally natural in him, the quality or capacity ofpatriotism. It exists, like other virtues and vices, in a certainundiluted reality. It is not confused with all kinds of other things. A child speaking of his country or his village may make every mistakein Mandeville or tell every lie in Munchausen, but in his statementthere will be no psychological lies any more than there can be in agood song. Adam Wayne, as a boy, had for his dull streets in NottingHill the ultimate and ancient sentiment that went out to Athens orJerusalem. He knew the secret of the passion, those secrets which makereal old national songs sound so strange to our civilisation. He knewthat real patriotism tends to sing about sorrows and forlorn hopesmuch more than about victory. He knew that in proper names themselvesis half the poetry of all national poems. Above all, he knew thesupreme psychological fact about patriotism, as certain in connectionwith it as that a fine shame comes to all lovers, the fact that thepatriot never under any circumstances boasts of the largeness of hiscountry, but always, and of necessity, boasts of the smallness of it. 

All this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a genius, butbecause he was a child. Any one who cares to walk up a side slum likePump Street, can see a little Adam claiming to be king of apaving-stone. And he will always be proudest if the stone is almosttoo narrow for him to keep his feet inside it. 

It was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking outsome strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughtyclaim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung inmockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful idea of the defence of Notting Hill in warbecame to him a thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting apipe. He disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, layawake in the night and went over it again. Two or three shops were tohim an arsenal; an area was to him a moat; corners of balconies andturns of stone steps were points for the location of a culverin or anarcher. It is almost impossible to convey to any ordinary imaginationthe degree to which he had transmitted the leaden London landscape toa romantic gold. The process began almost in babyhood, and becamehabitual like a literal madness. It was felt most keenly at night, when London is really herself, when her lights shine in the dark likethe eyes of innumerable cats, and the outline of the dark houses hasthe bold simplicity of blue hills. But for him the night revealedinstead of concealing, and he read all the blank hours of morning andafternoon, by a contradictory phrase, in the light of that darkness. To this man, at any rate, the inconceivable had happened. Theartificial city had become to him nature, and he felt the curbstonesand gas-lamps as things as ancient as the sky. 

One instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a friend, hesaid, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a little front garden, "How those railings stir one's blood!"

His friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, looked at thempainfully, but without any particular emotion. He was so troubledabout it that he went back quite a large number of times on quietevenings and stared at the railings, waiting for something to happento his blood, but without success. At last he took refuge in askingWayne himself. He discovered that the ecstacy lay in the one point hehad never noticed about the railings even after his six visits--thefact that they were, like the great majority of others--in London, shaped at the top after the manner of a spear. As a child, Wayne hadhalf unconsciously compared them with the spears in pictures ofLancelot and St. George, and had grown up under the shadow of thegraphic association. Now, whenever he looked at them, they were simplythe serried weapons that made a hedge of steel round the sacred homesof Notting Hill. He could not have cleansed his mind of that meaningeven if he tried. It was not a fanciful comparison, or anything likeit. It would not have been true to say that the familiar railingsreminded him of spears; it would have been far truer to say that thefamiliar spears occasionally reminded him of railings. 

A couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam Wayne waspacing like a caged lion in front of five shops that occupied theupper end of the disputed street. They were a grocer's, a chemist's, abarber's, an old curiosity shop and a toy-shop that sold alsonewspapers. It was these five shops which his childish fastidiousnesshad first selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, thecitadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the universe, and Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, this was the heart ofPump Street. The fact that they were all small and side by siderealised that feeling for a formidable comfort and compactness which, as we have said, was the heart of his patriotism, and of allpatriotism. The grocer (who had a wine and spirit licence) wasincluded because he could provision the garrison; the old curiosityshop because it contained enough swords, pistols, partisans, cross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole irregular regiment; thetoy and paper shop because Wayne thought a free press an essentialcentre for the soul of Pump Street; the chemist's to cope withoutbreaks of disease among the besieged; and the barber's because itwas in the middle of all the rest, and the barber's son was anintimate friend and spiritual affinity. 

It was a cloudless October evening settling down through purple intopure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the steep little street, which looked black and sharp and dramatic. In the deep shadows thegas-lit shop fronts gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them, darkly outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, passedto and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose of Adam Wayne. 

He swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking to himself. 

"There are, after all, enigmas, " he said "even to the man who hasfaith. There are doubts that remain even after the true philosophy iscompleted in every rung and rivet. And here is one of them. Is thenormal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower thanthose special states of the soul which call out a doubtful anddangerous glory? those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice whichare made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should comefirst to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace or thehalf-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come first, the mangreat in the daily round or the man great in emergency? Which shouldcome first, to return to the enigma before me, the grocer or thechemist? Which is more certainly the stay of the city, the swiftchivalrous chemist or the benignant all-providing grocer? In suchultimate spiritual doubts it is only possible to choose a side by thehigher instincts, and to abide the issue. In any case, I have made mychoice. May I be pardoned if I choose wrongly, but I choose thegrocer. "

"Good morning, sir, " said the grocer, who was a middle-aged man, partially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and forehead linedwith all the cares of the small tradesman. "What can I do for you, sir?"

Wayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a ceremoniousgesture, which, slight as it was, made the tradesman eye him with thebeginnings of wonder. 

"I come, sir, " he said soberly, "to appeal to your patriotism. "

"Why, sir, " said the grocer, "that sounds like the times when I was aboy and we used to have elections. "

"You will have them again, " said Wayne, firmly, "and far greaterthings. Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations which a grocer has toa too cosmopolitan philosophy. I can imagine what it must be to sitall day as you do surrounded with wares from all the ends of theearth, from strange seas that we have never sailed and strange foreststhat we could not even picture. No Eastern king ever had suchargosies or such cargoes coming from the sunrise and the sunset, andSolomon in all his glory was not enriched like one of you. India is atyour elbow, " he cried, lifting his voice and pointing his stick at adrawer of rice, the grocer making a movement of some alarm, "China isbefore you, Demerara is behind you, America is above your head, and atthis very moment, like some old Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis inyour hands. "

Mr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, and thenpicked it up again vaguely. 

Wayne went on with a heightened colour, but a lowered voice, "I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal avision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall likemany tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but ratherto be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrownationalism be the danger of the pastry-cook, who makes his own waresunder his own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of thegrocer. But I come to you in the name of that patriotism which nowanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I askyou to remember Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitanmagnificence, she has played no small part. Your dates may come fromthe tall palms of Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of thetropics, your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of theDragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have beenspoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans speared under thePolar Star. But you yourself--surely no inconsiderable treasure--youyourself, the brain that wields these vast interests--you yourself, atleast, have grown to strength and wisdom between these grey houses andunder this rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made yourfortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the ends ofthe earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and fruits from theSouth; rices are from India and spices from Ceylon; sheep are from NewZealand and men from Notting Hill. "

The grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his mouthopen, looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched the back of hishead, and said nothing. Then he said--

"Anything out of the shop, sir?"

Wayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of pine-applechunks, he waved his stick generally towards them. 

"Yes, " he said; "I'll take those. "

"All those, sir?" said the grocer, with greatly increased interest. 

"Yes, yes; all those, " replied Wayne, still a little bewildered, likea man splashed with cold water. 

"Very good, sir; thank you, sir, " said the grocer with animation. "Youmay count upon my patriotism, sir. "

"I count upon it already, " said Wayne, and passed out into thegathering night. 

The grocer put the box of dates back in its place. 

"What a nice fellow he is!" he said. "It's odd how often they arenice. Much nicer than those as are all right. "

Meanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist's shop, unmistakably wavering. 

"What a weakness it is!" he muttered. "I have never got rid of it fromchildhood--the fear of this magic shop. The grocer is rich, he isromantic, he is poetical in the truest sense, but he is not--no, he isnot supernatural. But the chemist! All the other shops stand inNotting Hill, but this stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burningbowls of colour. It must be from them that God paints the sunsets. Itis superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny when it isbeneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But Imust be a man and enter. "

He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind thecounter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirelybusiness-like smile. 

"A fine evening, sir, " he said. 

"Fine indeed, strange Father, " said Adam, stretching his handssomewhat forward. "It is on such clear and mellow nights that yourshop is most itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons ofgreen and gold and crimson, which from afar oft guide the pilgrim ofpain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft. "

"Can I get you anything?" asked the chemist. 

"Let me see, " said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. "Let me havesome sal volatile. "

"Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?" said the youngman, genially. 

"One and six--one and six, " replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness. "I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question. "

He paused and collected himself. 

"It is necessary, " he muttered--"it is necessary to be tactful, and tosuit the appeal to each profession in turn. "

"I come, " he resumed aloud, "to ask you a question which goes to theroots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witcherycease?" And he waved his stick around the shop. 

Meeting with no answer, he continued with animation--

"In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of yourprofession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened. "

"Anything more, sir?" asked the chemist. 

"Oh, " said Wayne, somewhat disturbed--"oh, what is it chemists sell?Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met thesemen of Bayswater and North Kensington--Mr. Bowles, they arematerialists. They see no witchery in your work, even when it iswrought within their own borders. They think the chemist iscommonplace. They think him human. "

The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult, and immediately said--

"And the next article, please?"

"Alum, " said the Provost, wildly. "I resume. It is in this sacredtown alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when youfight for us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything youtypify. You fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for assurely as Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense ofFairyland in some strange manner diminishes. "

"Anything more, sir?" asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfulness. 

"Oh yes, jujubes--Gregory powder--magnesia. The danger is imminent. Inall this matter I have felt that I fought not merely for my own city(though to that I owe all my blood), but for all places in which thesegreat ideas could prevail. I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill, but for Bayswater itself; for North Kensington itself. For if thegold-hunters prevail, these also will lose all their ancientsentiments and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I cancount upon you. "

"Oh yes, sir, " said the chemist, with great animation; "we are alwaysglad to oblige a good customer. "

Adam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of fulfilment ofsoul. 

"It is so fortunate, " he said, "to have tact, to be able to play uponthe peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of thegrocer and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where should I bewithout tact?"

CHAPTER II--_The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull_

After two more interviews with shopmen, however, the patriot'sconfidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane. Despite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale andthe peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be somethingunresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentmentagainst the uninitiate for peeping into their masonic magnificence, hecould not quite conjecture. 

His conversation with the man who kept the shop of curiosities hadbegun encouragingly. The man who kept the shop of curiosities had, indeed, enchanted him with a phrase. He was standing drearily at thedoor of his shop, a wrinkled man with a grey pointed beard, evidentlya gentleman who had come down in the world. 

"And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?"said Wayne, affably. 

"Well, sir, not very well, " replied the man, with that patient voiceof his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in theworld. "Things are terribly quiet. "

Wayne's eyes shone suddenly. 

"A great saying, " he said, "worthy of a man whose merchandise is humanhistory. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age, as I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many otherpeople felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I see blank well-ordered streets and men in black moving aboutinoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, andnothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wakescreaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of athin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snapwith a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the _débris_ of thegreat wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know thatwar was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idlelads who carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rudeSquire or Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberlandbattles, may have been terribly noisy, but were not like us, terriblyquiet. "

Whether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the originalsource and date of the weapons referred to, or merely an engraineddepression, the guardian of the past looked, if anything, a littlemore worried. 

"But I do not think, " continued Wayne, "that this horrible silence ofmodernity will last, though I think for the present it will increase. What a farce is this modern liberality! Freedom of speech meanspractically, in our modern civilisation, that we must only talk aboutunimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that isilliberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that istalking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; wemust not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last. Something must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamyegoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something mustbreak it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else butguard relics?"

The shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which would have ledthose unsympathetic with the cause of the Red Lion to think that thelast sentence was the only one to which he had attached any meaning. 

"I am rather old to go into a new business, " he said, "and I don'tquite know what to be, either. "

"Why not, " said Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of hisdelicate persuasion--"why not be a colonel?"

It was at this point, in all probability, that the interview began toyield more disappointing results. The man appeared inclined at firstto regard the suggestion of becoming a colonel as outside the sphereof immediate and relevant discussion. A long exposition of theinevitable war of independence, coupled with the purchase of adoubtful sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed toresettle matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat infected withthe melancholy of its owner. 

That melancholy was completed at the barber's. 

"Shaving, sir?" inquired that artist from inside his shop. 

"War!" replied Wayne, standing on the threshold. 

"I beg your pardon, " said the other, sharply. 

"War!" said Wayne, warmly. "But not for anything inconsistent with thebeautiful and the civilised arts. War for beauty. War for society. Warfor peace. A great chance is offered you of repelling that slanderwhich, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributespoltroonery to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. Why should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not--"

"Now, you get out, " said the barber, irascibly. "We don't want any ofyour sort here. You get out. "

And he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild person whenenraged. 

Adam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then dropped it. 

"Notting Hill, " he said, "will need her bolder sons;" and he turnedgloomily to the toy-shop. 

It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the sidestreets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toysupon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consistof almost everything else in the world--tobacco, exercise-books, sweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencilsharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold newspapers, and a row of dirty-looking posters hung along the front of it. 

"I am afraid, " said Wayne, as he entered, "that I am not getting onwith these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I have neglected to riseto the full meaning of their work? Is there some secret buried in eachof these shops which no mere poet can discover?"

He stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly conqueredas he addressed the man on the other side of it, --a man of shortstature, and hair prematurely white, and the look of a large baby. 

