to be aroused to the fact that they were no longer accepted as
the heirs of all the ages? How to make them see the millions of people
of alien races moving slowly, like huge masses of rotting putrescence,
to a new life? Indeed, they were very fond of using those words "rotten"
and "putrid" for alien things they did not like. He felt sure they would
apply both to Mr. Dainopoulos, for example, and those men he met at the
Consulate. And with a twinge he reflected they might say the same thing
about Evanthia, if they knew it all. Yet they must be made to know,
those of them who were left, that the game was up for the cheerful
schoolboy with no ascertainable ideas. The very vitality of these alien
races was enough to sound a warning. "After all," Mr. Marsh had said in
his throaty way, "you can't beat that type, you know." And the question
looming up in the back of Mr. Spokesly's mind, as he sat on that seat in
St. James's Park, was: "Couldn't you?"

He discovered with a shock that his friend the elderly lieutenant, who
had been visiting the Admiralty that morning and so had met Mr.
Spokesly, was explaining something:

"I told him that taking everything into consideration, I really couldn't
see my way. Not now. You see, we aren't getting any younger, and my wife
is so attached to Chingford she won't hear of leaving. And of course I
couldn't go out _there_ alone now."

"Where did you say it was?" Mr. Spokesly asked. He had not heard.

"West Indies. It's a new oiling station and they want an experienced
harbour-master. You see, I knew about it, oh, years ago, when the place
was first projected, and I put in for it. And now he's offered it to me,
I can't go. I don't have to, you see. And yet I would like to put
someone in the way of it for the old chap's sake. So I say, why don't
you go round and see him? Three hundred a year and quarters. It isn't so
dusty, I can assure you. If I hadn't been rather lucky in my investments
I would be very glad to go, I can tell you that."

And the odd thing, to Mr. Spokesly's mind, was that he did not envy his
elderly friend's happy position as to his investments. Here again luck
masqueraded as a slippery word. Was he so lucky? From where he sat now,
beneath the Arch of the great queen of the money-making, steam-engine
era--the era, that is, when the steam-engines made the money and the old
order fattened upon rents and royalties--Mr. Spokesly was able to see
that money was no longer an adeq