“ ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.
“ ‘Eternity,’ he said in his harsh voice, ‘the largest of the idols—the mightiest of the rivals of God.’
“ ‘You mean pantheism and infinity and all that,’ I suggested.
“ ‘I mean,’ he said with increasing vehemence, ‘that if there be a house for me in heaven it will either have a green lamppost and a hedge, or something quite as positive and personal as a green lamppost and a hedge. I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all things however wild in praise of it, so that this one spot might be a witness against all the infinities and the sophistries, that Paradise is somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything. And I would not be so very much surprised if the house in heaven had a real green lamppost after all.’
“With which he shouldered his pole and went striding down the perilous paths below, and left me alone with the eagles. But since he went a fever of homelessness will often shake me. I am troubled by rainy meadows and mud cabins that I have never seen; and I wonder whether America will endure.
After a short silence Inglewood said: “And, finally, we desire to put in as evidence the following document:—
“This is to say that I am Ruth Davis, and have been housemaid to Mrs. I. Smith at The Laurels in Croydon for the last six months. When I came the lady was alone, with two children; she was not a widow, but her husband was away. She was left with plenty of money and did not seem disturbed about him, though she often hoped he would be back soon. She said he was rather eccentric and a little change did him good. One evening last week I was bringing the tea-things out on to the lawn when I nearly dropped them. The end of a long rake was suddenly stuck over the hedge, and planted like a jumping-pole; and over the hedge, just like a monkey on a stick, came a huge, horrible man, all hairy and ragged like Robinson Crusoe. I screamed out, but my mistress didn’t even get out of her chair, but smiled and said he wanted shaving. Then he sat down quite calmly at the garden table and took a cup of tea, and then I realized that this must be Mr. Smith himself. He has stopped here ever since and does not really give much trouble, though I sometimes fancy he is a little weak in his head.
The room had been growing dark and drowsy; the afternoon sun sent one heavy shaft of powdered gold across it, which fell with an intangible solemnity upon the empty seat of Mary Gray, for the younger women had left the court before the more recent of the investigations. Mrs. Duke was still asleep, and Innocent Smith, looking like a large hunchback in the twilight, was bending closer and closer to his paper toys. But the five men really engaged in the controversy, and concerned not to convince the tribunal but to convince each other, still sat round the table like the Committee of Public Safety.
Suddenly Moses Gould banged one big scientific book on top of another, cocked his little legs up against the table, tipped his chair backwards so far as to be in direct danger of falling over, emitted a startling and prolonged whistle like a steam engine, and asserted that it was all his eye.
When asked by Moon what was all his eye, he banged down behind the books again and answered with considerable excitement, throwing his papers about. “All those fairytales you’ve been reading out,” he said. “Oh! don’t talk to me! I ain’t littery and that, but I know fairytales when I hear ’em. I got a bit stumped in some of the philosophical bits and felt inclined to go out for a B. and S. But we’re living in West ’Ampstead and not in ’Ell; and the long and the short of it is that some things ’appen and some things don’t ’appen. Those are the things that don’t ’appen.”
“I thought,” said Moon gravely, “that we quite clearly explained—”
“Oh yes, old chap, you quite clearly explained,” assented Mr. Gould with extraordinary volubility. “You’d explain an elephant off the doorstep, you would. I ain’t a clever chap like you; but I ain’t a born natural, Michael Moon, and when there’s an elephant on my doorstep I don’t listen to no explanations. ‘It’s got a trunk,’ I says.—‘My trunk,’ you says: ‘I’m fond of travellin’, and a change does me good.’—‘But the blasted thing’s got tusks,’ I says.—‘Don’t look a gift ’orse in the mouth,’ you says, ‘but thank the goodness and the graice that on your birth ’as smiled.’—‘But it’s nearly as big as the ’ouse,’ I says.—‘That’s the bloomin’ perspective,’ you says, ‘and the sacred magic of distance.’—‘Why, the elephant’s trumpetin’ like the Day of Judgement,’ I says.—‘That’s your own conscience a-talking to you, Moses Gould,’ you says in a grive and tender voice. Well, I ’ave got a conscience as much as you. I don’t believe most of the things they tell you in church on Sundays; and I don’t believe these ’ere things any more because you goes on about ’em as if you was in church. I believe an elephant’s a great big ugly dingerous beast—and I believe Smith’s another.”
“Do you mean to say,” asked Inglewood, “that you still doubt the evidence of exculpation we have brought forward?”
“Yes, I do still doubt it,” said Gould warmly. “It’s all a bit too far-fetched, and some of it a bit too
