 Part 5 of The Club of Queer Trades The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton Part 5. The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chad Basil Grant had comparatively few friends besides myself, yet he was the reverse of an unsociable man. He would talk to anyone anywhere, and talk not only well, but with perfectly genuine concern and enthusiasm for that person's affairs. He went through the world, as it were, as if he were always on the top of an omnibus or waiting for a train. Most of these chance acquaintances, of course, vanished into darkness out of his life. A few here and there got hooked onto him, so to speak, and became his lifelong intimates. But there was an accidental look about all of them, as if they were windfalls, samples taken at random, goods fallen from a goods-train, or presents fished out of a bran pie. One would be, let us say, a veterinary surgeon with the appearance of a jockey, another a mild prebundary with a white beard and vague views, another a young captain in the Lancers, seemingly exactly like other captains in the Lancers, another a small dentist from Fulham, in all reasonable certainty, precisely like every other dentist from Fulham. Major Brown, small, dry, and dapper, was one of these, Basil had made his acquaintance over a discussion in a hotel cloakroom about the right hat, a discussion which had reduced the little Major almost to a kind of masculine hysterics, the compound of the selfishness of an old bachelor and the scrupulosity of an old maid. They had gone home in a cab together, and then dined with each other twice a week until they died. I myself was another. I had met Grant while he was still a judge, on the balcony of the National Liberal Club, and exchanged a few words about the weather. Then we had talked for about an hour about politics and God, for men always talk about the most important things with total strangers. It is because in the total stranger we perceive man himself. The image of God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle, or doubts of the wisdom of a moustache. One of the most interesting of Basil's motley group of acquaintances was Professor Chad. He was known to the ethnological world, which is a very interesting world, but a long way off this one, as the second greatest, if not the greatest, authority on the relations of savages to language. He was known to the neighbourhood of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, as a bearded man with a bald head, spectacles and a patient face, the face of an unaccountable non-conformist who has forgotten how to be angry. He went to and fro between the British Museum and a selection of blameless tea-shops, with an armful of books and a poor but honest umbrella. He was never seen without the books and the umbrella, and was supposed, by the lighter wits of the Persian manuscript-room, to go to bed with them in his little brick villa in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush. There he lived with three sisters, ladies of solid goodness but sinister demeanour. His life was happy, as are almost all the lives of methodical students, but one would not have called it exhilarating. His only hours of exhilaration occurred when his friend, Basil Grant, came into the house, late at night, a tornado of conversation. Basil, though close on sixty, had moods of boisterous babyishness, and these seemed for some reason or other to descend upon him particularly in the house of his studious and almost dingy friend. I can remember vividly, for I was acquainted with both parties and often dined with them, the gaiety of Grant on that particular evening when the strange calamity fell upon the professor. Professor Chad was, like most of his particular class and type, the class that is at once academic and middle class, a radical of a solemn and old-fashioned type. Grant was a radical himself, but he was that more discriminating and not uncommon type of radical who passes most of his time in abusing the radical party. Chad had just contributed to a magazine, an article called Zulu Interests and the New Mekango Frontier, in which a precise scientific report of his study of the customs of the people of Tchaka was reinforced by a severe protest against certain interferences with these customs, both by the British and the Germans. He was sitting with the magazine in front of him, the lamp-light shining on his spectacles, a wrinkle in his forehead, not of anger but of perplexity, as Basil Grant strode up and down the room, shaking it with his voice, with his high spirits and his heavy tread. It is not your opinions that I object to my esteemed Chad, he was saying, it's you. You are quite right to champion the Zulus, but for all that you do not sympathise with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose, but for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know an assagai from an alligator. You are more learned, Chad, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, but, Chad, you are not savage. Live no longer under that rosy illusion. Look in the glass, ask your sisters, consult the Librarian of the British Museum. Look at this umbrella, and he held up that sad but still respectable article. Look at it! For ten mortal years to my certain knowledge you have carried that object under your arm, and I have no sort of doubt that you carried it at the age of eight months, and it never occurred to you to give one wild yell and herd it like a javelin. Thus, and he sent the umbrella whizzing past the professor's bald head so that it knocked over a pile of books with a crash and left a vase rocking. Professor Chad appeared totally unmoved, with his face still lifted to the lamp and the wrinkle cut in his forehead. Your mental processes, he said, always go a little too fast, and they are stated without method. There is no kind of inconsistency, and no words could convey the time he took to get to the end of the word, between valuing the right of the aborigines to adhere to their stage in the evolutionary process so long as they find it congenial and requisite to do so. There is, I say, no inconsistency between this concession, which I have just described to you, and the view that the evolutionary stage in question is nevertheless so far as we can form any estimate of values in the variety of cosmic processes definable in some degree as an inferior evolutionary stage. Nothing but his lips had moved as he spoke, and his glasses, till shone like two pallid moons, Grant was shaking with laughter as he watched him. True, he said, there is no inconsistency, my son of the Red Spear, but there is a great deal of incompatibility of temper. I am very far from being certain that the Zulu is on an inferior evolutionary stage, whatever the blazes that may mean. I do not think there is anything stupid or ignorant about howling at the moon or being afraid of devils in the dark. It seems to me perfectly philosophical. Why should a man be thought a sort of idiot because he feels the mystery and peril of existence itself? Suppose, my dear Chad, suppose it is we who are idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark. Professor Chad slit open a page of the magazine with a bone paper knife and the intent reverence of the bibliophile. Beyond all question, he said, it is a tenable hypothesis. I allude to the hypothesis which I understand you to entertain, that our civilization is not or may not be an advance upon, and indeed, if I apprehend you, is or may be a retrogression from states identical with or analogous to the state of the Zulus. Moreover, I shall be inclined to concede that such a proposition is of the nature, in some degree at least, of a primary proposition, and cannot adequately be argued, in the same sense I mean that the primary proposition of pessimism or the primary proposition of the non-existence of matter cannot adequately be argued. But I do not conceive you to be under the impression that you have demonstrated anything more concerning this proposition than that it is tenable, which, after all, amounts to little more than the statement that it is not a contradiction in terms. Basil threw a book at his head and took out a cigar. You don't understand, he said, but on the other hand, as a compensation you don't mind smoking. Why, you don't object to that disgustingly barbaric right I can't think. I can only say that I began it when I began to be a Zulu at about the age of ten. What I maintained was that although you knew more about Zulus in the sense that you are a scientist, I know more about them in the sense that I am a savage. For instance, your theory of the origin of language, something about its having come from the formulated secret language of some individual creature, though you knocked me silly with facts and scholarship in its favour, still does not convince me, because I have a feeling that that is not the way that things happen. If you ask me why, I think so, I can only answer that I am a Zulu. And if you ask me, as you most certainly will, what is my definition of a Zulu, I can answer that also. He is one who has climbed a Sussex apple tree at seven and been afraid of a ghost in an English lane. Your process of thought began the immovable chad, but his speech was interrupted. His sister, with that masculinity which always in such families concentrates in sisters, flung open the door with a rigid arm and said, James, Mr. Bingham of the British Museum wants to see you again. The philosopher rose with a day's look which always indicates in such men the fact that they regard philosophy as a familiar thing, but practical life as a weird and unnerving vision, and walked dubiously out of the room. I hope you do not mind my being aware of it, Miss Chad, said Basil Grant, but I hear that the British Museum has recognised one of the men who have deserved well of their commonwealth. It is true, is it not, that Professor Chad is likely to be made keeper of Asiatic manuscripts. The grim face of the spinster betrayed a great deal of pleasure, and a great deal of pathos also. I believe it's true, she said. If it is, it will not only be great glory that women, I assure you, feel a great deal, but great relief which they feel more. Relief from worry, from a lot of things. James's health has never been good, and while we are as poor as we are, he had to do journalism and coaching, in addition to his own dreadful grinding notions and discoveries which he loves