"Sir, " said Wayne, "I am going from house to house in this street ofours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger which now threatensour city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so difficult as here. For thetoy-shop keeper has to do with all that remains to us of Eden beforethe first wars began. You sit here meditating continually upon thewants of that wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars, and every garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is itthoughtlessly, do you think, that I strike the dark old drum of perilin the paradise of children? But consider a moment; do not condemn mehastily. Even that paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning ofthat danger, just as the Eden that was made for perfection containedthe terrible tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal ofits pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless, the witness of the constructive instinct older than the destructive. You keep dolls; you make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry. You keep Noah's Arks; you perpetuate the memory of the salvation ofall life as a precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only, sir, the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish rationalityof the earth? Do you not keep more terrible things? What are thoseboxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Arethey not witnesses to that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovelydeath, which could not be excluded even from the immortality of Eden?Do not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull. "

"I don't, " said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with greatemphasis. 

"I am glad to hear it, " replied Wayne. "I confess that I feared for mymilitary schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How, Ithought to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords thatgive pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am atleast partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at leastthe entry of a gate of your fairyland--the gate through which thesoldiers enter, for it cannot be denied--I ought, sir, no longer todeny, that it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentleemployment make you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Letyour own silvery experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For thereis war in Notting Hill. "

The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat handslike two fans on the counter. 

"War?" he cried. "Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke! Oh, what a sight for sore eyes!"

Wayne was almost taken aback by this outburst. 

"I am delighted, " he stammered. "I had no notion--"

He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who tooka flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop. 

"You look here, sir, " he said; "you just look here. "

He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which wereflapping outside his shop. 

"Look at those, sir, " he said, and flung them down on the counter. 

Wayne bent over them, and read on one--

"LAST FIGHTING. REDUCTION OF THE CENTRAL DERVISH CITY. REMARKABLE, ETC. "

On the other he read--

"LAST SMALL REPUBLIC ANNEXED. NICARAGUAN CAPITAL SURRENDERS AFTER AMONTH'S FIGHTING. GREAT SLAUGHTER. "

Wayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he looked at thedates. They were both dated in August fifteen years before. 

"Why do you keep these old things?" he said, startled entirely out ofhis absurd tact of mysticism. "Why do you hang them outside yourshop?"

"Because, " said the other, simply, "they are the records of the lastwar. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be my hobby. "

Wayne lifted his large blue eyes with an infantile wonder. 

"Come with me, " said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a parlour atthe back of the shop. 

In the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it were setrows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which were part of theshopkeeper's stock. The visitor would have thought nothing of it if ithad not been for a certain odd grouping of them, which did not seemeither entirely commercial or entirely haphazard. 

"You are acquainted, no doubt, " said Turnbull, turning his big eyesupon Wayne--"you are acquainted, no doubt, with the arrangement of theAmerican and Nicaraguan troops in the last battle;" and he waved hishand towards the table. 

"I am afraid not, " said Wayne. "I--"

"Ah! you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps, with theDervish affair. You will find it in this corner. " And he pointed to apart of the floor where there was another arrangement of children'ssoldiers grouped here and there. 

"You seem, " said Wayne, "to be interested in military matters. "

"I am interested in nothing else, " answered the toy-shop keeper, simply. 

Wayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed excitement. 

"In that case, " he said, "I may approach you with an unusual degreeof confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of Notting Hill, I--"

"Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir, " said Turnbull, with great perturbation. "Just step into this side room;" and he ledWayne into another apartment, in which the table was entirely coveredwith an arrangement of children's bricks. A second glance at it toldWayne that the bricks were arranged in the form of a precise andperfect plan of Notting Hill. "Sir, " said Turnbull, impressively, "youhave, by a kind of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. Asa boy, I grew up among the last wars of the world, when Nicaragua wastaken and the dervishes wiped out. And I adopted it as a hobby, sir, as you might adopt astronomy or bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will toany one, but I was interested in war as a science, as a game. Andsuddenly I was bowled out. The big Powers of the world, havingswallowed up all the small ones, came to that confounded agreement, and there was no more war. There was nothing more for me to do but todo what I do now--to read the old campaigns in dirty old newspapers, and to work them out with tin soldiers. One other thing had occurredto me. I thought it an amusing fancy to make a plan of how thisdistrict or ours ought to be defended if it were ever attacked. Itseems to interest you too. "

"If it were ever attacked, " repeated Wayne, awed into an almostmechanical enunciation. "Mr. Turnbull, it is attacked. Thank Heaven, Iam bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom theonly good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless. Your work has not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey onyour head, Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not destroyed, He has only deferred it. Let us sit down here, and you shall explainto me this military map of Notting Hill. For you and I have to defendNotting Hill together. "

Mr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then hesitated, andthen sat down beside the bricks and the stranger. He did not riseagain for seven hours, when the dawn broke. 

 * * * * *

The headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his Commander-in-Chiefconsisted of a small and somewhat unsuccessful milk-shop at the cornerof Pump Street. The blank white morning had only just begun to breakover the blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to befound seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had somethingfeminine in his character; he belonged to that class of persons whoforget their meals when anything interesting is in hand. He had hadnothing for sixteen hours but hurried glasses of milk, and, with aglass standing empty beside him, he was writing and sketching anddotting and crossing out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil anda piece of paper. Turnbull was of that more masculine type in which asense of responsibility increases the appetite, and with hissketch-map beside him he was dealing strenuously with a pile ofsandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavernopposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of themspoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except thescratching of Wayne's pencil and the squealing of an aimless-lookingcat. At length Wayne broke the silence by saying--

"Seventeen pounds eight shillings and ninepence. "

Turnbull nodded and put his head in the tankard. 

"That, " said Wayne, "is not counting the five pounds you tookyesterday. What did you do with it?"

"Ah, that is rather interesting!" replied Turnbull, with his mouthfull. "I used that five pounds in a kindly and philanthropic act. "

Wayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and innocent eyes. 

"I used that five pounds, " continued the other, "in giving no lessthan forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs. "

"Are you insane?" asked the Provost. 

"It is only my light touch, " returned Turnbull. "These hansom-cabrides will raise the tone--raise the tone, my dear fellow--of ourLondon youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, makethem acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointedout that political reform is useless until we produce a culturedpopulace. So that twenty years hence, when these boys are grown up--"

"Mad!" said Wayne, laying down his pencil; "and five pounds gone!"

"You are in error, " explained Turnbull. "You grave creatures can neverbe brought to understand how much quicker work really goes with theassistance of nonsense and good meals. Stripped of its decorativebeauties, my statement was strictly accurate. Last night I gave fortyhalf-crowns to forty little boys, and sent them all over London totake hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman tobring them to this spot. In half an hour from now the declaration ofwar will be posted up. At the same time the cabs will have begun tocome in, you will have ordered out the guard, the little boys willdrive up in state, we shall commandeer the horses for cavalry, use thecabs for barricade, and give the men the choice between serving in ourranks and detention in our basements and cellars. The little boys wecan use as scouts. The main thing is that we start the war with anadvantage unknown in all the other armies--horses. And now, " he said, finishing his beer, "I will go and drill the troops. "

And he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost staring. 

A minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only laughed onceor twice in his life, and then he did it in a queer way as if it werean art he had not mastered. Even he saw something funny in thepreposterous coup of the half-crowns and the little boys. He did notsee the monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. Heenjoyed it seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it far morethan any joke can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it partly as a joke, even more perhaps as a reversion from the things he hated--modernityand monotony and civilisation. To break up the vast machinery ofmodern life and use the fragments as engines of war, to make thebarricade of omnibuses and points of vantage of chimney-pots, was tohim a game worth infinite risk and trouble. He had that rational anddeliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peaceof the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short lifeand a merry one. 

CHAPTER III--_The Experiment of Mr. Buck_

An earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King signed withthe names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon, and others. It urged thatat the forthcoming conference to be held in his Majesty's presencetouching the final disposition of the property in Pump Street, itmight be held not inconsistent with political decorum and with theunutterable respect they entertained for his Majesty if they appearedin ordinary morning dress, without the costume decreed for them asProvosts. So it happened that the company appeared at that council infrock-coats and that the King himself limited his love of ceremony toappearing (after his not unusual manner), in evening dress with oneorder--in this case not the Garter, but the button of the Club of OldClipper's Best Pals, a decoration obtained (with difficulty) from ahalfpenny boy's paper. Thus also it happened that the only spot ofcolour in the room was Adam Wayne, who entered in great dignity withthe great red robes and the great sword. 

"We have met, " said Auberon, "to decide the most arduous of modernproblems. May we be successful. " And he sat down gravely. 

Buck turned his chair a little, and flung one leg over the other. 

"Your Majesty, " he said, quite good-humouredly, "there is only onething I can't understand, and that is why this affair is not settledin five minutes. Here's a small property which is worth a thousand tous and is not worth a hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand. It's not business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, andit's not reasonable and it's not fair on us, but I'm damned if I cansee why it's difficult. "

"The difficulty may be very simply stated, " said Wayne. "You may offera million and it will be very difficult for you to get Pump Street. "

"But look here, Mr. Wayne, " cried Barker, striking in with a kind ofcold excitement. "Just look here. You've no right to take up aposition like that. You've a right to stand out for a bigger price, but you aren't doing that. You're refusing what you and every sane manknows to be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite--it must bemalice or spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it'sagainst the public good. The King's Government would be justified inforcing you. "

With his lean fingers spread on the table, he stared anxiously atWayne's face, which did not move. 

"In forcing you . .. It would, " he repeated. 

"It shall, " said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. "Wehave done our best to be decent. "

Wayne lifted his large eyes slowly. 

"Was it my Lord Buck, " he inquired, "who said that the King of England'shall' do something?"

Buck flushed and said testily--

"I mean it must--it ought to. As I say, we've done our best to begenerous; I defy any one to deny it. As it is, Mr. Wayne, I don't wantto say a word that's uncivil. I hope it's not uncivil to say that youcan be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public worksfor a whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his frontgarden or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do whatyou say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sellbefore now. The King could compel you, and I hope he will. "

"Until he does, " said Wayne, calmly, "the power and government ofthis great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defyit. "

"In what sense, " cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, "isthe Government on your side?"

With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on thetable. It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketchesof vestrymen in crowns and wreaths. 

"The Charter of the Cities, " he began. 

Buck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed. 

"That tomfool's joke. Haven't we had enough--"

"And there you sit, " cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voicelike a trumpet, "with no argument but to insult the King before hisface. "

Buck rose also with blazing eyes. 

"I am hard to bully, " he began--and the slow tones of the King struckin with incomparable gravity--

"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present. It is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects. "

Barker turned to him with frantic gestures. 

"For God's sake don't back up the madman now, " he implored. "Haveyour joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--"

"My Lord Provost of South Kensington, " said King Auberon, steadily, "Ido not follow your remarks, which are uttered with a rapidity unusualat Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with yourfingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of NorthKensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of hisSovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Doyou disagree?"

Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed withoutspeaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice--

"My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed. "

Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's surprisethere was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childishdistress. 

"I am sorry, your Majesty, " he said; "I fear I was more than equallyto blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debatingsomewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I amashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore, comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebukechiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did nodoubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the restof the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great goodtemper. "

Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded, and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King, for some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed. 

"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill, " began Buck, pleasantly, "seems to me to show that we have at least got on to afriendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have beenoffered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred. Well, I am a rich man and I won't be outdone in generosity. Let us sayfifteen hundred pounds, and have done with it. And let us shakehands;" and he rose, glowing and laughing. 

"Fifteen hundred pounds, " whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; "can wedo fifteen hundred pounds?"

"I'll stand the racket, " said Buck, heartily. "Mr. Wayne is agentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations areat an end. "

Wayne bowed. 

"They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you theproperty. "

"What?" cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet. 

"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly, " said the King. 

"I have, I have, " cried Buck, springing up also; "I said--"

"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly, " said the King; "the negotiations areat an end. "

All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose withoutexcitement. 

"Have I, then, " he said, "your Majesty's permission to depart? I havegiven my last answer. "

"You have it, " said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes fromthe table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passedout of the room. 

"Well?" said Wilson, turning round to Barker--"well?"

Barker shook his head desperately. 

"The man ought to be in an asylum, " he said. "But one thing isclear--we need not bother further about him. The man can be treated asmad. "

"Of course, " said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness. "You're perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but hecan be treated as mad. Let's put it in simple form. Go and tell anytwelve men in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that thereis a man offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sellcommonly for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for notaccepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill andcalls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? What more can we haveon our side than the common sense of everybody? On what else do alllaws rest? I'll tell you, Barker, what's better than any furtherdiscussion. Let's send in workmen on the spot to pull down PumpStreet. And if old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That'sall. "

Barker's eyes kindled. 

"I always regarded you, Buck, if you don't mind my saying so, as avery strong man. I'll follow you. "

"So, of course, will I, " said Wilson. 

Buck rose again impulsively. 

"Your Majesty, " he said, glowing with popularity, "I beseech yourMajesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committedourselves. Your Majesty's leniency, our own offers, have fallen invain on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. Hemay be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, moreprobable that he is off his head. Unless that assumption were actedon, all human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we proposeto start operations in Notting Hill at once. "

The King leaned back in his chair. 

"The Charter of the Cities . .. , " he said with a rich intonation. 

But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not againmake the mistake of disrespect. 

