Review of Reviews, 1/11/06. 



In the Days of the Gomet. 



619 



"It falls on the men," I agreed, wilfully mis- 

 understanding him. 



And so we worked our way toward an argument. 

 " Confound this argument !'' I thought .; but I had 

 no skill in self-extraction, and my irritation crept 

 into mv voice. Three little spots of colour came 

 into the cheeks and nose of Mr. Gabbitas, but his 

 voice showed nothing of his ruffled temper. 



■' Vou see." I said. " I'm a Socialist. I don't think 

 this world was made for a small minority to dance 

 on the faces of everyone else." 



" My dear fellow," said the Reverend Mr. Gabbi- 

 tas, " /'/« a Socialist too. Who isn't? But that 

 doesn't lead me to class hatred.'' 



" You haven't felt the heel of this confounded 

 s\stem. / have." 



" Ah I' said he; and catching him on that note 

 came a rap at the front door, and, as he hung sus- 

 pended, the sound of my mother letting someone in 

 and a timid rap. 



"Now," thought I, and stood up. resolutely, but 

 he would not let me. " No, no, no I" said he. " It's 

 onlv for the Dorcas money." 



He put his hand against my chest with an effect 

 of physical com[)ulsion, and cried, "Come in!'' 



"Our talk's just getting interesting," he protest- 

 ed; and there entered Miss Ramell. an elderly little 

 lady who was mighty in church help in Clayton. 



He greeted her — she took no notice of me — and 

 went to his bureau, and I remained standing by my 

 chair but unable to get out of the room. " I'm not 

 .interrupting?' asked Miss Ramell. 



" Not in the least," he said, drawing out the car- 

 riers and Ojiening his desk. I could not help seeing 

 what he did. 



I was so fretted bv my impotence to leave him, 

 that, at the moment, it did not connect at all with 

 the research of the morning that he was taking out 

 money. I listened sullenly to his talk with Miss 

 Ramell. and saw only, as they say in Wales, with 

 the front of my eves, the small fiat drawer that had, 

 it seemed, quite a number of sovereigns scattered 

 over its flo<ir. " They're so unreasonable," com- 

 plained Miss Rfimell. Who could be otherwise in 

 a social organisation that bordered on insanitv ? 



I turned away from them, put my foot on the 

 fender, stuck my elbow on the plush-fringed man- 

 telboard. and studied the -photographs, pipes, and 

 ash trays that adorned it. What was it I had to 

 think out before I w^ent to the station? 



Of ciiurse ! Mv mind made a queer, little, re- 

 luctant leap ; it felt like being forced to leap over 

 a bottomless chasm ; and alighted upon the sove- 

 reigns that were just disappearing again as Mr. 

 Gabbitas shut his drawer.. 



" I won't interrupt your talk further." said Miss 

 Ramell, receding doorward. 



Mr. Gabbitas played round her politely, and 

 opened the door for her and conducted her into the 

 passage, and for a moment or so I had the fullest 



sense of proximity to those — it seemed to me there 

 must be ten or twelve — sovereigns. 



The front door closed and he returned. My 

 chance of escape had gone. 

 IV. 



" I imtst be going," I said, with a curiously rein- 

 forced desire to get away out of that room. 



" My dear chap !" he insisted, " I can't think of 

 it. Surely, there's nothing to call you away.'' Then 

 with an evident desire to shift the venue of our talk, 

 he asked, "You never told me what you thought of 

 Burble's little book?" 



I was now, beneath my dull display of submis- 

 sion, furiously angry wdth him. It occurred to me 

 to ask myself why I should defer and qualify my 

 opinions to him. Why should I pretend a feeling 

 of intellectual and social inferiority toward him ? 

 He asked what I thought of Burble. I resolved to 

 tell him, if necessary, with arrogance. Then per- 

 haps he would release me. I did not sit down again, 

 but stood by the corner of the fireplace. 



" That was the little book you lent me last sum- 

 mer ?" I said. 



" He reasons, closely, eh ?" he said, and indi- 

 cated the armchair with a fiat hand, and beamed 

 persuasively. 



I remained standing. " I didn't think much of his 

 reasoning powers," I said. 



" He was one of the cleverest bishops London 

 ever had." 



" That may be. But he was dodging about in a 

 jolly feeble case," said I. 



" You mean ?" 



" That he's wrong. I don't think he proves his 

 case. I don't think Christianity is true. He knows 

 himself for the pretender he is. His reasoning's — 

 rot." 



Mr. Gabbitas went, T think, a shade paler than 

 his wont, and propitiation vanished from his man- 

 ner. His eyes and mouth were round, his face 

 seemed to get round, his eyebrows curved at mv re- 

 marks. 



" I'm sorry you think that," he said at last, with 

 a catch in his breath. 



He did not repeat his suggestion that I should sit. 

 He made a step or so toward the window and turn- 

 ed. " I suppose you will admit — — " he began, with 

 a faintly irritating note of intellectual condescen- 

 sion. 



T will not tell you of his arguments or mine. You 

 will find, if you care to look for them, in out-of-the- 

 way corners of our book museums, the shrivelled 

 cheap pul)lications — the publications of the R.ition- 

 alist Press .Association, for example — on which my 

 arguments were based. Lying in that curious limbo 

 with them, mixed up with them and indistinguish- 

 able, are the endless "Replies " of orthodoxy, like 

 the mixed dead in some hard-fought trench. .\ll 

 those disputes of our fathers, and thev were some- 

 times furious disputes, have gone now beyond the 