more than man, woman or child. I have often been afraid that unless something of this kind occurred we should really have to be careful of his brain, but I believe it is practically settled. I am delighted, began Basil, but with a worried face. But these red-taped negotiations are so terribly chancey that I really can't advise you to build on hope, only to be hurled down into bitterness. I've known men, and good men like your brother, come nearer than this and be disappointed. Of course, if it is true— If it is true, said the woman fiercely, it means that people who have never lived may make an attempt at living. Even as she spoke the professor came into the room still with the daze look in his eyes. Is it true, asked Basil, with burning eyes? Not a bit true, answered Chad. After a moment's bewilderment your argument was in three points fallacious. What do you mean, demanded Grant? Well, said the professor slowly, in saying that you could possess a knowledge of the essence of Zulu life distinct from— Oh, confound Zulu life! cried Grant with a burst of laughter. I mean, have you got the post? You mean the post of keeper of the Asiatic manuscripts, he said, opening his eye with childlike wonder? Oh, yes, I got that. But the real objection to your argument, which has only I admit occurred to me since I have been out of the room, is that it does not merely presuppose a Zulu truth apart from the facts, but infers that the discovery of it is absolutely impeded by the facts. I am crushed, said Basil, and sat down to laugh, while the professor's sister retired to her room, possibly, possibly not. It was extremely late when we left the chads, and it is an extremely long and tiresome journey from Shepard's bush to Lambeth. This may be our excuse for the fact that we, for I was stopping the night with Grant, got down to breakfast next day at a time inexpressibly criminal, a time in point of fact close upon noon. Even to that belated meal we came in a very lounging and leisurely fashion. Grant in particular seemed so dreamy at table that he scarcely saw the pile of letters by his plate, and I doubt if he would have opened any of them if there had not lain on the top that one thing which has succeeded amid modern carelessness in being really urgent and coercive—a telegram. This he opened with the same heavy distraction with which he broke his egg and drank his tea. When he read it he did not stir a hair or say a word, but something, I know not what, made me feel that the motionless figure had been pulled together suddenly as strings are tightened on a slant guitar. Though he said nothing and did not move, I knew that he had been for an instant cleared and sharpened with a shock of cold water. It was scarcely any surprise to me when a man who had drifted sullenly to his seat and fallen into it kicked it away like a cur from under him and came round to me in two strides. What do you make of that? he said, and flattened out the wire in front of me. It ran, please come at once. James's mental state dangerous. Chad. What does the woman mean? I said after a pause irritably. Those women have been saying that the poor old professor was mad ever since he was born. You are mistaken, said Grant, composedly. It is true that all sensible women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the matter of that, all women of any kind think all men of any kind mad. But they don't put it in telegrams any more than they wire to you that grass is green or God all merciful. These things are truisms and often private ones at that. If Miss Chad has written down under the eye of a strange woman in a post office that her brother is off his head, you may be perfectly certain that she did it because it was a matter of life and death, and she can think of no other way of forcing us to come promptly. It will force us, of course, I said, smiling. Oh, yes, he replied. There is a cab rank near. Basil scarcely said a word as we drove across Westminster Bridge through Trafalgar Square along Piccadilly and up the Uxbridge Road. Only as he was opening the gate, he spoke. I think he will take my word for it, my friend, he said. This is one of the most queer and complicated and astounding incidents that ever happened in London, or for that matter, in any high civilisation. I confess with the greatest sympathy and reverence that I don't quite see it, I said. Is it so very extraordinary or complicated that a dreamy, son-nambulent old invalid who has always walked on the borders of the inconceivable should go mad under the shock of great joy? Is it so very extraordinary that a man with a head like a turnip and a soul like a spider's web should not find his strength equal to a confounding change of fortunes? Is it, in short, so very extraordinary that James Chad should lose his wits from excitement? It would not be extraordinary in the least, answered Basil with placidity. It would not be extraordinary in the least, he repeated, if the professor had gone mad. That was not the extraordinary circumstance to which I referred. What, I asked, stamping my foot, was the extraordinary thing. The extraordinary thing, said Basil, ringing the bell, is that he has not gone mad from excitement. The tall and angular figure of the eldest Miss Chad blocked the doorway as the door opened. Two other Miss Chads seemed in the same way to be blocking the narrow passage and the little parlour. There was a general sense of their keeping something from view. They seemed like three black-clad ladies in some strange play of metalink, veiling the catastrophe from the audience in the manner of the Greek chorus. Sit down, won't you? said one of them, in a voice that was somewhat rigid with pain. I think you had better be told first what has happened. Then, with her bleak face looking unmeaningly out of the window, she continued in an even and mechanical voice. I had better state everything that has occurred just as it occurred. This morning I was clearing away the breakfast things. My sisters were both somewhat unwell and had not come down. My brother had just gone out of the room, I believe, to fetch a book. He came back again, however, without it, and stood for some time, staring at the empty grate. I said, were you looking for anything I could get? He did not answer, but this constantly happens, as he is often very abstracted. I repeated my question, and still he did not answer. Sometimes he is so wrapped up in his studies that nothing but a touch on the shoulder would make him aware of one's presence. So I came round the table towards him. I really do not know how to describe the sensation which I then had. It seems simply silly, but at the moment it seemed something enormous, upsetting one's brain. The fact is, James was standing on one leg. Grant smiled slowly, and robbed his hands with a kind of care. Standing on one leg, he repeated. Yes, replied the dead voice of the woman, without an inflection to suggest that she felt the fantasticality of her statement. He was standing on the left leg, and the right drawn up at a sharp angle, the toe pointing downwards. I asked him if his leg hurt him. His only answer was to shoot the leg straight at right angles to the other, as if pointing to the other with his toe to the wall. He was still looking quite gravely at the fireplace. James, what is the matter? I cried, for I was thoroughly frightened. James gave three kicks in the air with the right leg, flung up the other, gave three kicks in the air with it also, and spun round like a tea totem the other way. Are you mad? I cried. Why don't you answer me? He had come to a standstill facing me, and was looking at me as he always does with his lifted eyebrows and great spectacled eyes. When I had spoken, he remained a second or two motionless, and then his only reply was to lift his left foot slowly from the floor and describe circles with it in the air. I rushed to the door, and shouted for Christina. I will not dwell on the dreadful hours that followed. All three of us talked to him, implored him to speak to us with appeals that might have brought back the dead, but he has done nothing but hop and dance and kick with a solemn, silent face. It looks as if his legs belonged to someone else or were possessed by devils. He has never spoken to us from that time to this. Where is he now, I said, getting up in some agitation. We ought not to leave him alone. Dr. Coleman is with him, said Miss Chad calmly. They are in the garden. Dr. Coleman thought the air would do him good, and he can scarcely go into the street. Basil and I walked rapidly to the window which looked out on the garden. It was a small and somewhat smug suburban garden. The flower beds a little too neat and like the pattern of a coloured carpet. But on this shining and opulent summer day even they had the exuberance of something natural. I had said almost tropical. In the middle of a bright and verdant but painfully circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat. I presumed Dr. Coleman, who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with a nervous twitch as it were in his face. The other was our old friend, listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes. The strong sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the night before when the boisterous basil had rallied him on his studious decorum. But for one thing the figure of this morning might have been the identical figure of last night. That one thing was that while the face listened reposefully the legs were industriously dancing like the legs of a marionette. The neat flowers and the sunny glitter of the garden lent an indescribable sharpness and incredibility to the prodigy, the prodigy of the head of a hermit and the legs of a harlequin. For miracles should always happen in broad daylight. The night makes them credible and therefore commonplace. The second sister had by this time entered the room and came somewhat drearily to the window. "'You know, Adelaide,' she said, that Mr. Bingham from the museum is coming again at three. "'I know,' said Adelaide Chad bitterly. "'I suppose we shall have to tell him about this. I thought that no good fortune would ever come easily to us.' Grant suddenly turned around. "'What do you mean?' he said. "'What will you have to tell, Mr. Bingham?' "'You know what I shall have to tell him,' said the professor's sister almost fiercely. "'I don't know that we need to give it its wretched name.' "'Do you think that the