s off to stop that system. You behold Sir Dartrey twirling
the weapon in preparatory fashion; because he is determined we shall have
an army of trained officers instead of infant amateurs heading heroic
louts. Not a thought of Beer in Dartrey!--always unpatriotic, you 'll
say. Plato entreats his absent mistress to fix eyes on a star: eyes on
Beer for the uniting of you English! I tell you no poetic fiction. Seeing
him on his way, thus terribly armed, and knowing his intent, Venus, to
shield a former favourite servant of Mars, conjured the most diverting of
interventions, in the shape of a young woman in a poke-bonnet, and
Skepsey, her squire, marching with a dozen or so, informing bedevilled
mankind of the hideousness of our hymnification when it is not under
secluding sanction of the Edifice, and challengeing criticism; and that
was hard by, and real English, in the form of bludgeons, wielded by a
battalion of the national idol Bungay Beervat's boys; and they fell upon
the hymners. Here you fill in with pastoral similes. They struck the maid
adored by Skepsey. And that was the blow which slew them! Our little man
drove into the press with a pair of fists able to do their work. A
valiant skiff upon a sea of enemies, he was having it on the nob, and
suddenly the Demerara lightened. It flailed to thresh. Enough. to say,
brains would have come. The Bungays made a show of fight. No lack of
blood in them, to stock a raw shilling's worth or gush before Achilles
rageing. You perceive the picture, you can almost sing the ballad. We
want only a few names of the fallen. It was the carving of a maitre chef,
according to Skepsey: right-left-and point, with supreme precision: they
fell, accurately sliced from the joint. Having done with them, Dartrey
tossed the Demerara to Skepsey, and washed his hands of battle; and he
let his major go unscathed. Phlebotomy sufficient for the day!'

Nesta's ears hummed with the name of Major Worrell.

'Skepsey did come back to London with a rather damaged frontispiece,'
Victor said. 'He can't have joined those people?'

'They may suit one of your militant peacemakers,' interposed Fenellan.
'The most placable creatures alive, and the surest for getting-up a
shindy.'

'Suit him! They're the scandal of our streets.' Victor was pricked with a
jealousy of them for beguiling him of his trusty servant.

'Look at your country, see where it shows its vitality,' said Colney.
'You don't see elsewhere any