by which time he had made rough notes of as
much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge so far. Much
of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order in which it
happened, he did not learn till later. After giving the merest outline
of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:--"I suppose
I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly
quoting my favourite proverb, 'Every man for himself, and the devil take
the hindmost.' To this they have paid no attention."

By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not come
by this time, they were not likely to do so. Not knowing that they were
staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled it that they would now
stroll up to the place where they had left their hoard and bring it down
as soon as night had fallen. And it is quite possible that they might
have found some excuse for doing this, when dinner was over, if their
hostess had not undesignedly hindered them by telling them about the
Sunchild. When the conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was
over, it was too late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving
the house; we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than
Yram and George were able to remember and report to my father.

After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing but what
on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch'ston, he returned to his
inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a public room that
corresponded with the coffee-room of an English hotel.

CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND WALKS WITH
HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH'STON

Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main drift of
the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions, my father
had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation.
He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his
balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had been
so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their
faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised. It a man and a
woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else
might not happen? If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing
impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also?