keeper of Asiatic manuscripts will be allowed to go on like that?' And she pointed for an instant at the figure in the garden, the shining, glistening face and the unresting feet. Basil Grant took out his watch with an abrupt movement. "'When did you say the British Museum man was coming?' he said. "'Three o'clock,' said Miss Chad briefly. "'Then I have an hour before me,' said Grant. And without another word threw up the window and jumped out into the garden. He did not look straight up to the doctor and lunatic, but, strolling round the garden path, drew near them cautiously and yet apparently carelessly. He stood a couple of feet off them, seemingly counting half-pence out of his trousers pocket, but as I could see, looking up steadily under the broad brim of his hat. Suddenly he stepped up to Professor Chad's elbow and said, in a loud, familiar voice, "'Well, my boy, do you still think the Zulus are inferiors?' The doctor knitted his eyebrows and looked anxious, seeming to be about to speak. The professor turned his bald and placid head towards Grant in a friendly manner, but made no answer, idly flinging his left leg about. "'Have you converted Dr. Coleman to your views?' Basil continued, still in the same loud and lucid tone. Chad only shuffled his feet and kicked a little with the other leg, his expression still benevolent and inquiring. The doctor cut in rather sharply. "'Shall we go inside, Professor?' he said. "'Now you have shown me the garden.' "'A beautiful garden. A most beautiful garden. "'Let us go in.' And he tried to draw the kicking ethnologist by the elbow, at the same time whispering to Grant, "'I must ask you not to trouble him with questions. "'Most risky. He must be soothed.' Basil answered in the same tone, with great coolness. "'Of course your directions must be followed out, Doctor. "'I will endeavour to do so, but I hope it will not be inconsistent with them, if you will leave me alone with my poor friend in this garden for an hour. "'I want to watch him. "'I assure you, Dr. Coleman, that I shall say very little to him, and that little shall be as soothing as syrup.' The doctor wiped his eyeglass thoughtfully. "'It is rather dangerous for him,' he said, "'to be long in the strong sun without his hat, with his bald head, too.' "'That is soon settled,' said Basil, composedly, and took off his own big hat and clapped it on the egg-like skull of the professor. The latter did not turn round, but danced away with his eyes on the horizon. The doctor, put on his glasses again, looked severely at the two for some seconds, with his head on one side like a bird's, and then saying shortly, "'All right.' He strutted away into the house, where the three Mrs. Chadd were all looking out from the parlor window onto the garden. They looked out on it with hungry eyes for a full hour without moving, and they saw a sight which was more extraordinary than madness itself. Basil Grant addressed a few questions to the madman, without succeeding in making him do anything but continue to caper, and when he had done this slowly took a red notebook out of one pocket and a large pencil out of another. He began hurriedly to scribble notes. When the lunatic skipped away from him he would walk a few yards in pursuit, stop and take notes again. Thus they followed each other round and round the foolish circle of turf, the one writing in pencil with the face of a man working out a problem, the other leaping and playing like a child. After about three-quarters of an hour of this imbecile scene, Grant put the pencil in his pocket but kept the notebook open in his hand and walked round the mad professor, planting himself directly in front of him. Then occurred something that even those already used to that wild morning had not anticipated or dreamed. The professor, on finding Basil in front of him, stared with a blank benignity for a few seconds and then drew up his left leg and hung it bent in the attitude that his sister had described as being the first of all his antics. And the moment he had done it, Basil Grant lifted his own leg and held it out rigid before him, confronting Chad with the flat sole of his boot. The professor dropped his bent leg and swinging his weight onto it kicked out the other behind like a man swimming. Basil crossed his feet like a saltire cross and then flung them apart again, giving a leap into the air. Then, before any of the spectators could say a word or even entertain a thought about the matter, both of them were dancing a sort of jig or hornpipe opposite each other. And the sun shone down on two mad men instead of one. They were so stricken with the deafness and blindness of monomania that they did not see the eldest Miss Chad come out feverishly into the garden with gestures of entreaty, a gentleman following her. Professor Chad was in the wildest posture of a pade catre. Basil Grant seemed about to turn a cartwheel when they were frozen in their follies by the steely voice of Adelaide Chad saying, Mr. Bingham of the British Museum! Mr. Bingham was a slim, well-clad gentleman with a pointed and slightly effeminate grey beard, unimpeachable gloves and formal but agreeable manners. He was the type of the over-civilized as Professor Chad was of the uncivilized pedant. His formality and agreeableness did him some credit under the circumstances. He had a vast experience of books and considerable experience of the more dilettante fashionable salons. But neither branch of knowledge had accustomed him to the spectacle of two grey-haired middle-class gentlemen in modern costume throwing themselves about like acrobats as a substitute for an after-dinner nap. The Professor continued his antics with perfect placidity, but Grant stopped abruptly. The Professor had reappeared on the scene and his shiny black eyes under his shiny black hat moved restlessly from one of them to the other. Dr. Coleman, said Basil, turning to him, will you entertain Professor Chad again for a little while? I am sure that he needs you. Mr. Bingham, might I have the pleasure of a few moments' private conversation? My name is Grant. Mr. Bingham of the British Museum! I am a trifle bewildered. Miss Chad will excuse me, continued Basil, easily if I know my way about the house. And he led the day's librarian rapidly through the back door into the parlour. Mr. Bingham, said Basil, setting a chair for him, I imagine that Miss Chad has told you of this distressing occurrence. She has, Mr. Grant, said Mr. Bingham, looking at the table with a sort of compassionate nervousness. I am more pained than I can say by this dreadful calamity. It seems quite heart-rending that the thing should have happened just as we have decided to give your eminent friend a position which falls far short of his merits. As it is, of course... Oh, really, I don't know what to say. Professor Chad may, of course, retain, and I sincerely trust he will, his extraordinarily valuable intellect, but I am afraid, I am really afraid, that it would not do to have the curator of the Asiatic manuscripts dancing about. I have a suggestion to make, said Basil, and sat down abruptly in his chair, drawing it up to the table. I am delighted, of course, said the gentleman from the British Museum, coughing and drawing up his chair also. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked for just the moments required for Basil to clear his throat and collect his words, and then he said, My proposal is this. I do not know that in the strict use of words you could altogether call it a compromise, still it has something of that character. My proposal is that the government, acting, I presume, through your museum, should pay Professor Chad eight hundred pounds a year until he stops dancing. Eight hundred a year, said Mr. Bingham, and for the first time lifted his mild blue eyes to those of his interlocutor, and he raised them with a mild blue stare. I think you have not quite understood. Did I understand you to say that Professor Chad ought to be employed in his present state in the Asiatic manuscript department at eight hundred a year? Grant shook his head resolutely. No, he said firmly. No, Chad is a friend of mine, and I would say anything for him I could, but I do not say, I cannot say, that he ought to take on the Asiatic manuscript. I do not go so far as that. I merely say that until he stops dancing you ought to pay him eight hundred pounds. Surely you have some general fund for the endowment of research. Mr. Bingham looked bewildered. I really don't know, he said, blinking his eyes, what you are talking about. Do you ask us to give this obvious lunatic nearly a thousand a year for life? Not at all, cried Basil, keenly and triumphantly. I never said for life, not at all. What for, then? said the meek Bingham, suppressing an instinct meekly to tear his hair. How long is this endowment to run, not until his death, till the judgment day? No, said Basil, beaming, but just what I said, till he has stopped dancing, and he lay back with satisfaction and his hands in his pockets. Bingham had by this time fastened his eyes keenly on Basil Grant and kept them there. Come, Mr. Grant, he said, do I seriously understand you to suggest that the government pay Professor Chad an extraordinarily high salary simply on the ground that he has, pardon the phrase, gone mad, that he should be paid more than four good clerks sorely on the ground that he is flinging his boots about in the backyard? Precisely, said Grant, composedly, that this absurd payment is not only to run on with the absurd dancing but actually to stop with the absurd dancing. One must stop somewhere, said Grant, of course. Bingham rose and took up his perfect stick and gloves. There is really nothing more to be said, Mr. Grant, he said coldly, what you are trying to explain to me may be a joke, a slightly unfeeling joke. It may be your sincere view, in which case I ask your pardon for the former suggestion, but in any case it appears quite irrelevant to my duties. The mental morbidity, the mental downfall of Professor Chad is a thing so painful to me that I cannot easily endure to speak of it, but it is clear there is a limit to everything, and if the archangel Gabriel went mad it would sever his connection, I am sorry to say, with the British Museum Library. He was stepping towards the door, but Grant's hand, flung out in dramatic warning, arrested him. Stop, said Basil Stirley, stop while there is time. Do you want to take part