"Your Majesty, " he said, bowing, "I am not here to say a word againstanything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educatedman than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectualgrounds, for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to yourcommon good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charterof the Cities, did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne?Did you expect that the Charter--whether it was an experiment, or ascheme of decoration, or a joke--could ever really come to this--tostopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road, to spoiling the chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, todisorganising half a city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whateverwere your objects, were they that?"

Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringlystill. 

"Provost Buck, " said Auberon, "you speak in public uncommonly well. Igive you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme didnot include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poeticpower had been great enough. "

"I thank your Majesty, " said Buck, courteously, but quickly. "YourMajesty's statements are always clear and studied; therefore I maydraw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you setyour heart did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it willsurvive his removal. Why not let us clear away this particular PumpStreet, which does interfere with our plans, and which does not, byyour Majesty's own statement, interfere with yours. "

"Caught out!" said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally, as if he were watching a cricket match. 

"This man Wayne, " continued Buck, "would be shut up by any doctors inEngland. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile noone's interests, not even in all probability his own, can be reallydamaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not ourinterests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of tenyears. Not the interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educatedinhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, foryou say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated therise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for theman has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctorswould probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacredmountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so bold aword, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle to our proceedingwith the improvements. "

And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among theallies. 

"Mr. Buck, " said the King, "I beg your pardon, for a number ofbeautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classifiedas a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose yousend in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which, I am sorry to say, I think him quite capable--knockstheir teeth out?"

"I have thought of that, your Majesty, " said Mr. Buck, easily, "and Ithink it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guardof, say, a hundred men--a hundred of the North Kensington Halberdiers"(he smiled grimly), "of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say a hundredand fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only abouta hundred. "

"Still they might stand together and lick you, " said the King, dubiously. 

"Then say two hundred, " said Buck, gaily. 

"It might happen, " said the King, restlessly, "that one Notting Hillerfought better than two North Kensingtons. "

"It might, " said Buck, coolly; "then say two hundred and fifty. "

The King bit his lip. 

"And if they are beaten too?" he said viciously. 

"Your Majesty, " said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair, "suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fightingmatters are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred andfifty, say, of Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one ofthem can fight two of us--we can send in, not four hundred, but sixhundred, and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediateprobability that one of them could fight four of us. So what I say isthis. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in eight hundred men andsmash him--smash him almost without seeing him. And go on with theimprovements. "

And Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose. 

"Do you know, Mr. Buck, " said the King, staring gloomily at the table, "the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind asentiment which I trust I shall not offend you by describing as anaspiration to punch your head. You irritate me sublimely. What can itbe in me? Is it the relic of a moral sense?"

"But your Majesty, " said Barker, eagerly and suavely, "does not refuseour proposals?"

"My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your manners. Iwant to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I stopped themaltogether. What would happen?"

Barker answered in a very low voice--

"Revolution. "

The King glanced quickly at the men round the table. They were alllooking down silently: their brows were red. 

He rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor. 

"Gentlemen, " he said, "you have overruled me. Therefore I can speakplainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth morethan a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, thecommon sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers andsmash him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred. "

"More sportsmanlike, " said Buck, grimly, "but a great deal lesshumane. We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catchour eye in the right way. "

"It is pitiful, " said Auberon. "With five or six times their number, there will be no fight at all. "

"I hope not, " said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. "We desireno fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men. "

"Well, " said the King, wearily, "the conference is at an end at last. "

And he went out of the room before any one else could stir. 

 * * * * *

Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred fromSouth, and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot ofHolland Walk and marched up it, under the general direction of Barker, who looked flushed and happy in full dress. At the end of theprocession a small and sulky figure lingered like an urchin. It wasthe King. 

"Barker, " he said at length, appealingly, "you are an old friend ofmine--you understand my hobbies as I understand yours. Why can't youlet it alone? I hoped that such fun might come out of this Waynebusiness. Why can't you let it alone? It doesn't really so much matterto you--what's a road or so? For me it's the one joke that may save mefrom pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour's fun. Really andtruly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buyone with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collectincidents--those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay afew pounds for it. Give these Notting Hillers a chance. Let themalone. "

"Auberon, " said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles in a raremoment of sincerity, "I do feel what you mean. I have had moments whenthese hobbies have hit me. I have had moments when I have sympathisedwith your humours. I have had moments, though you may not easilybelieve it, when I have sympathised with the madness of Adam Wayne. But the world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies. It goes on great brutal wheels of facts--wheels on which you are thebutterfly; and Wayne is the fly on the wheel. "

Auberon's eyes looked frankly at the other's. 

"Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a parentheticalconsolation to me to compare the intelligence of flies somewhatfavourably with the intelligence of wheels. But it is the nature offlies to die soon, and the nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go onwith the wheel. Good-bye, old man. "

And James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, slapping hisbamboo on his leg. 

The King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a look ofgenuine depression, which made him seem more like a baby than ever. Then he swung round and struck his hands together. 

"In a world without humour, " he said, "the only thing to do is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignifiedattitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the totalludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it issupported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, 'Life is real, life isearnest, ' and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into ahole in his head. I think Nature was indeed a little broad in herhumour in these matters. But we all fall back on the pantomime, as Ihave in this municipal affair. Nature has her farces, like the act ofeating or the shape of the kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. Shekeeps her stars and mountains for those who can appreciate somethingmore subtly ridiculous. " He turned to his equerry. "But, as I said'eating, ' let us have a picnic like two nice little children. Just runand bring me a table and a dozen courses or so, and plenty ofchampagne, and under these swinging boughs, Bowler, we will return toNature. "

It took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch's simplerepast, during which time he walked up and down and whistled, butstill with an unaffected air of gloom. He had really been done out ofa pleasure he had promised himself, and had that empty and sickenedfeeling which a child has when disappointed of a pantomime. When heand the equerry had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount ofdry champagne, his spirits began mildly to revive. 

"Things take too long in this world, " he said. "I detest all thisBarkerian business about evolution and the gradual modification ofthings. I wish the world had been made in six days, and knocked topieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The joke's goodenough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God, and allthat, but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long for amiracle, Bowler?"

"No, sir, " said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had beencarefully brought up. 

"Then I have, " answered the King. "I have walked along a street withthe best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and more Burgundy inside methan you ever saw in your life, and longed that the lamp-post wouldturn into an elephant to save me from the hell of blank existence. Take my word for it, my evolutionary Bowler, don't you believe peoplewhen they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed inmiracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they werewise, filthily, vilely wise--too wise to eat or sleep or put on theirboots with patience. This seems delightfully like a new theory of theorigin of Christianity, which would itself be a thing of no meanabsurdity. Take some more wine. "

The wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, with itswhite cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the tree-tops of HollandPark against each other, but the sun was in that strong temper whichturns green into gold. The King pushed away his plate, lit a cigarslowly, and went on--

"Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really entertainingmiracle might happen to me before I went to amuse the worms. To seethat red-haired maniac waving a great sword, and making speeches tohis incomparable followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land ofYouth from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quitedelightful things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a treaty, andmyself in the chair, and perhaps a Roman triumph, with jolly oldBarker led in chains. And now these wretched prigs have gone andstamped out the exquisite Mr. Wayne altogether, and I suppose theywill put him in a private asylum somewhere in their damned humane way. Think of the treasures daily poured out to his unappreciative keeper!I wonder whether they would let me be his keeper. But life is a vale. Never forget at any moment of your existence to regard it in the lightof a vale. This graceful habit, if not acquired in youth--"

The King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid into hiseyes the startled look of a man listening. He did not move for a fewmoments; then he turned his head sharply towards the high, thin, andlath-like paling which fenced certain long gardens and similar spacesfrom the lane. From behind it there was coming a curious scramblingand scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box ofthin wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutchon the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsiveeffort, and a head shot up between them--the head of one of theBayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swunghimself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and groanedopenly and without ceasing. The next moment the thin, taut wood of thefence was struck as by a bullet, so that it reverberated like a drum, and over it came tearing and cursing, with torn clothes and brokennails and bleeding faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang fivefeet clear off the table on to the ground. The moment after the tablewas flung over, sending bottles and glasses flying, and the _débris_was literally swept along the ground by that stream of men pouringpast, and Bowler was borne along with them, as the King said in hisfamous newspaper article, "like a captured bride. " The great fenceswung and split under the load of climbers that still scaled andcleared it. Tremendous gaps were torn in it by this living artillery;and through them the King could see more and more frantic faces, as ina dream, and more and more men running. They were as miscellaneous asif some one had taken the lid off a human dustbin. Some wereuntouched, some were slashed and battered and bloody, some weresplendidly dressed, some tattered and half naked, some were in thefantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest moderndress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at theKing. Suddenly he stepped forward. 

"Barker, " he said, "what is all this?"

"Beaten, " said the politician--"beaten all to hell!" And he plungedpast with nostrils shaking like a horse's, and more and more menplunged after him. 

Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed andsnapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. Hewore the flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on hisweapon there was blood, and in his face victory. In another momentmasses of red glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers, with their halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuersalike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had nottaken his hands out of his pockets. 

The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught ina torrent--the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happenedwhich he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannotdescribe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the brokengates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure. 

Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane likea lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment ofhis office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. Andthe King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. Thegreat green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. Thiswas the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, hewas the exception and the accident--a blot of black upon a world ofcrimson and gold. 

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I--_The Battle of the Lamps_

Mr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big draperystores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, beingthe last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, butthat did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, hewould have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to beartistic. 

He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light yellow coat, and blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a figure dashed up tohim in another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him. 

"Hullo, Barker!" said the draper. "Any of our summer articles? You'retoo late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy. "

"Oh, don't chatter, " cried Barker, stamping. "We've been beaten. "

"Beaten--by what?" asked Buck, mystified. 

"By Wayne. "

Buck looked at Barker's fierce white face for the first time, as itgleamed in the lamplight. 

"Come and have a drink, " he said. 

They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck establishedhimself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case. 

"Have a smoke, " he said. 

Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment'shesitation, he sat down as if he might spring up again the nextminute. They ordered drinks in silence. 

"How did it happen?" asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him. 

"How the devil do I know?" cried Barker. "It happened like--like adream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?"

"Well, " said Buck, coolly, "how did they? You ought to know. "

"I don't know; I can't describe, " said the other, drumming on thetable. "It seemed like this. We were six hundred, and marched withthose damned poleaxes of Auberon's--the only weapons we've got. Wemarched two abreast. We went up Holland Walk, between the high palingswhich seemed to me to go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I wasnear the tail of the line, and it was a long one. When the end of itwas still between the high palings, the head of the line was alreadycrossing Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged into thenetwork of narrow streets on the other side, and the tail and myselfcame out on the great crossing. When we also had reached the northernside and turned up a small street that points, crookedly as it were, towards Pump Street, the whole thing felt different. The streetsdodged and bent so much that the head of our line seemed lostaltogether: it might as well have been in North America. And all thistime we hadn't seen a soul. "

[Illustration: Map of the SEAT of WAR. ]

Buck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the ash-tray, beganto move it deliberately over the table, making feathery grey lines, akind of map. 

"But though the little streets were all deserted (which got a trifleon my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into them, a thing began tohappen that I couldn't understand. Sometimes a long way ahead--threeturns or corners ahead, as it were--there broke suddenly a sort ofnoise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when ithappened, something, I can't describe it--a kind of shake or staggerwent down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head hadbeen struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we weremoving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went onthrough the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways. The little crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can'texplain--as if it were a dream. I felt as if things had lost theirreason, and we should never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talklike that, isn't it? The streets were quite well-known streets, alldown on the map. But the fact remains. I wasn't afraid of somethinghappening. I was afraid of nothing ever happening--nothing everhappening for all God's eternity. "

He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it, and wenton. 

"And then something did happen. Buck, it's the solemn truth, thatnothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had everhappened to me in my life. "

"Nothing ever happened!" said Buck, staring. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing has ever happened, " repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy. "You don't know what a thing happening means? You sit in your officeexpecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the streetexpecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink, and get it;you feel inclined for a bet, and make it. You expect either to win orlose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!" andhe shuddered ungovernably. 

"Go on, " said Buck, shortly. "Get on. "

"As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. Whensomething happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. Ithappens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves adreadful thing--that there are other things besides one's self. I canonly put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings, three turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly upfrom the gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beatendown again by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was fullof roaring, and big men rolling about like nine-pins. "

Buck looked at his map with knitted brows. 

"Was that Portobello Road?" he asked. 

"Yes, " said Barker--"yes; Portobello Road. I saw it afterwards; but, my God, what a place it was! Buck, have you ever stood and let a sixfoot of man lash and lash at your head with six feet of pole with sixpounds of steel at the end? Because, when you have had thatexperience, as Walt Whitman says, 'you re-examine philosophies andreligions. '"

"I have no doubt, " said Buck. "If that was Portobello Road, don't yousee what happened?"

"I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down four times;an experience which, as I say, has an effect on the mental attitude. And another thing happened, too. I knocked down two men. After thefourth fall (there was not much bloodshed--more brutal rushing andthrowing--for nobody could use their weapons), after the fourth fall, I say, I got up like a devil, and I tore a poleaxe out of a man's handand struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne's fellows, struck againand again. Two of them went over, bleeding on the stones, thank God;and I laughed and found myself sprawling in the gutter again, and gotup again, and struck again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt aman's head, though. "

Buck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses through histhick moustache. 

"What is the matter?" asked Barker, stopping, for the man had beencalm up to now, and now his agitation was far more violent than hisown. 

