nd "Father Storm!" was thrown at the poor
scarecrow as a missile from twenty quarters at once. Glory's colour was
rising to her ears, and Drake was humming a tune to cover her confusion.
But Betty was asking, "Who was Father Storm, if you please?" and Lord
Robert was saying, "Bless my stars, this is something new, don't you
know! Here's somebody who doesn't know Father Storm! Father Storm, my
dear Elephant, is the prophet, the modern Jonah, who predicts that
Nineveh--that is to say, London--is to be destroyed this very day!"

"He must be balmy!" said Betty, and the lady in blue went into fits of
laughter.

"Yes," said Lord Robert, "and all because wicked men like ourselves
insist on enjoying ourselves on a day like this with pretty people like
you."

"Well, he _is_ a cough-drop!" said Betty. The lady in blue asked what was
"balmy" and a "cough-drop," and Lord Robert said:

"Betty means that the good Father is crazy--silly--stupid--cracked in the
head in short----"

But Glory could bear no more. It was an insult to John Storm to be sat
upon in judgment by such a woman. With a fiery jet of temper she turned
about and said, "Pity there are not more heads cracked, then, if it would
only let a little of the light of heaven into them."

"Oh, if it's like that----" began Betty, looking round significantly, and
Lord Robert said, "It _is_ like that, dear Elephant, and if our charming
hurricane will pardon me, I'm not surprised that the man has broken out
as a Messiah, and if the authorities don't intervene----"

"Hold your tongue, Robert!" cried Drake. "Listen, everybody!"

They were climbing on to the Downs and could hear the deep hum of the
people on the course. "My!" said Betty. "Well!" said the lady in blue.
"It's like a beehive with the lid off," said Glory.

As they passed the railway station the people who had come by train
poured into the road and the coach had to slow down. "They must have come
from the four winds of heaven," said Glory.

"Wait, only wait!" said Drake.

Some minutes afterward everybody drew breath. They were on the top of the
common and had a full view of the course. It was a vast sea of human
beings stretched as far as the eye could reach--a black moving ocean
without a glimpse of soil or grass. The race track itself was a river of
people: the Grand Stand, tier on tier, was black from its lawns at the
bottom to its sloping gallery on top; and the "Hill" opposite was a rocky
coast of carria