in a great work, Mr. Bingham? Do you want to help in the glory of Europe, in the glory of science? Do you want to carry your head in the air when it is bald or white because of the part that you bore in a great discovery? Do you want, Bingham cut in sharply, and if I do want this, Mr. Grant, then, said Basil lightly, your task is easy, get Chad eight hundred pounds a year till he stops dancing. With a fierce flap of his swinging gloves, Bingham turned impatiently to the door, but in passing out of it, found it blocked. Dr. Coleman was coming in. Forgive me, gentlemen, he said, in a nervous, confidential voice. The fact is, Mr. Grant, I have made a most disturbing discovery about Mr. Chad. Bingham looked at him with grave eyes. I was afraid so, he said. Drink, I imagine. Drink, echoed Coleman, as if that were a much milder affair. Oh, no, it's not drink. Mr. Bingham became somewhat agitated, and his voice grew horrid and vague. Homicidal mania, he began. No, no, said the medical man impatiently. Thinks he's made of glass, said Bingham feverishly, or says he's God, or no, said Dr. Coleman sharply. The fact is, Mr. Grant, my discovery is of a different character. The awful thing about him is— Oh, go on, sir, cried Bingham in agony. The awful thing about him is, repeated Coleman with deliberation, that he isn't mad. Not mad? There are quite well-known physical tests of lunacy, said the doctor shortly. He hasn't got any of them. But why does he dance, cried the despairing Bingham? Why doesn't he answer us? Why hasn't he spoken to his family? The devil knows, said Dr. Coleman coolly. I am paid to judge of lunatics, but not of fools. The man's not mad. What on earth can it mean? Can't we make him listen, said Mr. Bingham? Can none get into any kind of communication with him? Grant's voice struck in sudden and clear, like a steel bell. Don't be very happy, he said, to give him any message you like to send. Both men stared at him. Give him a message, they cried simultaneously. How will you give him a message? Basil smiled in his slow way. If you really want to know how I shall give him your message, he began, but Bingham cried, of course, of course, with a sort of frenzy. Well, said Basil, like this. And he suddenly sprang a foot into the air, coming down with crashing boots, and then stood on one leg. His face was stern, though this effect was slightly spoiled by the fact that one of his feet was making wild circles in the air. You drive me to it, he said. You drive me to betray my friend, and I will, for his own sake, betray him. The sensitive face of Bingham took on an extra expression of distress, as of one anticipating some disgraceful disclosure. Anything painful, of course, he began. Basil let his loose foot fall on the carpet with a crash that struck them all rigid in their feeble attitudes. Idiots, he cried. Have you seen the man? Have you looked at James Chad, going dismally to and fro from his dingy house to your miserable library, with his futile books and his confounded umbrella, and never seen that he has the eyes of a fanatic? Have you never noticed, stuck casually behind his spectacles and above his seedy old collar the face of a man who might have burned heretics, or died for the philosopher's stone? It is all my fault in a way. I lit the dynamite of his deadly faith. I argued against him on the score of his famous theory about language, the theory that language was complete in certain individuals and was picked up by others simply by watching them. I also chaffed him about not understanding things in rough and ready practice. What has this glorious bigot done? He has answered me. He has worked out a system of language of his own. It would take too long to explain. He has made up, I say, a language of his own. And he has sworn that till people understand it, till he can speak to us in this language, he will not speak in any other. And he shall not. I have understood by taking careful notice and by heaven so shall the others. This shall not be blown upon. He shall finish his experiment. He shall have 800 pounds a year from somewhere till he has stopped dancing. To stop him now is an infamous war on a great idea. It is religious persecution. Mr. Bingham held out his hand cordially. I thank you, Mr. Grant, he said. I hope I shall be able to answer for the source of the 800 pounds and I fancy that I shall. Will you come in my cab? No, thank you very much, Mr. Bingham, said Grant heartily. I think I will go and have a chat with the professor in the garden. The conversation between Chad and Grant appeared to be personal and friendly. They were still dancing when I left. End of The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chad. Part 6 of The Club of Queer Trades This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton Part 6 The eccentric seclusion of the old lady. The conversation of Rupert Grant had two great elements of interest. First, the long fantasias of detective deduction in which he was engaged and second, his genuine romantic interest in the life of London. His brother Basil said of him, his reasoning is particularly cold and clear and invariably leads him wrong but his poetry comes in abruptly and leads him right. Whether this was true of Rupert as a whole or no it was certainly curiously supported by one story about him which I think worth telling. We were walking along a lonely terrace in Brompton together. The street was full of that bright blue twilight which comes about half past eight in summer and which seems for the moment to be not so much a coming of darkness as the turning on of a new azure illuminator as if the earth were lit suddenly by a sapphire sun. In the cool blue the lemon tint of the lamps had already begun to flame and as Rupert and I passed them Rupert talking excitedly one after another the pale sparks sprang out of the dusk. Rupert was talking excitedly because he was trying to prove to me the 999th of his amateur detective theories. He would go about London with this mad logic in his brain seeking a conspiracy in a cab accident and a special providence in a falling fusy. His suspicions at the moment were fixed upon an unhappy milkman who walked in front of us. So arresting were the incidents that afterwards overtook us that I'm really afraid that I've forgotten what were the main outlines of the milkman's crime. I think it had something to do with the fact that he had only one small can of milk to carry and that of that he had left the lid loose and walked so quickly that he spilled milk on the pavement. This showed that he was not thinking of his small burden and this again showed that he anticipated some other than lactial business at the end of his walk and this, taken in conjunction with something about muddy boots showed something else that I have entirely forgotten. I'm afraid that I derided this detailed revelation unmercifully and I'm afraid that Rupert Grant, who though the best of fellows had a good deal of the sensitiveness of the artistic temperament slightly resented my derision. He endeavoured to take a whiff of his cigar with the placidity which he associated with his profession but the cigar, I think, was nearly bitten through. My dear fellow, he said acidly, I'll bet you half a crown that wherever that milkman comes to a real stop I'll find out something curious. My resources are equal to that risk, I said, laughing, done. We walked on for about a quarter of an hour in silence in the trail of the mysterious milkman. He walked quicker and quicker and we had some adieu to keep up with him. And every now and then he left a splash of milk silver in the lamp light. Suddenly, almost before we could note it, he disappeared down the area steps of a house. I believe Rupert really believed that the milkman was a fairy for a second he seemed to accept him as having vanished. Then, calling something to me which somehow took no hold on my mind he darted after the mystic milkman and disappeared himself into the area. I waited for at least five minutes leaning against a lamp post in the lonely street. Then the milkman came swinging up the steps without his can and hurried off, clattering down the road. Two or three minutes more elapsed and then Rupert came bounding up also, his face pale but yet laughing, a not uncommon contradiction in him denoting excitement. My friend, he said, rubbing his hands, so much for all your skepticism, so much for your Philistine ignorance of the possibilities of a romantic city. Two and sixpence, my boy, is the form in which your prosaic good-nature will have to express itself. What, I said incredulously, do you mean to say that you really did find anything the matter with the poor milkman? His face fell. Oh, the milkman, he said, with a miserable affectation of having misunderstood me. No, I I didn't exactly bring anything home to the milkman himself. I, what did the milkman say and do, I said, with inexorable sternness. Well, to tell the truth," said Rupert, shifting restlessly from one foot to another, the milkman himself, as far as merely physical appearances went, just said, milk miss and handed in the can. That's not to say, of course, that he did not make some secret sign or some— I broke into a violent laugh. You idiot, I said, why don't you own yourself wrong and have done with it? Why should he have made a secret sign any more than any one else? You own he said nothing and did nothing worth mentioning. You own that, don't you?" His face grew grave. Well, since you ask me, I must admit that I do. It is possible that the milkman did not betray himself. It is even possible that I was wrong about him. Then come along with you," I said, with a certain amicable anger, and remember that you owe me half a crown. As to that, I differ from you," said Rupert coolly. The milkman's remarks may have been quite innocent. Even the milkman may have been. But I do not owe you half a crown. For the terms of the bet were, I think, as follows, that wherever that milkman came to a real stop I should find out something curious. Well, I said. Well, he answered, I jolly well have, you just come with me. And before I could speak he had turned tail once more and whisked through the blue dark into the moat or basement of the house. I followed almost before I made any decision. When we got down into the area it was indescribably foolish, literally, as the saying is, in a hole. There was nothing but a closed door, shuttered windows, the steps down which we