"The matter?" said Buck, bitterly; "don't you see how these maniacshave got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and the other ascreaming lunatic, make sane men so different from themselves? Lookhere, Barker; I will give you a picture. A very well-bred young man ofthis century is dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands anonsensical seventeenth-century halberd, with which he is trying tokill men in a street in Notting Hill. Damn it! don't you see howthey've got us? Never mind how you felt--that is how you looked. TheKing would put his cursed head on one side and call it exquisite. TheProvost of Notting Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and callit heroic. But in Heaven's name what would you have called it--twodays before?"

Barker bit his lip. 

"You haven't been through it, Buck, " he said. "You don't understandfighting--the atmosphere. "

"I don't deny the atmosphere, " said Buck, striking the table. "I onlysay it's their atmosphere. It's Adam Wayne's atmosphere. It's theatmosphere which you and I thought had vanished from an educated worldfor ever. "

"Well, it hasn't, " said Barker; "and if you have any lingering doubts, lend me a poleaxe, and I'll show you. "

There was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his neighbour andspoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of a power of lookingfacts in the face--the tone in which he concluded great bargains. 

"Barker, " he said, "you are right. This old thing--this fighting, hascome back. It has come back suddenly and taken us by surprise. So itis first blood to Adam Wayne. But, unless reason and arithmetic andeverything else have gone crazy, it must be next and last blood to us. But when an issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do--tostudy that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is fighting, we must understand fighting. I must understand fighting as coolly andcompletely as I understand drapery; you must understand fighting ascoolly and completely as you understand politics. Now, look at thefacts. I stick without hesitation to my original formula. Fighting, when we have the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. Itmust be. You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat sixhundred. I can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six hundred whenthe six hundred behave like fools. When they forget the veryconditions they are fighting in; when they fight in a swamp as if itwere a mountain; when they fight in a forest as if it were a plain;when they fight in streets without remembering the object of streets. "

"What is the object of streets?" asked Barker. 

"What is the object of supper?" cried Buck, furiously. "Isn't itobvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of astreet is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streetsjoin; therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. Youadvanced into that hive of streets as if you were advancing into anopen plain where you could see everything. Instead of that, you wereadvancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you, streets turning on you, streets jumping out at you, and all in thehands of the enemy. Do you know what Portobello Road is? It is theonly point on your journey where two side streets run up opposite eachother. Wayne massed his men on the two sides, and when he had letenough of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don't you seewhat would have saved you?"

Barker shook his head. 

"Can't your 'atmosphere' help you?" asked Buck, bitterly. "Must Iattempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you werefighting blindly with the red Notting Hillers who imprisoned you onboth sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue andgold of South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them intheir turn and hurling them on to your halberds. "

"If the thing had been possible, " began Barker, cursing. 

"The thing would have been as possible, " said Buck, simply, "as simpleas arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that leadto Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not ninemillion. They do not grow in the night. They do not increase likemushrooms. It must be possible, with such an overwhelming force as wehave, to advance by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries, or approaches, we can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into thefield altogether. Once do that, and we have him to demonstration. Itis like a proposition of Euclid. "

"You think that is certain?" said Barker, anxious, but dominateddelightfully. 

"I'll tell you what I think, " said Buck, getting up jovially. "Ithink Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight; and I thinkI am confoundedly sorry for him. "

"Buck, you are a great man!" cried Barker, rising also. "You'veknocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was gettingromantic. Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, beingphysical, must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neithermathematical nor physical nor anything else--because we deserved to bebeaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him. When shall we open the next campaign?"

"Now, " said Buck, and walked out of the bar. 

"Now!" cried Barker, following him eagerly. "Do you mean now? It is solate. "

Buck turned on him, stamping. 

"Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?" he said; and hecalled a cab. "Notting Hill Gate Station, " he said; and the two droveoff. 

 * * * * *

A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in thenext sixty or eighty minutes, showed himself a really great man ofaction. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King toWilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if hiscourse was jagged, it had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only twothings he carried with him--his inevitable cigar and the map of NorthKensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and again pointedout, with every variety of persuasion and violence, only nine possibleways of approaching Pump Street within a quarter of a mile round it;three out of Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four outof Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two hundredeach, stationed at every one of the entrances before the last green ofthat strange sunset had sunk out of the black sky. 

The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one falseprotest raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of NorthKensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense. 

"There is no such thing, " he said, "as night in London. You have onlyto follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundredpurple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up OssingtonStreet, two hundred more under Captain Bruce, of the North KensingtonGuard, up Clanricarde Gardens. [1] Two hundred yellow West Kensingtonsunder Provost Swindon attack from Pembridge Road. Two hundred more ofmy men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen's Road. Twodetachments of yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come down from the North throughChepstow Place, and two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in twomoves. The enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces;or they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke Co. , and rush on my fourhundred; or they must retreat past St. Luke's Church, and rush on thesix hundred from the West. Unless we are all mad, it's plain. Come on. To your quarters and await Captain Brace's signal to advance. Then youhave only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense bypure mathematics. To-morrow we shall all be civilians again. "

[Footnote 1: Clanricarde Gardens at this time was no longer a_cul-de-sac_, but was connected by Pump Street to Pembridge Square. See map. ]

His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round theterrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight wasalready over. One man's energy for one hour had saved the city fromwar. 

For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside themotionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearancein any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with arevolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddlybeside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darklybut richly coloured the black night. 

At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it wasthe signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the wholepurple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley. Before it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in thedark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nineother swords were pointed that night. 

A quarter of an hour's silent marching brought them almost withinearshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was nosound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew thatthey were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under thelamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorancewhich Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenuealone. 

"Halt--point arms!" cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke there came aclatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds werelevelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from thecontingent of the North. 

"Victory, Mr. Buck!" he cried, panting; "they are ousted. ProvostWilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street. "

Buck ran forward in his excitement. 

"Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke'sto meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad toSwindon, and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke's Road. Wewill hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!"

As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard ofNorth Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yetscarcely a hundred yards further their halberd-points again fell inline gleaming in the gaslight; for again a clatter of feet was heardon the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger. 

"Mr. Provost, " he said, "the yellow West Kensingtons have beenholding the road by St. Luke's for twenty minutes since the capture ofPump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away; they cannot beretreating down that road. "

"Then they are retreating down this, " said Provost Buck, with a finalcheerfulness, "and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though ittwists about. Forward!"

As they moved along the last three hundred yards of their journey, Buck fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, into a kind ofphilosophical reverie, for men of his type are always made kindly, andas it were melancholy, by success. 

"I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am, " he thought. "He spoke upsplendidly for me at that Council. And he blacked old Barker's eyewith considerable spirit. But I don't see what a man can expect whenhe fights against arithmetic, to say nothing of civilisation. And whata wonderful hoax all this military genius is! I suspect I've justdiscovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible tradesman is thebest general, and that a man who can buy men and sell men can lead andkill them. The thing's simply like adding up a column in a ledger. IfWayne has two hundred men, he can't put two hundred men in nineplaces at once. If they're ousted from Pump Street they're flyingsomewhere. If they're not flying past the church they're flying pastthe Works. And so we have them. We business men should have no chanceat all except that cleverer people than we get bees in their bonnetsthat prevent them from reasoning properly--so we reason alone. And soI, who am comparatively stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vastmachine. My God, what's this?" and he clapped his hands to his eyesand staggered back. 

Then through the darkness he cried in a dreadful voice--

"Did I blaspheme God? I am struck blind. "

"What?" wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a certainWilfred Jarvis of North Kensington. 

"Blind!" cried Buck; "blind!"

"I'm blind too!" cried Jarvis, in an agony. 

"Fools, all of you, " said a gross voice behind them; "we're all blind. The lamps have gone out. "

"The lamps! But why? where?" cried Buck, turning furiously in thedarkness. "How are we to get on? How are we to chase the enemy? Wherehave they gone?"

"The enemy went--" said the rough voice behind, and then stoppeddoubtfully. 

"Where?" shouted Buck, stamping like a madman. 

"They went, " said the gruff voice, "past the Gas Works, and they'veused their chance. "

"Great God!" thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; "do youmean they've turned out--"

But almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled like a stonefrom catapult into the midst of his own men. 

"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried frightful voices out of thedarkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for the men of NorthKensington, unacquainted with the road, had lost all their bearings inthe black world of blindness. 

"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried the invisible people, and theinvaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, with steel thatgave no glint against any light. 

 * * * * *

Buck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept an angrybut splendid sanity. He groped madly for the wall and found it. Struggling with crawling fingers along it, he found a side opening andretreated into it with the remnants of his men. Their adventuresduring that prodigious night are not to be described. They did notknow whether they were going towards or away from the enemy. Notknowing where they themselves were, or where their opponents were, itwas mere irony to ask where was the rest of their army. For a thinghad descended upon them which London does not know--darkness, whichwas before the stars were made, and they were as much lost in it as ifthey had been made before the stars. Every now and then, as thosefrightful hours wore on, they buffeted in the darkness against livingmen, who struck at them and at whom they struck, with an idiot fury. When at last the grey dawn came, they found they had wandered back tothe edge of the Uxbridge Road. They found that in those horribleeyeless encounters, the North Kensingtons and the Bayswaters and theWest Kensingtons had again and again met and butchered each other, andthey heard that Adam Wayne was barricaded in Pump Street. 

CHAPTER II--_The Correspondent of the Court Journal_

Journalism had become, like most other such things in England underthe cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly dueto the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partlyto the compromise or dead-lock which had made foreign wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation which wasthat of a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well knownof the remaining newspapers was the _Court Journal_, which waspublished in a dusty but genteel-looking office just out of KensingtonHigh Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for yearsgrowing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest andmost decorous and most optimistic is very likely to win. In thejournalistic competition which was still going on at the beginning ofthe twentieth century, the final victor was the _Court Journal_. 

For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hangingabout in the _Court Journal_ office, smoking a morning cigarette andlooking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond oflounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work. But one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of hisday, he might have found a more bustling centre. 

On this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palacewith a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore anextravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and_dégagé_ black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform asColonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. Itwas a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quicklyacross the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as hewent, and flung open the door of the _Court Journal_ office. 

"You've heard the news, Pally--you've heard the news?" he said. 

The Editor's name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, whichwas an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties. 

"Well, your Majesty, " said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard)--"well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I--"

"You'll hear more of them, " said the King, dancing a few steps of akind of negro shuffle. "You'll hear more of them, my blood-and-thundertribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?"

"No, your Majesty, " replied the Paladium, vaguely. 

"I'm going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines, "said the King. "Now, where are your posters of last night's defeat?"

"I did not propose, your Majesty, " said the Editor, "to have anyposters exactly--"

"Paper, paper!" cried the King, wildly; "bring me paper as big as ahouse. I'll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off. " He beganremoving that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfullyat Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himselfin the glass. "The coat off, " he said, "and the hat on. That lookslike a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well, " he continued, turning round abruptly, "come along with thatpaper. "

The Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from thefolds of the King's frock-coat, and said bewildered--

"I am afraid, your Majesty--"

"Oh, you've got no enterprise, " said Auberon. "What's that roll in thecorner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in thehome, Pally? Fling it over here, and I'll paint such posters on theback of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you'll pastethe original pattern against the wall. " And the King unrolled thewall-paper, spreading it over the whole floor. "Now give me thescissors, " he cried, and took them himself before the other couldstir. 

He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as adoor. Then he took a big blue pencil, and went down on his knees onthe dusty oil-cloth and began to write on them, in huge letters--

"FROM THE FRONT. GENERAL BUCK DEFEATED. DARKNESS, DANGER, AND DEATH. WAYNE SAID TO BE IN PUMP STREET. FEELING IN THE CITY. "

He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and gotup, with a sigh. 

"Not quite intense enough, " he said--"not alarming. I want the _CourtJournal_ to be feared as well as loved. Let's try something morehard-hitting. " And he went down on his knees again. After sucking theblue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. "How willthis do?" he said--

 "WAYNE'S WONDERFUL VICTORY. "

"I suppose, " he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking thepencil--"I suppose we couldn't say 'wictory'--'Wayne's wonderfulwictory'? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it. "

"WAYNE WINS. ASTOUNDING FIGHT IN THE DARK. _The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck. _"

"(Nothing like our fine old English translation. ) What else can wesay? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;" and he added, thoughtfully, insmaller letters--

 "Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck. "

"Those will do for the present, " he said, and turned them both facedownwards. "Paste, please. "

The Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of aninner room. 

The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing withtreacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in eachhand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positionsover the front of the office. 

"And now, " said Auberon, entering again with undiminishedvivacity--"now for the leading article. "

He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying itacross a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing withfeverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself, and rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the purejournalistic flavour. 

"The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as itis--awful as it is--(no, distressing as it is), may do some good if itdraws attention to the what's-his-name inefficiency (scandalousinefficiency, of course) of the Government's preparations. In ourpresent state of information, it would be premature (what a jollyword!)--it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conductof General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels, give him a right to havejudgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on whichwe must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, fromfeelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. This situation would never have arisen but for what we can only callthe indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things, but, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarise fromBarker's famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distresswe may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucialmoment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a singletongue, 'Where is the King?' What is he doing while his subjects teareach other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are hisamusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to beignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishingnation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warnthat exalted person that neither his great position nor hisincomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from thefate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have metthe English people in the rare day of its wrath. "

"I am now, " said the King, "going to write an account of the battle byan eye-witness. " And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almostat the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had abandage round his head. 

