To Felix these words had a more sinister significance. With his juster
appreciation both of the fiery and the official points of view, his far
greater insight into his nephew than ever John would have, he saw that
they were more than a mere arrow of controversy. And he made up his mind
that night that he would tackle his nephew and try to find out exactly
what was smouldering within that crisp, black pate.

Following him into the garden next morning, he said to himself: 'No
irony--that's fatal. Man to man--or boy to boy--whichever it is!' But,
on the garden path, alongside that young spread-eagle, whose dark,
glowering, self-contained face he secretly admired, he merely began:

"How do you like your Uncle John?"

"He doesn't like me, Uncle Felix."

Somewhat baffled, Felix proceeded:

"I say, Derek, fortunately or unfortunately, I've some claim now to a
little knowledge of you. You've got to open out a bit to me. What are
you going to do with yourself in life? You can't support Nedda on
revolution."

Having drawn this bow at a venture, he paused, doubtful of his wisdom. A
glance at Derek's face confirmed his doubt. It was closer than ever,
more defiant.

"There's a lot of money in revolution, Uncle Felix--other people's."

Dash the young brute! There was something in him! He swerved off to a
fresh line.

"How do you like London?"

"I don't like it. But, Uncle Felix, don't you wish YOU were seeing it
for the first time? What books you'd write!"

Felix felt that unconscious thrust go 'home.' Revolt against staleness
and clipped wings, against the terrible security of his too solid
reputation, smote him.

"What strikes you most about it, then?" he asked.

"That it ought to be jolly well blown up. Everybody seems to know that,
too--they look it, anyway, and yet they go on as if it oughtn't."

"Why ought it to be blown up?"

"Well, what's the good of anything while London and all these other big
towns are sitting on the country's chest? England must have been a fine
place once, though!"

"Some of us think it a fine place still."

"Of course it is, in a way. But anything new and keen gets sat on.
England's like an old tom-cat by the fire: too jolly comfortable for
anything!"

At this support to his own theory that the country was going to the dogs,
owing to such as John and Stanley, Felix thought: 'Out of the mouths of
babes!' But he merely said: "You're a cheerful young man!"

"It's go