had come, the ridiculous well in which I found myself, and the ridiculous man who had brought me there, and who stood there with dancing eyes. I was about to turn back when Rupert caught me by the elbow. Just listen to that, he said, and keeping my coat gripped in his right hand he rapped with the knuckles of his left on the shutters of the basement window. His air was so definite that I paused and even inclined my head for a moment towards it. From inside was coming the murmur of an unmistakable human voice. Have you been talking to somebody inside? I asked suddenly, turning to Rupert. No, I haven't, he replied with a grim smile, but I should very much like to. Do you know what somebody is saying in there? No, of course not, I replied. Then I recommend you to listen, said Rupert sharply. In the dead silence of the aristocratic street at evening I stood a moment and listened. From behind the wooden partition in which there was a long lean crack was coming a continuous and moaning sound which took the form of the words when shall I get out when shall I get out will they ever let me out or words to that effect? Do you know anything about this, I said, turning upon Rupert very abruptly? Perhaps you think I am the criminal, he said sardonically, instead of being in some small sense the detective. I came into this area two or three minutes ago having told you that I knew that there was something funny going on and this woman behind the shutters for it evidently is a woman was moaning like mad. No, my dear friend, beyond that I do not know anything about her. She is not, startling as it may seem, my disinherited daughter or a member of my secret seraglio. But when I hear a human being wailing that she can't get out and talking to herself like a madwoman and beating on the shutters with her fists as she was doing two or three minutes ago I think it worth mentioning. That is all. My dear fellow, I said, I apologize. This is no time for arguing. What is to be done? Rupert Grant had a long clasp-knife, naked and brilliant in his hand. First of all, he said, house-breaking. And he forced the blade into the crevice of the wood and broke away a huge splinter leaving a gap and glimpse of the dark window-pane inside. The room within was entirely unlighted so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead and opaque surface as dark as a strip of slate. Then came a realisation that, though in a sense gradual, made us step back and catch our breath. Two large, dim human eyes were so close to us that the window itself seemed suddenly to be a mask. A pale human face was pressed against the glass within and with increased distinctness with the increase of the opening came the words, When shall I get out? What can all this be, I said? Rupert made no answer but lifting his walking-stick and pointing the ferrule like a fencing sword at the glass punched a hole in it smaller and more accurate than I should have supposed possible. The moment he had done so the voice spouted out of the hole, so to speak, piercing and careless and clear making the same demand for liberty. Can't you get out, madam? I said, drawing near the hole in some perturbation. Get out? Of course I can't, moaned the unknown female bitterly. They won't let me. I told them I would be let out. I told them I'd call the police but it's no good. Nobody knows. Nobody comes. They could keep me as long as they liked only. I was in the very act of breaking the window finally with my stick, incensed with this very sinister mystery when Rupert held my arm hard, held it with a curious still and secret rigidity as if he desired me to stop but did not desire to be observed to do so. I paused the moment and in the act swung slightly round so that I was facing the supporting wall of the front door-steps. The act froze me into a sudden stillness like that of Rupert for a figure almost as motionless as the pillars of the portico but unmistakably human had put his head out from between the door-posts and was gazing down into the area. One of the lighted lamps of the street was just behind his head throwing it into abrupt darkness. Consequently nothing whatever could be seen of his face beyond one fact that he was unquestionably staring at us. I must say I thought Rupert's calmness magnificent. He rang the area bell quite idly and went on talking to me with the easy end of a conversation which had never had any beginning. The black glaring figure in the portico did not stir. I almost thought it was really a statue. In another moment the gray area was golden with gas-light as the basement door was open suddenly and a small and decorous house-maid stood in it. Pray excuse me, said Rupert in a voice which he contrived to make somehow or other at once affable and underbred. But we thought perhaps you might do something for the waifs and strays. We don't expect— Not here, said the small servant with the incomparable severity of the menial of the non-philanthropic and slammed the door in our faces. Very sad, very sad the indifference of these people said the philanthropist with gravity as we went together up the steps. As we did so the motionless figure in the portico suddenly disappeared. Well, what do you make of that? asked Rupert, slapping his gloves together when we got into the street. I do not mind admitting that I was seriously upset under such conditions I had but one thought. Don't you think, I said a trifle timidly that we had better tell your brother? Oh, if you like, said Rupert in a lordly way, he's quite near as I promised to meet him at Gloucester Road Station. Shall we take a cab? Perhaps as you say it might amuse him. Gloucester Road Station had, as if by accident, a somewhat deserted look. After a little looking about we discovered Basil Grant with his great head and his great white hat blocking the ticket-office window. I thought at first that he was taking a ticket for somewhere and being an astonishingly long time about it. As a matter of fact he was discussing religion with the booking-office clerk and had almost got his head through the hole in his excitement. When we dragged him away it was some time before he would talk of anything but the growth of an oriental fatalism in modern thought which had been well typified by some of the official's ingenious but perverse fallacies. At last we managed to get him to understand that we had made an astounding discovery. When he did listen attentively, walking between us up and down the Lamplit Street while we told him in a rather feverish duet of the great house in South Kensington of the equivocal milkman of the lady imprisoned in the basement and the man staring from the porch. At length he said if you're thinking of going back to look the thing up you must be careful what you do. It's no good you two going there to go twice on the same pretext would look dubious to go on a different pretext would look worse. You may be quite certain that the inquisitive gentleman who looked at you looked thoroughly and will wear so to speak your portraits next to his heart. If you want to find out if there is anything in this without a police raid I fancy you had better wait outside. I'll go in and see them. His slow and reflective walk brought us at length within sight of the house. It stood up ponderous and purple against the last pallor of twilight. It looked like an ogre's castle and so apparently it was. Do you think it's safe, Basil? said his brother, pausing a little pale under the lamp to go into that place alone? Of course we shall be near enough to hear if you yell, but these devils might do something, something sudden or odd. I can't feel it's safe. I know of nothing that is safe said Basil, composedly, except possibly death. And he went up the steps and rang at the bell. When the massive respectable door opened for an instant cutting a square of gas-light in the gathering dark and then closed with a bang burying our friend inside we could not repress a shudder. It had been like the heavy gaping and closing of the dim lips of some evil leviathan. A freshening night breeze began to blow up the street and we turned up the collars of our coats. At the end of twenty minutes in which we had scarcely moved or spoken we were as cold as icebergs but more, I think, from apprehension than from the atmosphere. Suddenly Rupert made an abrupt movement towards the house. I can't stand this, he began, but almost as he spoke into the shadow for the panel of gold was again cut out of the black house front and the burly figure of Basil was silhouetted against it coming out. He was roaring with laughter and talking so loudly that you could have heard every syllable across the street. Another voice or possibly two voices were laughing and talking back at him from within. No, no, no, Basil was calling out with a sort of hilarious hostility. That's the most ghastly heresy of all. It's the soul, my dear chap, the soul that's the arbiter of cosmic forces. When you see a cosmic force you don't like, trick it, my boy. But I must really be off. Come and pitch into us again came the laughing voice from out the house. We still have some bones unbroken. Thanks very much. I will. Good night, shouted Grant, who had by this time reached the street. Good night, came the friendly call in reply before the door closed. Basil, said Rupert Grant in a hoarse whisper, what are we to do? The elder brother looked thoughtfully from one of us to the other. What is to be done, Basil? I repeated in uncontrollable excitement. I'm not sure, said Basil doubtfully. What do you say to getting some dinner somewhere and going to the court theatre tonight? I tried to get those fellows to come, we stared blankly. Go to the court theatre, repeated Rupert. What would be the good of that? Good? What do you mean? answered Basil, staring also. Have you turned puritan or passive resistor or something? For fun, of course. But great God in heaven, what are we going to do, I mean, cried Rupert. What about the poor woman locked up in that house? Shall I go for the police? He appeared with immediate comprehension and he laughed. Oh, that, he said, I'd forgotten that. That's all right. Some mistake, possibly, or some quite trifling private affair. But I'm sorry those fellows couldn't come with us. Shall we take one of those green omnibosses? There's a restaurant in Sloan Square. I sometimes think you play the fool to frighten, as I said irritably. How can we leave that woman locked up? How can it be