"I was told, " he said, with his usual gruff civility, "that yourMajesty was here. "

"And of all things on earth, " cried the King, with delight, "here isan eye-witness! An eye-witness who, I regret to observe, has atpresent only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the specialarticle, Buck? Have you a rich style?"

Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, tookno notice whatever of the King's maddening geniality. 

"I took the liberty, your Majesty, " he said shortly, "of asking Mr. Barker to come here also. "

As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with hisusual air of hurry. 

"What is happening now?" asked Buck, turning to him with a kind ofrelief. 

"Fighting still going on, " said Barker. "The four hundred from WestKensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near theplace. Poor Wilson's Bayswater men got cut about, though. They foughtconfoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things dohappen in the world. To think that of all of us it should be littleWilson with the red whiskers who came out best. "

The King made a note on his paper--

 "_Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson_. "

"Yes, " said Buck; "it makes one a bit less proud of one's _h's_. "

The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in hispocket. 

"I have an idea, " he said. "I will be an eye-witness. I will write yousuch letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the realthing. Give me my coat, Paladium. I entered this room a mere King ofEngland. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the _Court Journal_. It is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, Buck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. 'When dutycalls'--the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive myfirst article this evening by the eight-o'clock post. "

And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswateromnibus that went swinging by. 

"Well, " said Barker, gloomily, "well. "

"Barker, " said Buck, "business may be lower than politics, but war is, as I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. Youpoliticians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have adespotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn totack and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to athing and get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this momentwe've beaten Wayne. "

"Beaten Wayne, " repeated Barker. 

"Why the dickens not?" cried the other, flinging out his hands. "Lookhere. I said last night that we had them by holding the nineentrances. Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for asingular event--the lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Hasit occurred to you, my brilliant Barker, that another singular eventhas happened since that singular event of the lamps going out?"

"What event?" asked Barker. 

"By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen, " cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. "Why the hell aren't we holding allthose approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should havebeen done at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn't let me go out. You were in command. "

Barker smiled grimly. 

"It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that weanticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possibleto reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we werefighting each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne's friends were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yardsfrom Pump Street, at every one of those entrances, there is abarricade nearly as high as the houses. They were finishing the last, in Pembridge Road, when we arrived. Our mistakes, " he cried bitterly, and flung his cigarette on the ground. "It is not we who learn fromthem. "

There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily ina chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness. 

At length Barker said suddenly--

"Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? TheHammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly goodspeculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it?It will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose welet it alone?"

"And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctorswould lock up?" cried out Buck, starting to his feet. "What do youpropose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologise to the admirable Mr. Wayne? Tokneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag ofthe Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that savedNotting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well--they were beatenby a trick. And they'll fight again. "

"Buck, " said Barker, "I always admired you. And you were quite rightin what you said the other day. "

"In what?"

"In saying, " said Barker, rising quietly, "that we had all got intoAdam Wayne's atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the wholeterritorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, withbarricades at the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayneextends, God knows where--it extends to this office, at any rate. Thered-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling thisroom with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-hairedmadman who said the last word you spoke. "

Buck walked to the window without replying. "You understand, ofcourse, " he said at last, "I do not dream of giving in. "

 * * * * *

The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blueomnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, beengreatly disturbed by these events, for the affair was treated as aNotting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been inthe hands of a gang of recognised rioters. The blue omnibuses simplywent round as they would have done if a road were being mended, andthe omnibus on which the correspondent of the _Court Journal_ wassitting swept round the corner of Queen's Road, Bayswater. 

The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying thespeed at which it was going. 

"Forward, my beauty, my Arab, " he said, patting the omnibusencouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relationswith thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does hesleep side by side with thee--"

His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stoppage. Lookingover the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being heldby men in the uniform of Wayne's army, and heard the voice of anofficer calling out orders. 

[Illustration: KING AUBERON DESCENDED FROM THE OMNIBUS WITH DIGNITY. ]

King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard orpicket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not numbermore than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark, clever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad inan ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and along seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectaclescompleted the outfit in a pleasing manner. 

"To whom have I the honour of speaking?" said the King, endeavouringto look like Charles I. , in spite of personal difficulties. 

The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity. 

"My name is Bowles, " he said. "I am a chemist. I am also a captain ofO company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having toincommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by ourproclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I havethe honour--Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty's pardon. I amquite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King. "

Auberon put up his hand with indescribable grandeur. 

"Not with the King, " he said; "with the special war correspondent ofthe _Court Journal_. "

"I beg your Majesty's pardon, " began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully. 

"Do you call me Majesty? I repeat, " said Auberon, firmly, "I am arepresentative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense ofresponsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawnover the past. "

"Very well, sir, " said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, "in oureyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of thethrone. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our gloriesshould be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have anyobjection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?"

"The Provost I have had the honour of meeting, " said Auberon, easily. "We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be mostdelighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, itwould be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them. "

"Will you be so good as to step this way?" said the leader of Ocompany. 

"I am always good, " said Mr. Pinker. "Lead on. "

CHAPTER III--_The Great Army of South Kensington_

The article from the special correspondent of the _Court Journal_arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King'sarabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yetwere illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing atfirst, as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writerappeared to have attempted the article once or twice in severaljournalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "TryAmerican style, " and the fragment began--

"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very . .. ;"and then broke off, followed by the note, "Good sound journalismsafer. Try it. "

The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin--

"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any . .. "

This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almostundecipherable, but seemed to be something like--

"How about old Steevens and the _mot juste_? E. G. .. . "

"Morning winked a little wearily at me over the curt edge of CampdenHill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt blackcardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours;but at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and Iknew that it was the guard of Swindon's West Kensington army. They arebeing held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above theBayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the greatWaterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the WaterworksTower looked swart. 

"As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw theblue cloudy masses of Barker's men blocking the entrance to thehigh-road like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the alliedtroops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be asfollows: The Yellow army (if I may so describe the WestKensingtonians) lies, as I have said, in a strip along the ridge, itsfurthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, itsfurthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Greenarmy of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen'sRoad to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, andextending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. Thefourth side of this rough square, the Queen's Road side, is held bysome of Buck's Purple warriors. 

"The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Alongthe crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington. They are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northwardlies our hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to thesouth-west run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line ofviolet irises (aptly symbolised by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. Theargent exterior . .. (I am losing the style. I should have said'Curving with a whisk' instead of merely 'Curving. ' Also I should havecalled the hyacinths 'sudden. ' I cannot keep this up. War is too rapidfor this style of writing. Please ask office-boy to insert _motsjustes_. )

"The truth is that there is nothing to report. That commonplaceelement which is always ready to devour all beautiful things (as theBlack Pig in the Irish Mythology will finally devour the stars andgods); that commonplace element, as I say, has in its Black Piggishway devoured finally the chances of any romance in this affair; thatwhich once consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the streets, has degenerated into something which is the very prose of warfare--ithas degenerated into a siege. A siege may be defined as a peace plusthe inconvenience of war. Of course Wayne cannot hold out. There is nomore chance of help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon. And if old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all hisgarrison had to sit on them, he couldn't hold out for more than amonth or two. As a matter of melancholy fact, he has done somethingrather like this. He has stocked his street with food until there mustbe uncommonly little room to turn round. But what is the good? To holdout for all that time and then to give in of necessity, what does itmean? It means waiting until your victories are forgotten, and thentaking the trouble to be defeated. I cannot understand how Wayne canbe so inartistic. 

"And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently when oneknows it is defeated! I always thought Wayne was rather fine. But now, when I know that he is done for, there seem to be nothing else butWayne. All the streets seem to point at him, all the chimneys seem tolean towards him. I suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Streetseems to be the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose, I say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man feelsabout his heart when his heart is weak. 'Pump Street'--the heart is apump. And I am drivelling. 

"Our finest leader at the front is, beyond all question, GeneralWilson. He has adopted alone among the other Provosts the uniform ofhis own halberdiers, although that fine old sixteenth-century garb wasnot originally intended to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who, against a most admirable and desperate defence, broke last night intoPump Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was afterwardsexpelled from it by General Turnbull, of Notting Hill, but only afterdesperate fighting and the sudden descent of that terrible darknesswhich proved so much more fatal to the forces of General Buck andGeneral Swindon. 

"Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good fortune, amost interesting interview, bore the most eloquent testimony to theconduct of General Wilson and his men. His precise words are asfollows: 'I have bought sweets at his funny little shop when I wasfour years old, and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamedto say, except that he talked through his nose, and didn't washhimself particularly. And he came over our barricade like a devil fromhell. ' I repeated this speech to General Wilson himself, with somedelicate improvements, and he seemed pleased with it. He does not, however, seem pleased with anything so much just now as he is with thewearing of a sword. I have it from the front on the best authoritythat General Wilson was not completely shaved yesterday. It isbelieved in military circles that he is growing a moustache. .. . 

"As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily to thepillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my copy. Nothingwhatever has happened, except the preparations for a particularly longand feeble siege, during which I trust I shall not be required to beat the Front. As I glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, theaspect of that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding. General Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to GeneralWilson that, in order to obviate the possibility of such a catastropheas overwhelmed the allied forces in the last advance on Notting Hill(the catastrophe, I mean, of the extinguished lamps), each soldiershould have a lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of thethings which I really admire about General Buck. He possesses whatpeople used to mean by 'the humility of the man of science, ' that is, he learns steadily from his mistakes. Wayne may score off him in someother way, but not in that way. The lanterns look like fairy lights asthey curve round the end of Pembridge Road. 

 * * * * *

"_Later_. --I write with some difficulty, because the blood will rundown my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood is a very beautifulthing; that is why it is concealed. If you ask why blood runs down myface, I can only reply that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask mewhat horse, I can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. Ifyou ask me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple pedestrianwarfare, I am reduced to the necessity, so painful to a specialcorrespondent, of recounting my experiences. 

"I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy at thepillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the glittering curve ofPembridge Road, studded with the lights of Wilson's men. I don't knowwhat made me pause to examine the matter, but I had a fancy that theline of lights, where it melted into the indistinct brown twilight, was more indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a certainstretch of the road where there had been five lights there were nowonly four. I strained my eyes; I counted them again, and there wereonly three. A moment after there were only two; an instant after onlyone; and an instant after that the lanterns near to me swung likejangled bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and forthe moment the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars outof heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter offact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. There were still redrays of a sunset in the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a feeling as of firelight. But for three secondsafter the lanterns swung and sank, I saw in front of me a blacknessblocking the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that thisblackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I wastrampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round thecorner. As they turned I saw that they were not black, but scarlet;they were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne riding ahead. 

"I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a veryslight skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring either for theblindness or for the slightness of the wound. For one mortal minuteafter that amazing cavalcade had spun past, there was dead stillnesson the empty road. And then came Barker and all his halberdiersrunning like devils in the track of them. It had been their businessto guard the gate by which the sortie had broken out; but they had notreckoned, and small blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, Barker andhis men made a perfectly splendid run after them, almost catchingWayne's horses by the tails. 

"Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a small numberof Wayne's garrison. Turnbull himself, with the vast mass of it, isundoubtedly still barricaded in Pump Street. Sorties of this kind arenatural enough in the majority of historical sieges, such as the siegeof Paris in 1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain ofsome support outside. But what can be the object of it in this case?Wayne knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at least Turnbullknows) that there is not, and never has been, the smallest chance ofsupport for him outside; that the mass of the sane modern inhabitantsof London regard his farcical patriotism with as much contempt as theydo the original idiotcy that gave it birth--the folly of our miserableKing. What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody can evenconjecture. The general theory round here is that he is simply atraitor, and has abandoned the besieged. But all such larger but yetmore soluble riddles are as nothing compared to the one small butunanswerable riddle: Where did they get the horses?

 * * * * *

"_Later_. --I have heard a most extraordinary account of the origin ofthe appearance of the horses. It appears that that amazing person, General Turnbull, who is now ruling Pump Street in the absence ofWayne, sent out, on the morning of the declaration of war, a vastnumber of little boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say), with half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. Noless than a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; werecommandeered by the garrison. The men were set free, the cabs used tomake barricades, and the horses kept in Pump Street, where they werefed and exercised for several days, until they were sufficientlyrapid and efficient to be used for this wild ride out of the town. Ifthis is so, and I have it on the best possible authority, the methodof the sortie is explained. But we have no explanation of its object. Just as Barker's Blues were swinging round the corner after them, theywere stopped, but not by an enemy; only by the voice of one man, andhe a friend. Red Wilson of Bayswater ran alone along the main roadlike a madman, waving them back with a halberd snatched from asentinel. He was in supreme command, and Barker stopped at the corner, staring and bewildered. We could hear Wilson's voice loud and distinctout of the dusk, so that it seemed strange that the great voice shouldcome out of the little body. 'Halt, South Kensington! Guard thisentry, and prevent them returning. I will pursue. Forward, the GreenGuards!'

"A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was between meand Wilson, for Barker's men blocked the mouth of the road in tworigid lines. But through them and through the dusk I could hear theclear orders and the clank of arms, and see the green army of Wilsonmarching by towards the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilsonhad filled them with his own fire; in a few days they had becomeveterans. Each of them wore a silver medal of a pump, to boast thatthey alone of all the allied armies had stood victorious in PumpStreet. 

"I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker's Blues, who areguarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp spell of runningbrought me to the tail of Wilson's green army as it swung down theroad in pursuit of the flying Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almosttotal darkness; for some time I only heard the throb of the marchingpace. Then suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men wereflung back on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns swung andjingled, and the cold nozzles of great horses pushed into the press ofus. They had turned and charged us. 

"'You fools!' came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic with asplendid cold anger. 'Don't you see? the horses have no riders!'

"It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of horses withempty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met some of our men andbeen defeated? Or had he flung these horses at us as some kind of ruseor mad new mode of warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Ordid he and his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want tohide in houses somewhere?

"Never did I admire any man's intellect (even my own) so much as I didWilson's at that moment. Without a word, he simply pointed the halberd(which he still grasped) to the southern side of the road. As youknow, the streets running up to the ridge of Campden Hill from themain road are peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights ofstairs. We were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of all; upthat it would have been far more difficult to urge half-trained horsesthan to run up on one's feet. 

"'Left wheel!' hallooed Wilson. 'They have gone up here, ' he added tome, who happened to be at his elbow. 

"'Why?' I ventured to ask. 

"'Can't say for certain, ' replied the Bayswater General. 'They've goneup here in a great hurry, anyhow. They've simply turned their horsesloose, because they couldn't take them up. I fancy I know. I fancythey're trying to get over the ridge to Kensingston or Hammersmith, orsomewhere, and are striking up here because it's just beyond the endof our line. Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road, though. They've only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert is hardlyfour hundred yards from here. And I've sent him word. '

"'Lambert!' I said. 'Not young Wilfrid Lambert--my old friend. '

"'Wilfrid Lambert's his name, ' said the General; 'used to be a "manabout town;" silly fellow with a big nose. That kind of man alwaysvolunteers for some war or other; and what's funnier, he generallyisn't half bad at it. Lambert is distinctly good. The yellow WestKensingtons I always reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he haspulled them together uncommonly well, though he's subordinate toSwindon, who's a donkey. In the attack from Pembridge Road the othernight he showed great pluck. '

"'He has shown greater pluck than that, ' I said. 'He has criticised mysense of humour. That was his first engagement. '

"This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable commanderof the allied forces. We were in the act of climbing the last half ofAubrey Road, which is so abrupt a slope that it looks like anold-fashioned map leaning up against the wall. There are lines oflittle trees, one above the other, as in the old-fashioned map. 

"We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just about toturn the corner by a place called (in chivalrous anticipation of ourwars of sword and axe) Tower Creçy, when we were suddenly knocked inthe stomach (I can use no other term) by a horde of men hurled backupon us. They wore the red uniform of Wayne; their halberds werebroken; their foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of theirretreat staggered us as we stood at the last ridge of the slope. 

"'Good old Lambert!' yelled out suddenly the stolid Mr. Wilson ofBayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Damned jolly old Lambert!He's got there already! He's driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah!Forward, the Green Guards!'

"We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first, brandishing the halberd--

"Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little egotism, when it takes the form, as mine does in this case, of a disgracefulconfession. The thing is really a little interesting, because it showshow the merely artistic habit has bitten into men like me. It was themost intensely exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in mylife; and I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as weturned that corner, the first impression I had was of something thathad nothing to do with the fight at all. I was stricken from the skyas by a thunderbolt, by the height of the Waterworks Tower on CampdenHill. I don't know whether Londoners generally realise how high itlooks when one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it. For the second it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human warwas a triviality. For the second I felt as if I had been drunk withsome trivial orgie, and that I had been sobered by the shock of thatshadow. A moment afterwards, I realised that under it was going onsomething more enduring than stone, and something wilder than thedizziest height--the agony of man. And I knew that, compared to that, this overwhelming tower was itself a triviality; it was a mere stalkof stone which humanity could snap like a stick. 

"I don't know why I have talked so much about this silly oldWaterworks Tower, which at the very best was only a tremendousbackground. It was that, certainly, a sombre and awful landscape, against which our figures were relieved. But I think the real reasonwas, that there was in my own mind so sharp a transition from thetower of stone to the man of flesh. For what I saw first when I hadshaken off, as it were, the shadow of the tower, was a man, and a manI knew. 

"Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that curved roundthe tower, his figure outlined in some degree by the beginning ofmoonrise. He looked magnificent, a hero; but he looked something muchmore interesting than that. He was, as it happened, in almostprecisely the same swaggering attitude in which he had stood nearlyfifteen years ago, when he swung his walking-stick and struck it intothe ground, and told me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, upon mysoul, I think he required more courage to say that than to fight as hedoes now. For then he was fighting against something that was in theascendant, fashionable, and victorious. And now he is fighting (at therisk of his life, no doubt) merely against something which is alreadydead, which is impossible, futile; of which nothing has been moreimpossible and futile than this very sortie which has brought him intocontact with it. People nowadays allow infinitely too little for thepsychological sense of victory as a factor in affairs. Then he wasattacking the degraded but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he isattacking the interesting but totally extinguished Wayne. 

"His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts werethese. A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were marching upthe street, close under the northern wall, which is, in fact, thebottom of a sort of dyke or fortification of the Waterworks. Lambertand his yellow West Kensingtons had that instant swept round thecorner and had shaken the Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of themore timid, as I have just described, into our very arms. When ourforce struck the tail of Wayne's, every one knew that all was up withhim. His favourite military barber was struck down. His grocer wasstunned. He himself was hurt in the thigh, and reeled back against thewall. We had him in a trap with two jaws. 'Is that you?' shoutedLambert, genially, to Wilson, across the hemmed-in host of NottingHill. 'That's about the ticket, ' replied General Wilson; 'keep themunder the wall. '

"The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne threw up hislong arms to the wall above him, and with a spring stood upon it; agigantic figure against the moon. He tore the banner out of the handsof the standard-bearer below him, and shook it out suddenly above ourheads, so that it was like thunder in the heavens. 

"'Round the Red Lion!' he cried. 'Swords round the Red Lion! Halberdsround the Red Lion! They are the thorns round rose. '

"His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary rally, andLambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful with battle, felt itas by an instinct, and cried--

"'Drop your public-house flag, you footler! Drop it!'

"'The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops, ' said Wayne, proudly, letting it out luxuriantly on the night wind. 

"The next moment I knew that poor Adam's sentimental theatricality hadcost him much. Lambert was on the wall at a bound, his sword in histeeth, and had slashed at Wayne's head before he had time to draw hissword, his hands being busy with the enormous flag. He stepped backonly just in time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall, so that the spear-blade at the end of it pointed to Lambert. 

"'The banner stoops, ' cried Wayne, in a voice that must have startledstreets. 'The banner of Notting Hill stoops to a hero. ' And with thewords he drove the spear-point and half the flag-staff throughLambert's body and dropped him dead upon the road below, a stone uponthe stones of the street. 

"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, in a sort of divine rage. 'Her banner is all the holier for the blood of a brave enemy! Up onthe wall, patriots! Up on the wall! Notting Hill!'

"With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on to the wallto be silhouetted against the moon, and more and more men climbed upthere, pulled themselves and were pulled, till clusters and crowds ofthe half-massacred men of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us. 

"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, unceasingly. 

"'Well, what about Bayswater?' said a worthy working-man in Wilson'sarmy, irritably. 'Bayswater for ever!'

"'We have won!' cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the ground. 'Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies patriotism!'

"'Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!' cried one ofLambert's lieutenants, who was reduced to something bordering onmadness by the responsibility of succeeding to the command. 

"'Let us by all means try, ' said Wilson, grimly; and the two armiesclosed round the third. 

 * * * * *

"I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but there is sucha thing as physical fatigue, as physical nausea, and, I may add, asphysical terror. Suffice it to say that the above paragraph waswritten about 11 p. M. , and that it is now about 2 a. M. , and that thebattle is not finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further tosay that down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks Towerto the Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, and is running, in great red serpents, that curl out into the main thoroughfare andshine in the moon. 

 * * * * *

"_Later. _--The final touch has been given to all this terriblefutility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; men are still swayingand fighting at the foot of the tower and round the corner of AubreyRoad; the fight has not finished. But I know it is a farce. 

"News has just come to show that Wayne's amazing sortie, followed bythe amazing resistance through a whole night on the wall of theWaterworks, is as if it had not been. What was the object of thatstrange exodus we shall probably never know, for the simple reasonthat every one who knew will probably be cut to pieces in the courseof the next two or three hours. 

"I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and Buck's methodshave won after all. He was perfectly right, of course, when one comesto think of it, in holding that it was physically impossible for astreet to defeat a city. While we thought he was patrolling theeastern gates with his Purple army; while we were rushing about thestreets and waving halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson wasscheming like Moltke and fighting like Achilles to entrap the wildProvost of Notting Hill--Mr. Buck, retired draper, has simply drivendown in a hansom cab and done something about as plain as butter andabout as useful and nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington, Brompton, and Fulham, and by spending about four thousand pounds ofhis private means, has raised an army of nearly as many men; that isto say, an army big enough to beat, not only Wayne, but Wayne and allhis present enemies put together. The army, I understand, is encampedalong High Street, Kensington, and fills it from the Church to AddisonRoad Bridge. It is to advance by ten different roads uphill to thenorth. 

"I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse than itneed be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round Campden Hill;splendid spaces of silver, edged with gold, are torn out of the sky. Worse still, Wayne and his men feel the dawn; their faces, thoughbloody and pale, are strangely hopeful . .. Insupportably pathetic. Worst of all, for the moment they are winning. If it were not for Buckand the new army they might just, and only just, win. 

"I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that wonderful playof old Maeterlinck's (you know my partiality for the healthy, jollyold authors of the nineteenth century), in which one has to watch thequiet conduct of people inside a parlour, while knowing that the verymen are outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. Andthis is worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing and bleedingand dropping dead for a thing that is already settled--and settledagainst them. The great grey masses of men still toil and tug andsway hither and thither around the great grey tower; and the tower isstill motionless, as it will always be motionless. These men will becrushed before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be crushed, and new wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise again like the sun, and injustice will always be as fresh as the flowers of spring. Andthe stone tower will always look down on it. Matter, in its brutalbeauty, will always look down on those who are mad enough to consentto die, and yet more mad, since they consent to live. "

 * * * * *

Thus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the SpecialCorrespondent of the _Court Journal_ to that valued periodical. 

The Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick andgloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly downthe steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in sounusual an excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit mainroad, looking vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant spaceexcept a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, whichlooked at first like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to his greatastonishment, to be Barker. 

"Have you heard the good news?" asked that gentleman. 

"Yes, " said Quin, with a measured voice. "I have heard the gladtidings of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to Kensington? I seeone over there. "

They took the cab, and were, in four minutes, fronting the ranks ofthe multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not spoken a word allthe way, and something about him had prevented the essentiallyimpressionable Barker from speaking either. 

The great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, calling manyheads to the numberless windows, for it was long indeed--longer thanthe lives of most of the tolerably young--since such an army had beenseen in London. Compared with the vast organisation which was nowswallowing up the miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the Kinghanging at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem wasinsignificant. In the presence of that army the red Notting Hills andthe green Bayswaters were alike tiny and straggling groups. In itspresence the whole struggle round Pump Street was like an ant-hillunder the hoof of an ox. Every man who felt or looked at thatinfinity of men knew that it was the triumph of Buck's brutalarithmetic. Whether Wayne was right or wrong, wise or foolish, wasquite a fair matter for discussion. But it was a matter of history. Atthe foot of Church Street, opposite Kensington Church, they paused intheir glowing good humour. 

"Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them, " said Buck, turning to Barker and the King. "Let us send and ask them to cave inwithout more muddle. "

"What shall we say to them?" said Barker, doubtfully. 

"The facts of the case are quite sufficient, " rejoined Buck. "It isthe facts of the case that make an army surrender. Let us simply saythat our army that is fighting their army, and their army that isfighting our army, amount altogether to about a thousand men. Say thatwe have four thousand. It is very simple. Of the thousand fighting, they have at the very most, three hundred, so that, with those threehundred, they have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Letthem do it if it amuses them. "

And the Provost of North Kensington laughed. 

The herald who was despatched up Church Street in all the pomp of theSouth Kensington blue and gold, with the Three Birds on his tabard, was attended by two trumpeters. 

"What will they do when they consent?" asked Barker, for the sake ofsaying something in the sudden stillness of that immense army. 

"I know my Wayne very well, " said Buck, laughing. "When he submits hewill send a red herald flaming with the Lion of Notting Hill. Evendefeat will be delightful to him, since it is formal and romantic. "

The King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke silencefor the first time. 

"I shouldn't wonder, " he said, "if he defied you, and didn't send theherald after all. I don't think you do know your Wayne quite so wellas you think. "

"All right, your Majesty, " said Buck, easily; "if it isn'tdisrespectful, I'll put my political calculations in a very simpleform. I'll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the herald comes with thesurrender. "

"All right, " said Auberon. "I may be wrong, but it's my notion of AdamWayne that he'll die in his city, and that, till he is dead, it willnot be a safe property. "

"The bet's made, your Majesty, " said Buck. 

Another long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker alone, amidthe motionless army, strolled and stamped in his restless way. 

Then Buck suddenly leant forward. 

"It's taking your money, your Majesty, " he said. "I knew it was. Therecomes the herald from Adam Wayne. "

"It's not, " cried the King, peering forward also. "You brute, it's ared omnibus. "

"It's not, " said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, for downthe centre of the spacious and silent Church Street was walking, beyond question, the herald of the Red Lion, with two trumpeters. 