a mere private affair? How can crime and kidnapping and murder, for all I know, be private affairs? If you found a corpse in a man's drawing-room, would you think it bad taste to talk about it, just as if it was a confounded dado or an infernal etching? Basil laughed heartily. That's very forcible, he said. As a matter of fact, though, I know it's all right in this case. And there comes the green omniboss. How do you know it's all right in this case, persisted his brother angrily? My dear chap, the thing's obvious. Answered Basil, holding a return ticket between his teeth while he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. Those two fellows never committed a crime in their lives. They're not the kind. Have either of you chaps got a hipney? I want to get a paper before the omniboss comes. Oh, curse the paper! cried Rupert in a fury. Do you mean to tell me, Basil Grant, that you are going to leave a fellow creature in pitch darkness in a private dungeon? Because you've had ten minutes talk with the keepers of it and thought them rather good men. Good men do commit crime sometimes, said Basil, taking the ticket out of his mouth, but this kind of good man doesn't commit that kind of crime. Well, shall we get on this omniboss? The great green vehicle was indeed plunging and lumbering along the dim wide street towards us. Basil had stepped from the curb, and for an instant it was touch and go whether we should all have leapt on it and been born away to the restaurant and the theatre. Basil, I said, taking him firmly by the shoulder, I simply won't leave this street and this house. Nor will I, said Rupert, glaring at it and biting his fingers. There's some black work going on there. If I left it, I should never sleep again. Basil looked at us both seriously. Of course, if you feel like that, he said, we'll investigate further. You'll find it's all right, though. There are only two young Oxford fellows, extremely nice too, though rather infected with this pseudo-Darwinian business, ethics of evolution and all that. I think, said Rupert Darkley, ringing the bell, that we shall enlighten you further about your ethics. And may I ask, said Basil gloomily, what it is that you propose to do? I propose, first of all, said Rupert, to get into this house. Secondly, to have a look at these nice young Oxford men. Thirdly, to knock them down, bind them, gag them, and search the house. Basil stared indignantly for a few minutes. Then he was shaken for an instant with one of his sudden laughs. Poor little boys, he said, but it almost serves them right for holding such silly views after all. And he quaked again with amusement. There's something confoundedly Darwinian about it. I suppose you mean to help us, said Rupert. Oh, yes, I'll be in it, answered Basil, if it's only to prevent your doing the poor chaps any harm. He was standing in the rear of our little procession, looking indifferent and sometimes even sulky. But somehow the instant the door opened, he stepped first into the hall, glowing with urbanity. I'm so sorry to haunt you like this, he said. I met two friends outside who very much want to know you. May I bring them in?" Delighted, of course, said a young voice, the unmistakable voice of the Isis. And I realized that the door had been opened, not by the decorous little servant-girl, but by one of our hosts in person. He was a short, but shapely young gentleman, with curly dark hair and a square, snub-nosed face. He wore slippers and a sort of blazer of some incredible college purple. This way, he said, mined the steps by the staircase. This house is more crooked and old-fashioned than you would think from its snobbish exterior. There are quite a lot of odd corners in the place, really. That, said Rupert, with a savage smile, I can quite believe. We were by this time in the study, or back-parler, used by the young inhabitants as a sitting-room, an apartment littered with magazines and books, ranging from Dante to detective stories. The other youth, who stood with his back to the fire, smoking a corn-cob, was big and burly, with dead brown hair brushed forward and a Norfolk jacket. He was that particular type of man, whose every feature and action is heavy and clumsy, and yet who is, you would say, rather exceptionally, a gentleman. Any more arguments, he said, when introductions had been affected? I must say, Mr. Grant, you were rather severe upon eminent men of science such as we. I've half a mind to chuck my DSC and turn mine a poet. Bosh, answered Grant. I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion, and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now that they talk about the survival of the fittest they think they do understand it whereas they have not merely no notion they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean. The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy they now talk unscientifically about science. That is all very well said the big young man whose name appeared to be Burroughs. Of course in a sense science like mathematics or the violin can only be perfectly understood by specialists. Still the rudiments may be of public use. Greenwood here, indicating the little man in the blazer, doesn't know one note of music from another. Still he knows something. He knows enough to take off his hat when they play The King. He doesn't take it off by mistake when they play O'Dem Golden Slippers. Just in the same way, science here Mr. Burroughs stopped abruptly. He was interrupted by an argument uncommon in philosophical controversy and perhaps not wholly legitimate. Rupert Grant had bounded on him from behind flung an arm around his throat and bent the giant backwards. Knocked the other fellow down swim-burn he called out and before I knew where I was I was locked in a grapple with the man in the purple blazer. He was a wiry fighter who bent and sprang like a whale bone but I was heavier and had taken him utterly by surprise. I twitched one of his feet from under him. He swung for a moment on the single foot and then we fell with a crash amid the litter of newspapers, myself on top. My attention for a moment released by victory I could hear Basil's voice finishing some long sentence of which I had not heard the beginning. Holy! I must confess unintelligible to me, my dear sir, and I need not say unpleasant. Still one must side with one's old friends against the most fascinating new ones. Permit me therefore in tying you up in this antimacassar to make it as commodious as handcuffs can reasonably be while I had staggered to my feet. The gigantic Burroughs was toiling in the grot of Rupert while Basil was striving to master his mighty hands. Rupert and Basil were both particularly strong but so was Mr. Burroughs. How strong? We knew a second afterwards. His head was held back by Rupert's arm but a convulsive heave went over his whole frame. An instant after his head plunged forward like a ball's and Rupert Grant was slung head over heels a cathering wheel of legs on the floor in front of him. Simultaneously the ball's head botted Basil in the chest bringing him also to the ground with a crash and the monster with a berserker roar leaped at me and knocked me into the corner of the room smashing the waste paper basket. The bewildered Greenwood sprang furiously to his feet. Basil did the same but they had the best of it now. Greenwood dashed to the bell and pulled it violently sending peels through the great house before I could get panting to my feet and before Rupert who had been literally stunned for a few moments could even lift his head from the floor two footmen were in the room defeated even when we were in a majority we were now outnumbered Greenwood and one of the footmen flung themselves upon me crushing me back into the corner upon the wreck of the paper basket the other two flew at Basil and pinned him against the wall Rupert lifted himself on his elbow but he was still dazed in the strained silence of our helplessness I heard the voice of Basil come with a loud incongruous cheerfulness now this, he said is what I call enjoying oneself I caught a glimpse of his face flushed and forced against the bookcase from between the swaying limbs of my captors and his to my astonishment his eyes were really brilliant with pleasure like those of a child heated by a favourite game I made several apoplectic efforts to rise but the servant was on top of me so heavily that Greenwood could afford to leave me to him he turned quickly to come to reinforce the two who were mastering Basil the latter's head was already sinking lower and lower like a leaking ship as his enemies pressed him down he flung up one hand just as I thought him falling and hung on to a huge tome in the bookcase he then afterwards discovered of St. Chrysostom's theology just as Greenwood bounded from the room towards the group Basil plucked the ponderous tome bodily out of the shelf swung it and sent it spinning through the air so that it struck Greenwood flat in the face and knocked him over like a rolling ninepin at the same instant Basil's stiffness broke and he sank his enemies closing over him Rupert's head was clear and his body shaken he was hanging as best he could onto the half-prostrate Greenwood they were rolling over each other on the floor both somewhat enfeebled by their falls but Rupert certainly the more so I was still successfully held down the floor was a sea of torn and trampled papers and magazines like an immense waste-paper basket borrows and his companion were almost up to the knees in them as in a drift of dead leaves and Greenwood had his legs stuck right through a sheet of the palmal gazette which clung to it ludicrously like some fantastic trouser-frill Basil shot from me in a human prison a prison of powerful bodies might be dead for all I knew I fancied however that the broad back of Mr. Burroughs which was turned towards me had a certain bend of effort in it as if my friend still needed some holding down suddenly that broad back swayed hither and thither it was swaying on one leg Basil somehow had hold of the other Burroughs huge fists and those of the footmen were battering Basil's sunken head like an anvil but nothing could get the giant's ankle out of his sudden and savage grip while his own head was forced slowly down in darkness and great pain the right leg of his captor was being forced in the air Burroughs swung to and fro with a purple face then suddenly the floor and the walls