Buck had something in him which taught him how to be magnanimous. Inhis hour of success he felt magnanimous towards Wayne, whom he reallyadmired; magnanimous towards the King, off whom he had scored sopublicly; and, above all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was thetitular leader of this vast South Kensington army, which his owntalent had evoked. 

"General Barker, " he said, bowing, "do you propose now to receive themessage from the besieged?"

Barker bowed also, and advanced towards the herald. 

"Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for surrender?"he asked. 

The herald conveyed a solemn and respectful affirmative. 

Barker resumed, coughing slightly, but encouraged. 

"What answer does your master send?"

The herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered in a kindof monotone. 

"My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, under the charter of King Auberon and the laws of God and all mankind, free and of a free city, greets James Barker, Lord High Provost ofSouth Kensington, by the same rights free and honourable, leader ofthe army of the South. With all friendly reverence, and with allconstitutional consideration, he desires James Barker to lay down hisarms, and the whole army under his command to lay down their armsalso. "

Before the words were ended the King had run forward into the openspace with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and the forefront ofthe army were literally struck breathless. When they recovered theybegan to laugh beyond restraint; the revulsion was too sudden. 

"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, " continued the herald, "doesnot propose, in the event of your surrender, to use his victory forany of those repressive purposes which others have entertained againsthim. He will leave you your free laws and your free cities, your flagsand your governments. He will not destroy the religion of SouthKensington, or crush the old customs of Bayswater. "

An irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the forefront ofthe great army. 

"The King must have had something to do with this humour, " said Buck, slapping his thigh. "It's too deliciously insolent. Barker, have aglass of wine. "

And in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to therestaurant opposite the church and brought out two glasses for atoast. 

When the laughter had died down, the herald continued quitemonotonously--

"In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing under thesuperintendence of our forces, these local rights of yours shall becarefully observed. In the event of your not doing so, the Lord HighProvost of Notting Hill desires to announce that he has just capturedthe Waterworks Tower, just above you, on Campden Hill, and that withinten minutes from now, that is, on the reception through me of yourrefusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the whole valleywhere you stand in thirty feet of water. God save King Auberon!"

Buck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine over theroad. 

"But--but--" he said; and then by a last and splendid effort of hisgreat sanity, looked the facts in the face. 

"We must surrender, " he said. "You could do nothing against fiftythousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten minutes hence. Wemust surrender. Our four thousand men might as well be four. _VicistiGalilæe!_ Perkins, you may as well get me another glass of wine. "

In this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered and theEmpire of Notting Hill began. One further fact in this connection isperhaps worth mentioning--the fact that, after his victory, Adam Waynecaused the great tower on Campden Hill to be plated with gold andinscribed with a great epitaph, saying that it was the monument ofWilfrid Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted witha statue, in which his large nose was done something less than justiceto. 

BOOK V

CHAPTER I--_The Empire of Notting Hill_

On the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the greatvictory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, KingAuberon came, as of old, out of Kensington Palace. 

He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair, for his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were, decrepit. 

If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental. It was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, thefrock-coat and high hat of the days before the great war. "I havesurvived the Deluge, " he said. "I am a pyramid, and must behave assuch. "

As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians, in their picturesqueblue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as acuriosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish anattire. 

The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant("Gaffer Auberon" his friends were now confidentially desired to callhim), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in hiseye, at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine greatgates of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, bythe hand of Chiffy himself. 

"Ah!" he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air ofage, and a provincialism of accent--"Ah! I mind when there warn't noneof this here. "

He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion, wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, "Nothing Ill. "The guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd. 

It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused tolook at them, for they were Chiffy's finest work, and his artistic eyenever failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of theLamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, swordin hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as ifready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should againshow their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could playabout the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of thesalvation of his country in the dreadful year. 

"Old Wayne was right in a way, " commented the King. "The sword doesmake things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now. And to think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting aromantic Notting Hill. Deary me, deary me! (I think that is theexpression)--it seems like a previous existence. "

Turning a corner, he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the fourshops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He enteredidly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older, like the rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore witha moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured. He was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown, and crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, andcovered with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his warespassing from hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neckwas the chain with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore asGrand Master of the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre andsumptuous look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominentlyas in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with asense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers ofthose forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not somuch as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as aneducated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was storedin great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensablesayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange andpurple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and dreamy, storedsymbolically the tea of India. A row of caskets of a simple silverymetal contained tinned meats. Each was wrought with some rude butrhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicatewhat material had been canned in it. 

"Your Majesty, " said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. "Thisis an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city. "

Auberon took off his hat. 

"Mr. Mead, " he said, "Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, candeal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?"

"Liquorice, sire, " said Mr. Mead, "is not the least important of ourbenefits out of the dark heart of Arabia. "

And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in theform of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer. 

"I was just thinking, Mr. Mead, " said the King, reflectively, "I don'tknow why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking oftwenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?"

The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper(inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large greyeyes dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside. 

"Oh yes, your Majesty, " he said. "I remember these streets before theLord Provost began to rule us. I can't remember how we felt very well. All the great songs and the fighting change one so; and I don't thinkwe can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can rememberhis coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I rememberthe things he said. The singular thing is that, as far as I remember, I thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it's the thingsthat I said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd--as oddas a madman's antics. "

"Ah!" said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness. 

"I thought nothing of being a grocer then, " he said. "Isn't that oddenough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places thatmy goods come from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did notknow that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearingfishes near the secret pool, and gathering fruits in the islands underthe world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as ahatter. "

The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the greatlamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming. 

"And is this the end of poor old Wayne?" he said, half to himself. "Toinflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze. Isthis his victory that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in aworld of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace?Must Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strangeworld in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the troubleto go mad!"

And he went dreamily out of the shop. 

He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost haddone two decades before. 

[Illustration: "A FINE EVENING, SIR, " SAID THE CHEMIST. ]

"How uncommonly creepy this shop looks!" he said. "But yet somehowencouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in ajolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of your skin, and yet know that things always end well. The way those low sharpgables are carved like great black bat's wings folded down, and theway those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine likegiants eye-balls. It looks like a benevolent warlock's hut. It isapparently a chemist's. "

Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door ina long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with atouch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his faceeven paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a redstar cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. Hebelonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on thelamps displayed by doctors and chemists. 

"A fine evening, sir, " said the chemist. "Why, I can scarcely bemistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside andshare a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that may take your fancy. As it happens, there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty's in myshop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage atthis moment. "

The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades andhues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant thanthe grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy andfancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay ofmedicines been presented to the artistic eye. 

But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled oreven eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. Hisform, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant bluevelvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as toshow gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He hadseveral chains round his neck, and his plumes, which were of severaltints of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his longsword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opaltint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tallfigure, whose face was in shadow; then he said--

"By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!"

The figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head andlong, almost equine face which the King had so often seen rising outof the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on eachtemple, it was totally unchanged. 

"Your Majesty, " said Barker, "this is a meeting nobly retrospective, ameeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to olddays;" and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling. 

"I am delighted to see you again, Barker, " said the King. "It isindeed long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and mybook having to be written (you have read my 'Life of Prince Albert forChildren, ' of course?), we have scarcely met twice since the GreatWar. That is twenty years ago. "

"I wonder, " said Barker, thoughtfully, "if I might speak freely toyour Majesty?"

"Well, " said Auberon, "it's rather late in the day to start speakingrespectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom. "

"Well, your Majesty, " replied Barker, lowering his voice, "I don'tthink it will be so long to the next war. "

"What do you mean?" asked Auberon. 

"We will stand this insolence no longer, " burst out Barker, fiercely. "We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us witha water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. Wein South Kensington, we also have memories--ay, and hopes. If theyfought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we notfight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural HistoryMuseum?"

"Great Heavens!" said the astounded Auberon. "Will wonders nevercease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turnedaltruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and hethe tyrant?"

"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes, "answered Barker. "He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, andsits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is thetyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been sointoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne's old waysand visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule everyone, and civilise every one, and tell every one what is good for him. I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed, gave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a youngman, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to seeour own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because ofsomething Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I amjust waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured thatNotting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are puttingup opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and whiteshameless breach of the terms on which we surrendered to Turnbullafter the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs andself-government. If that is so--"

"It is so, " said a deep voice; and both men turned round. 

A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round hisneck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in thedoorway. 

"Yes, " he said, acknowledging the King's start, "I am Provost Buck, and the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that wefought round the Tower as well as they, and that it is sometimesfoolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered. "

"Let us step outside, " said Barker, with a grim composure. 

Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-litstreet. 

"I would like to have a go at smashing all this, " he muttered, "though I am over sixty. I would like--"

His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands tohis eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before. 

"Darkness!" he cried--"darkness again! What does it mean?"

For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they couldnot see even each other's outline, except faintly. The voice of thechemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density. 

"Oh, don't you know?" he said. "Did they never tell you this is theFeast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almostlost and just saved Notting Hill? Don't you know, your Majesty, thaton this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson's green uniformscharging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back uponthe gas-works, fighting with their handful like fiends from hell? Andthat then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of thegas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the wholecity, and then with a cry like a lion's, that was heard through fourstreets, flew at Wilson's men, sword in hand, and swept them, bewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of thesacred street again? And don't you know that upon that night everyyear all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing theNotting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins. "

Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell ofhuman voices--

"When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill, (There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow, From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know, Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe, And the old guard of God turned to bay. For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay, And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day: For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde, When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword, The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord, When the old guard of God turned to bay. "

The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse when theywere stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into thestreet with a cry of "South Kensington!" and a drawn dagger. In lesstime than a man could blink, the whole packed street was full ofcurses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front, but used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, andcalling out, "This is not the first time I've come through the thickof you, " flung himself again into the press. It was evident that hehad drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and manyother knives and swords were discernible in the faint light. Barker, after having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of beingflung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. Hehad no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of thegreat burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the oldsombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist hebroke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop, and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, andcalling out, "Kensington! Kensington!" rushed to Barker's assistance. 

Barker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with hisdagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill struck Barker down, but Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang upagain, the blood running down his face. 

Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed tofall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King, from its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terriblebecause it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time theyhad not heard for so long. 

"Turn up the lights, " said the voice from above them, and for a momentthere was no reply, but only a tumult. 

"In the name of Notting Hill and of the great Council of the City, turn up the lights. "

There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the wholestreet and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, asevery lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon abalcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and theface of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streakedwith grey. 

"What is this, my people?" he said. "Is it altogether impossible tomake a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked?The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, hasbeen enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside thefire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many otheraffairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Whyshould it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down thestatue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightlyerected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? DidBayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see thatit is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the othercities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have creatednot only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O toohumble fools, why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You havedone something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wishto pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like anobelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! BeforeNotting Hill arose, did any person passing through HammersmithBroadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish toabolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon theartificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought ofit before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain Ihave heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been casttowards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected tothe great black monument of a crowned raven, which commemorates theskirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were theythere before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny whichwas enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, thehumble purpose, of creating a new world. Is Athens angry becauseRomans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology for expressingtheir own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry because as a little village ithas become the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobssay, no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys?Are all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans. No! butthe soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soulof Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified. So hasthe soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realise what it is tolive in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, sothey have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to contend againstthem? Notting Hill is right; it has always been right. It has mouldeditself on its own necessities, its own _sine quâ non_; it has acceptedits own ultimatum. Because it is a nation it has created itself; andbecause it is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shallalways be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter ofGeneral Wilson's statue to make war upon Bayswater--"

A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech wasimpossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and againto speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark androaring masses in the street below him. He said something further, butit was not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret inwhich he lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses. Finding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queeraffection and gravity, and said--

"To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as theflowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been throughthree battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiardelight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able toexchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, weshall probably both be dead. "

Turnbull looked dimly surprised. 

"I don't mind so much about being dead, " he said, "but why should yousay that we shall be defeated?"

"The answer is very simple, " replied Wayne, calmly. "It is because weought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes beforenow; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were onour side, and that we ought to get out. Now I know that we ought notto get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won. "

As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that athird figure was listening to them--a small figure with wonderingeyes. 

"Is it really true, my dear Wayne, " said the King, interrupting, "thatyou think you will be beaten to-morrow?"

"There can be no doubt about it whatever, " replied Adam Wayne; "thereal reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as aconcession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organisedarmy of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself, however, would be unimportant. "

Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent. 

"You are quite sure, " he said, "that you must be beaten?"

"I am afraid, " said Turnbull, gloomily, "that there can be no doubtabout it. "

"Then, " cried the King, flinging out his arms, "give me a halberd!Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I, Auberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate, and implore theProvost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me ahalberd!"

He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stampedsolemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by thistime, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with thewrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place beforemorning. 

CHAPTER II--_The Last Battle_

The day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army inKensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had beenswallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been analmost uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of NottingHill, with all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to thehostile armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the longstrips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in squares andoblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. Butthe sunlight was a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soonswallowed up. Wayne spoke to the King, with a queer sort of coldnessand languor, as to the military operations. It was as he had said thenight before--that being deprived of his sense of an impracticablerectitude, he was, in effect, being deprived of everything. He was outof date, and at sea in a mere world of compromise and competition, ofEmpire against Empire, of the tolerably right and the tolerably wrong. When his eye fell on the King, however, who was marching very gravelywith a top hat and a halberd, it brightened slightly. 