and the ceiling shook together as the colossus fell all his length seeming to fill the floor Basil sprang up with dancing eyes and with three blows like battering rams knocked the footmen into a cocked hat then he sprang on top of Burroughs with one anti-McCassar in his hand and another in his teeth and bound him hand and foot almost before he knew clearly that his head had struck the floor then Basil sprang at Greenwood whom Rupert was struggling to hold down and between them they secured him easily the man who had hold of me let go and turned to his rescue but I leaped up like a spring released and to my infinite satisfaction knocked the fellow down the old footmen bleeding at the mouth and quite demoralized of the room my late captor without a word slunk after him seeing that the battle was won Rupert was sitting astride the pinioned Mr. Greenwood Basil astride the pinioned Mr. Burroughs to my surprise the latter gentleman lying bound on his back spoke in a perfectly calm voice to the man who sat on top of him and now gentlemen he said since you have got your own way telling us what the deuce all this is this, said Basil with a radiant face looking down at his captive this is what we call the survival of the fittest Rupert, who had been steadily collecting himself throughout the latter phases of the fight was intellectually altogether himself again at the end of it springing up from the prostrate Greenwood and knotting a handkerchief round his left hand which was bleeding from a blow he sang out quite coolly Basil, will you mount guard over the captive of your bow and spear and anti-McCassar swimburn and I will clear out the prison downstairs all right, said Basil, rising also and sitting himself in a leisureed way in an armchair don't hurry for us, he said glancing round at the litter of the room we have all the illustrated papers Rupert lurched thoughtfully out of the room and I followed him even more slowly in fact I lingered long enough to hear as I passed through the room the passages and the kitchen stairs Basil's voice continuing conversationally and now Mr. Burroughs, he said settling himself socially in the chair there is no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument I'm sorry that you have to express yourself lying on your back on the floor and as I told you before I've no more notion why you are there in the moon a conversationalist like yourself however can scarcely be seriously handicapped by any bodily posture you were saying, if I remember right when this incidental fracar occurred that the rudiments of science might with advantage be made public precisely, said the large man on the floor in an easy tone I hold that nothing more than a rough sketch of the universe as seen by science can be and here the voices died away as we descended into the basement I notice that Mr. Greenwood did not join in the amicable controversy, strange as it may appear I think he looked back upon our proceedings with a slight degree of resentment Mr. Burroughs however was all philosophy and chattiness we left them, as I say, together and sank deeper and deeper into the underworld of that mysterious house which perhaps appeared to us somewhat more tartarian than it really was owing to our knowledge of its semi-criminal mystery and of the human secret locked below the basement floor had several doors, as is usual in such a house doors that would naturally lead to the kitchen the scullery, the pantry, the servants' hall and so on Rupert flung open all the doors with indescribable rapidity four out of the five opened on entirely empty apartments the fifth was locked Rupert broke the door in like a band box and we fell into the sudden blackness of the sealed unlighted room Rupert stood on the threshold and called out like a man calling into an abyss whoever you are, come out you are free the people who held you captive are captives themselves we heard you crying and we came to deliver you we have bound your enemies you are free for some seconds after he had spoken into the darkness there was a dead silence in it then there came a kind of muttering and moaning we might easily have taken it for the wind or rats if we had not happened to have heard it before it was unmistakably the voice of the imprisoned woman drearily demanding liberty just as we had heard her demand it as anybody got a match said Rupert Grimley I fancy we have come pretty near the end of this business I struck a match and held it up it revealed a large bare yellow paper department with a dark clad figure at the other end of it near the window an instant after it burnt my fingers and dropped leaving darkness it had however revealed something more practical an iron gas bracket just above my head I struck another match and lit the gas and we found ourselves suddenly and seriously in the presence of the captive at a sort of work box in the window of this subterranean breakfast room sat an elderly lady with a singularly high colour and almost startling silver hair she had as if designedly to relieve these effects a pair of Mephistophelian black eyebrows and a very neat black dress the glare of the gas lit up her peacant hair and face perfectly against the brown background of the shotters the background was blue and not brown in one place at the place where Rupert's knife had torn a great opening in the wood about an hour before madam said he advancing with a gesture of the hat permit me to have the pleasure of announcing to you that you are free the planes happened to strike our ears as we passed down the street and we have therefore ventured to come to your rescue the old lady with the red face and the black eyebrows looked at us for a moment with something of the apoplectic stare of a parrot then she said with a sudden gust or breath of relief rescue where is Mr. Greenwood where is Mr. Borrows did you say you had rescued me madam said Rupert with a beaming condescension we have very satisfactorily dealt with Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Borrows we have settled affairs with them very satisfactorily the old lady rose from her chair and came very quickly towards us what did you say to them how did you persuade them she cried we persuaded them my dear madam said Rupert laughing by knocking them down and tying them up but what is the matter to the surprise of everyone the old lady walked slowly back to her seat by the window do I understand she said with the air of a person about to begin knitting that you have knocked down Mr. Borrows and tied him up we have said Rupert proudly we have resisted their oppression and conquered it oh thanks answered the old lady and sat down by the window a considerable pause followed the road is quite clear for you madam said Rupert pleasantly the old lady rose cocking her black eyebrows and her silver crest at us for an instant but what about Greenwood and Borrows she said what did I understand you to say had become of them they are lying on the floor upstairs said Rupert chocolate tied hand and foot well that settles it said the old lady coming with a kind of bang into her seat again I must stop where I am Rupert looked bewildered stop where you are he said why should you stop any longer where you are what power can force you now to stop in this miserable cell the question rather is said the old lady with composure what power can force me to go anywhere else we both stared wildly at her and she stared tranquilly at us both at last I said do you really mean to say that we are to leave you here I suppose you don't intend to tie me up she said and carry me off I certainly shall not go otherwise but my dear madam cried out Rupert in a radiant exasperation we heard you with our own ears crying because you could not get out Eve's drop has often hear rather misleading things replied the captive grimly I suppose I did break down a bit and lose my temper and talk to myself but I have some sense of honour for all that some sense of honour repeated Rupert and the last light of intelligence died out of his face leaving it the face of an idiot with rolling eyes he moved vaguely towards the door and I followed but I turned yet once more out of my conscience and curiosity can we do nothing for you madam I said forlornly why said the lady if you are particularly anxious to do me a little favour you might untie the gentleman upstairs Rupert plunged heavily up the kitchen staircase shaking it with his vague violence with mouth open to speak he stumbled to the door of the sitting-room and scene of battle theoretically speaking that is no doubt true lying on his back and arguing easily with Basil but we must consider the matter as it appears to our sense the origin of morality Basil, cried Rupert, gasping she won't come out who won't come out? asked Basil a little cross at being interrupted in an argument the lady downstairs replied Rupert the lady who was locked up just to let these fellows loose and a jolly, sensible suggestion cried Basil and with a bound he was on top of the prostrate burrows once more and was unknotting his bonds with hands and teeth a brilliant idea Swinburne, just undo Mr. Greenwood in a dazed and automatic way I released the little gentleman in the purple jacket who did not seem to regard any of the proceedings as particularly sensible or brilliant the gigantic burrows on the other hand was heaving with herculean laughter well said Basil in his cheeriest way I think we must be getting away we have so much enjoyed our evening far too much regard for you to stand on ceremony if I may so express myself we've made ourselves at home good night thanks so much come along Rupert Basil said Rupert desperately for God's sake come and see what you can make of the woman downstairs I can't get the discomfort out of my mind I admit that things look as if we had made a mistake but these gentlemen won't mind perhaps no no cried burrows with a sort of rabbalasian uproariousness no no look into pantry gentlemen examine the coal-hole make a tour of the chimneys there are corpses all over the house I assure you this adventure of ours was destined to differ in one respect from others which I have narrated I had been through many wild days with Basil Grant days for the first half of which the sun and the moon seemed to have gone mad but it had almost invariably happened that towards the end of the day and its adventure things had cleared themselves like the sky after rain and a luminous and quiet meaning had gradually dawned upon me but this day's work was destined to end in confusion worse confounded before we left that house ten minutes afterwards one half-witted touch was added which rolled all our minds in a cloud if Rupert's head had suddenly fallen off on the floor if wings had begun to sprout out of Greenwood's shoulders we could scarcely have been more suddenly stricken and yet of this we had no explanation to bed that night with the prodigy and get up next morning with it and let it stand in our memories for weeks and months as we'll be seen it was not until months afterwards that by another accident and in another way it was explained for the present I only state what happened when all five of us went down the kitchen stairs again Rupert leading the two hosts bringing up the rear of the prison again closed throwing it open we found a place again as black as pitch the old lady, if she was still there had turned out the gas she seemed to have a weird preference for sitting in the dark without another word Rupert lit the gas again the little old lady turned her bird-like head as we all stumbled forward in the strong gaslight then with a quickness made me jump she sprang up and swept a sort of old fashioned curtsy or reverence I looked quickly at Greenwood and Burroughs to whom it was natural to suppose this subservience had been offered I felt irritated at what was implied in this subservience and desired to see the faces of the tyrants as they received it to my surprise they did not seem to have seen it at all Burroughs was pairing his nails with a small pen-knife Greenwood was at the back of the group and had hardly entered the room and then an amazing fact became apparent it was Basil Grant who stood foremost of the group the golden gaslight lighting up his strong face and figure his face wore an expression indescribably conscious with the suspicion of a very grave smile his head was slightly bent with a restrained bow it was he who had acknowledged the lady's obeisance and it was he beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt to whom it had really been directed so I hear, he said in a kindly yet somehow formal voice I hear, madam, that my friends have been trying to rescue you but without success no one naturally knows my faults better than you answered the lady with high colour and made me guilty of treachery I willingly attested, madam replied Basil, in the same level tones and the fact is that I am so much gratified with your exhibition of loyalty that I permit myself the pleasure of exercising some very large discretionary powers you would not leave this room at the request of these gentlemen but you know that you can safely leave it at mine the captive made another reverence I have never complained of your injustice, she said I need scarcely say what I think of your generosity and before our staring eyes could blink she had passed out of the room Basil holding the door open for her he turned to Greenwood with a relapse into joviality this will be a relief to you, he said yes it will, replied that immovable young gentleman with a face like a sphinx we found ourselves outside in the dark blue night shaken and dazed as if we had fallen into it from some high tower Basil, said Rupert at last in a weak voice I always thought you were my brother but are you a man I mean, are you only a man? at present replied Basil my mere humanity is proved by one of the most unmistakable symbols hunger late for the theatre in Sloane Square but we are not too late for the restaurant here comes the green omnibus and he had leaped on it before we could speak as I said it was months after that Rupert Grant suddenly entered my room swinging a satchel in his hand and with a general air of having jumped over the garden wall and implored me to go with him upon the latest and wildest of his expeditions he proposed to himself the discovery of the actual origin whereabouts and headquarters of the source of all our joys and sorrows the club of queer trades I should expand this story forever if I explained how ultimately we ran this strange entity to its lair the process meant a hundred interesting things the tracking of a member the bribing of a cab man the fighting of roughs the paving stone the finding of a cellar the finding of a cellar below the cellar the finding of a subterranean passage the finding of the club of queer trades I have had many strange experiences in my life but never a stranger one than that I felt when I came out of those rambling, sightless and seemingly hopeless passages into the sudden splendour of a sumptuous and hospitable dining-room surrounded upon almost every side by faces that I knew there was Mr. Monmorrancy the arboreal house agent seated between the two brisk young men who were occasionally vickers and always professional detainers there was Mr. P. G. Northover founder of the Adventure and Romance Society there was Professor Chad who invented the dancing language as we entered all the members seemed to sink suddenly into their chairs and with the very action the vacancy of the presidential seat gaped at us like a missing tooth the president's not here said Mr. P. G. Northover turning suddenly to Professor Chad no said the philosopher with more than his ordinary vagueness I can't imagine where he is good heavens said Mr. Monmorrancy jumping up I really feel a little nervous I'll go and see and he ran out of the room an instant after he ran back again twittering with a timid ecstasy he's there gentlemen he's there all right he's coming in now he cried and sat down Rupert and I could hardly help feeling the beginnings of a sort of wonder as to who this person might be who was the first member of this insane brotherhood who we thought indistinctly maddest in this world of madmen what fantastic was it whose shadow filled all these fantastics with so loyal an expectation suddenly we were answered the door flew open and the room was filled and shaken with a shout in the midst of which Basil Grant smiling and in evening dress took his seat at the head of the table how we ate that dinner I have no idea in the common way I'm a person particularly prone to enjoying the long luxuriance of the club dinner but on this occasion it seemed a hopeless and endless string of courses order of sardines seemed as big as herrings soup seemed a sort of ocean larks were ducks ducks were ostriches until that dinner was over the cheese course was maddening I had often heard of the moon being made of green cheese that night I thought the green cheese was made of the moon and all the time Basil Grant went on laughing and eating and drinking and never through one glance at us to tell us why he was there the king of these capering idiots at last came the moment which I knew must in some way enlighten us the time of the club speeches the club toasts Basil Grant rose to his feet amid a surge of songs and cheers gentlemen he said it is a custom in this society that the president for the year opens the proceedings not by any general toast of sentiment but by calling upon each member to give a brief account of his trade we then drink to that calling and to all who follow it it is my business as the senior member to open by stating my claim to membership of this club years ago gentlemen I was a judge I did my best in that capacity to do justice and to administer the law but it gradually dawned on me that in my work, as it was I was not touching even the fringe of justice I was seated in the seat of the mighty I was robed in scarlet and ermine nevertheless I held a small and lowly and futile post I had to go by a mean rule as much as a postman and my red and gold was worth no more than his daily their past before me taught and passionate problems the stringency of which I had to pretend to relieve by silly imprisonments or silly damages while I knew all the time by the light of my living common sense that they would have been far better relieved by a kiss or a thrashing or a few words of explanation or a duel or a tour in the West Highlands then as this grew on me there grew on me continuously the sense of a mountainous frivolity every word said in the court a whisper or an oath seemed more connected with life than the words I had to say then came the time when I publicly blasphemed the whole Bosch and was classed as a madman and melted from public life something in the atmosphere told me that it was not only Rupert and I who were listening with intensity to this statement well, I discovered that I could be of no real use I offered myself privately as a purely moral judge to settle purely moral differences before very long these unofficial courts of honour kept strictly secret had spread over the whole of society people were tried before me not for the practical trifles for which nobody cares such as committing a murder or keeping a dog without a licence my criminals were tried for the faults which really make social life impossible they were tried before me for selfishness or for an impossible vanity or for scandal-mongering or for stinginess to guests or dependents of course, these courts had no sort of real coercive powers the fulfilment of their punishments rested entirely on the honour of the ladies and gentlemen involved including the honour of the culprits but you would be amazed to know how completely our orders were always obeyed lately I had a most pleasing example a maiden lady in South Kensington whom I had condemned to solitary confinement for being the means of breaking off an engagement through back-biting absolutely refused to leave her prison although some well-meaning persons had been inopportune enough to rescue her Rupert Grant was staring at his brother his mouth fallen agape so for the matter of that I expect was I this then was the explanation of the old lady's strange discontent and her still stranger content with her lot she was one of the culprits of his voluntary criminal court she was one of the clients of his queer trade we were still dazed when we drank amid a clash of glasses the health of Basil's new judiciary we had only a confused sense of everything having been put right the sense men will have when they come into the presence of God we dimly heard Basil say Mr. PG Northover will now explain the adventure and romance agency and we heard equally dimly Northover beginning the statement he had made long ago to Major Brown thus our epic ended where it had begun like a true cycle end of the club of queer trades