"Well, your Majesty, " he said, "you at least ought to be proud to-day. If your children are fighting each other, at least those who win areyour children. Other kings have distributed justice, you havedistributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have creatednations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look atyour children, father!" and he stretched his hand out towards theenemy. 

Auberon did not raise his eyes. 

"See how splendidly, " cried Wayne, "the new cities come on--the newcities from across the river. See where Battersea advances overthere--under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney--don't you see theMan on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it?It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not acommon empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode oflife, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of theworld--a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the olddreary days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would getfaster, and all the world be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even as a child I used to say to myself, 'Far more likely that weshall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city. ' Andso it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle. "

Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and heturned his head. 

"Wilson!" he cried, with a kind of joy. "Red Wilson has charged ourleft. No one can hold him in; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldieras Turnbull, but less patient--less really great. Ha! and Barker ismoving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks! It is not allhaving plumes; it is also having a soul in one's daily life. Ha!"

And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closedwith Notting Hill on the other side. 

"Turnbull is there!" cried Wayne. "See him hurl them back! Barker ischecked! Turnbull charges--wins! But our left is broken. Wilson hassmashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our flank. Forward, theProvost's Guard!"

And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne's face and hair and swordflaming in the van. 

The King ran suddenly forward. 

The next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had metthe enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their ownweapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck of North Kensington. 

On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little greenfigure conspicuous even in the tangle of men and weapons, with theflaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at hishead and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, with a roar like a bull's, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattleof fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying, "Notting Hill!" Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater sweptthem back in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him. 

On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with arush against Barker's men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore upwith difficulty against it. Barker's men fell fast. In the centreWayne and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as thefighting went, it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce. For behind the three small armies with which Wayne's small army wasengaged lay the great sea of the allied armies, which looked on as yetas scornful spectators, but could have broken all four armies bymoving a finger. 

Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the pastoralchiefs from Shepherd's Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seenadvancing, and the rude clans from Paddington Green. They wereadvancing for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, wassignalling wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. Hisregiments were a struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea ofNotting Hill. 

The allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowedBarker's force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment thatwas done, the astute old leader of Notting Hill swung his men roundand attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Waynecried, "Charge!" and struck him in front like a thunderbolt. 

Two-thirds of Buck's men were cut to pieces before their allies couldreach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners likebreakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. The battle was notover, for not one of Wayne's men would surrender, and it lasted tillsundown, and long after. But it was decided; the story of Notting Hillwas ended. 

When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and lookedround him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like achild's. 

"I have had my youth, " he said. Then, snatching an axe from a man, hedashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd's Bush, and diedsomewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battleroared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain before night. 

Wayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several menapproached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly toslip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against thetree. 

Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement. 

"How large now, my lord, " he cried, "is the Empire of Notting Hill?"

Wayne smiled in the gathering dark. 

"Always as large as this, " he said, and swept his sword round in asemicircle of silver. 

Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his bodylike a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there camebehind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and amass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and shouting aloud. 

At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne's sword, seeminglysmashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like a bird, but Wilsonseemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne'sthroat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reachedthe tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a cursethe King whirled up his own halberd, and dashed the blade in the man'sface. He reeled and rolled down the slope, just as the furious Wilsonwas flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and againat Wayne's throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughingtriumphantly. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour thatWayne wore as Provost of Notting Hill. He had torn it from the placewhere it had been carried for twenty-five years. 

With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the greatyellow banner flapping over his head. 

"Where is your favour now, Provost?" cried the West Kensington leader. 

And a laugh went up. 

Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. Asthe banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred. A halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily. 

"Here is one colour!" he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; "andhere!" he cried, pointing to his own blood--"here is the other. "

At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid theKing stunned or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness, he saw again something that belonged to an utterly forgotten time, something that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, with his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua. 

Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at AdamWayne, and the great sword of Notting Hill was whirled above oncemore. Then men ducked instinctively at the rushing noise of the swordcoming down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed andwiped down upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but awreck; but the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he hadsnapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne wasbroken at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by forceagainst the tree. They were too close to use halberd or even sword;they were breast to breast, even nostrils to nostrils. But Buck gothis dagger free. 

"Kill him!" he cried, in a strange stifled voice. "Kill him! Good orbad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face!. .. God! have wenot been blinded all along!" and he drew his arm back for a stab, andseemed to close his eyes. 

Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But amighty heave went over his breast and his whole huge figure, like anearthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort herent the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood; and, swaying it once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. The planner of the Great Road fell face foremostdead, with his dagger in a grip of steel. 

"For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother, " said Wayne, inhis strange chant, "there is good wine poured in the inn at the end ofthe world. "

The packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it was almosttoo dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this timegetting his hand into a wide crevice and grasping, as it were, thebowels of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made arush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight andnumbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been stillerthan that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound. 

"His hand is slipping, " cried two men in exultation. 

"You don't know much of him, " said another, grimly (a man of the oldwar). "More likely his bone cracks. "

"It is neither--by God, it is neither!" said one of the first two. 

"What is it, then?" asked the second. 

"The tree is falling, " he replied. 

"As the tree falleth, so shall it lie, " said Wayne's voice out of thedarkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it hadhad throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or afterthe event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like amadman, he spoke like a spectator. "As the tree falleth, so shall itlie, " he said. "Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essenceof all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, whatis the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging tosomething. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about andsee the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal and wise andcosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you--all that hecould offer to Christ, only to be spurned away. I am doing what thetruly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold ofa tree, saying, 'Let this tree be all I have, ' that moment its rootstake hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have iswhat the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savageknows when his idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hillis everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall. "

As he spoke, the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of itrose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of the oak. Then thegreat head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones, swept the sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled overlike a ship, smashing every one in its fall. 

CHAPTER III--_Two Voices_

In a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was alsofor hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, noone could have told from where, and said aloud--

"So ends the Empire of Notting Hill. As it began in blood, so it endedin blood, and all things are always the same. "

And there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but ithad not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice. 

"If all things are always the same, it is because they are alwaysheroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they arealways new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only isgiven a little power--the power at some moments to outgrow and swallowup the stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatevergives it to them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean--anempire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great--agreat war or a love-story. And in the darkest of the books of Godthere is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the newthings that men tire--of fashions and proposals and improvements andchange. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is theold things that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel thatmany have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man who does notfeel that all his novelties are ancient. There is no worshipper ofchange who does not feel upon his neck the vast weight of theweariness of the universe. But we who do the old things are fed bynature with a perpetual infancy. No man who is in love thinks that anyone has been in love before. No woman who has a child thinks thatthere have been such things as children. No people that fight fortheir own city are haunted with the burden of the broken empires. Yes, O dark voice, the world is always the same, for it is alwaysunexpected. "

A little gust of wind blew through the night, and then the first voiceanswered--

"But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, whomnothing intoxicates. There are some who see all your disturbances likea cloud of flies. They know that while men will laugh at your NottingHill, and will study and rehearse and sing of Athens and Jerusalem, Athens and Jerusalem were silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. Theyknow that the earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearilyand respectably amused as they move upon it. "

"They are philosophers or they are fools, " said the other voice. "Theyare not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from age to age insomething fresher than progress--in the fact that with every baby anew sun and a new moon are made. If our ancient humanity were a singleman, it might perhaps be that he would break down under the memory ofso many loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, underthe load and terror of all the goodness of men. But it has pleased Godso to isolate the individual soul that it can only learn of all othersouls by hearsay, and to each one goodness and happiness come with theyouth and violence of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And thedoom of failure that lies on all human systems does not in real factaffect them any more than the worms of the inevitable grave affect achildren's game in a meadow. Notting Hill has fallen; Notting Hill hasdied. But that is not the tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived. "

"But if, " answered the other voice, "if what is achieved by all theseefforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men soextravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by NottingHill than any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would nothave done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if theworld had been different may be a deep question; but there is adeeper. What could have happened to the world if Notting Hill hadnever been?"

The other voice replied--

"The same that would have happened to the world and all the starrysystems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of seven; somethingwould have been eternally lost. There has never been anything in theworld absolutely like Notting Hill. There will never be anything quitelike it to the crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that Godloved it as He must surely love anything that is itself andunreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with all Histhunders, hated it, I loved it. "

And with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out of the_débris_ in the half-darkness. 

The other voice came after a long pause, and as it were hoarsely. 

"But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. Suppose thatwhatever meaning you may choose in your fancy to give to it, the realmeaning of the whole was mockery. Suppose it was all folly. Suppose--"

"I have been in it, " answered the voice from the tall and strangefigure, "and I know it was not. "

A smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark. 

"Suppose I am God, " said the voice, "and suppose I made the world inidleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal, are only theidiot fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy. Suppose the sun and themoon, to which you sing alternately, are only the two eyes of one vastand sneering giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Supposethe trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous toad-stools. SupposeSocrates and Charlemagne are to me only beasts, made funnier bywalking on their hind legs. Suppose I am God, and having made things, laugh at them. "

"And suppose I am man, " answered the other. "And suppose that I givethe answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not laugh back atyou, do not blaspheme you, do not curse you. But suppose, standing upstraight under the sky, with every power of my being, I thank you forthe fools' paradise you have made. Suppose I praise you, with aliteral pain of ecstasy, for the jest that has brought me so terriblea joy. If we have taken the child's games, and given them theseriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutchgarden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into atemple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?"

The sky close about the crests of the hills and trees was beginning toturn from black to grey, with a random suggestion of the morning. Theslight figure seemed to crawl towards the larger one, and the voicewas more human. 

"But suppose, friend, " it said, "suppose that, in a bitterer and morereal sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that there had been, fromthe beginning of these great wars, one who watched them with a sensethat is beyond expression, a sense of detachment, of responsibility, of irony, of agony. Suppose that there were one who knew it was all ajoke. "

The tall figure answered--

"He could not know it. For it was not all a joke. "

And a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the sky-line, andshowed a strip of silver behind his great dark legs. Then the othervoice came, having crept nearer still. 

[Illustration: "WAYNE, IT WAS ALL A JOKE. "]

"Adam Wayne, " it said, "there are men who confess only in _articulomortis_; there are people who blame themselves only when they can nolonger help others. I am one of them. Here, upon the field of thebloody end of it all, I come to tell you plainly what you would neverunderstand before. Do you know who I am?"

"I know you, Auberon Quin, " answered the tall figure, "and I shall beglad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies upon it. "

"Adam Wayne, " said the other voice, "of what I have to say you cannotin common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, it was all a joke. When I made these cities, I cared no more for them than I care for acentaur, or a merman, or a fish with legs, or a pig with feathers, orany other absurdity. When I spoke to you solemnly and encouraginglyabout the flag of your freedom and the peace of your city, I wasplaying a vulgar practical joke on an honest gentleman, a vulgarpractical joke that has lasted for twenty years. Though no one couldbelieve it of me, perhaps, it is the truth that I am a man both timidand tender-hearted. I never dared in the early days of your hope, orthe central days of your supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared tobreak the colossal calm of your face. God knows why I should do itnow, when my farce has ended in tragedy and the ruin of all yourpeople! But I say it now. Wayne, it was done as a joke. "

There was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky clearer andclearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn. 

At last Wayne said, very slowly--

"You did it all only as a joke?"

"Yes, " said Quin, briefly. 

"When you conceived the idea, " went on Wayne, dreamily, "of an armyfor Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was no gleam, nosuggestion in your mind that such things might be real andpassionate?"

"No, " answered Auberon, turning his round white face to the morningwith a dull and splendid sincerity; "I had none at all. "

Wayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his hand. 

"I will not stop to thank you, " he said, with a curious joy in hisvoice, "for the great good for the world you have actually wrought. All that I think of that I have said to you a moment ago, even when Ithought that your voice was the voice of a derisive omnipotence, itslaughter older than the winds of heaven. But let me say what isimmediate and true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of usthroughout our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad. We are mad, because we are not two men, but one man. We are mad, because we are two lobes of the same brain, and that brain has beencloven in two. And if you ask for the proof of it, it is not hard tofind. It is not merely that you, the humorist, have been in these darkdays stripped of the joy of gravity. It is not merely that I, thefanatic, have had to grope without humour. It is that, though we seemto be opposite in everything, we have been opposite like man andwoman, aiming at the same moment at the same practical thing. We arethe father and the mother of the Charter of the Cities. "

Quin looked down at the _débris_ of leaves and timber, the relics ofthe battle and stampede, now glistening in the growing daylight, andfinally said--

"Yet nothing can alter the antagonism--the fact that I laughed atthese things and you adored them. "

Wayne's wild face flamed with something god-like, as he turned it tobe struck by the sunrise. 

"I know of something that will alter that antagonism, something thatis outside us, something that you and I have all our lives perhapstaken too little account of. The equal and eternal human being willalter that antagonism, for the human being sees no real antagonismbetween laughter and respect, the human being, the common man, whommere geniuses like you and me can only worship like a god. When darkand dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, thepure satirist. We have between us remedied a great wrong. We havelifted the modern cities into that poetry which every one who knowsmankind knows to be immeasurably more common than the commonplace. Butin healthy people there is no war between us. We are but the two lobesof the brain of a ploughman. Laughter and love are everywhere. Thecathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemousgrotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the loverlaughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friendat the friend. Auberon Quin, we have been too long separated; let usgo out together. You have a halberd and I a sword, let us start ourwanderings over the world. For we are its two essentials. Come, it isalready day. "

In the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he made theformal salute with his halberd, and they went away together into theunknown world. 

THE END

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