dress had something of the clerical appearance, an
effect at which he distinctly aimed.

"Hallo," he said, and sat down on the table and yawned. Then he caught
sight of Luke.

"You here?" he said. "What for?"

"Just a little holiday," said Luke nervously, "a little treat for me.
You don't mind?"

Doom Dagshaw did not answer him, but turned to Mabel.

"Lunch is ready," he said, "let's get on to it."

They passed into the dining-room. Luke observing salmon at one end of
the table, and cutlets at the other, asked, with a smile, if those two
sentences generally ran concurrently.

"Oh, hold your jaw," said Dagshaw.

"That's the way to talk to him," said Mabel approvingly.

"Yours, too," Dagshaw added, turning to Mabel. "I'll do any talking
that has to be done. I'm here to talk about my circus. Yes, and to eat
ham. Isn't any? Ought to be. Give me three of those cutlets. You don't
realize what a circus is, you people. It's a church. It's a cathedral.
It's more."

"I hope," said Luke, "that it's getting on nicely, and will be a great
success."

"Bound to be. Can't help it. When I bought the land from the Garden
Settlement Syndicate I made it a condition that there should be a
clause in every lease granted that a year's season ticket should be
taken for the Mammoth Circus."

"I don't quite see," said Mabel, "how it's like a church."

"The circus has a ring. The ring is a circle. The circle is the symbol
of eternity. Will anybody be able to see my highly-trained chimpanzee
in the trapeze act without realizing as he has never realized before,
the meaning of the word uplift? Think of the stars in their program.
And by what strenuous discipline and self-denial they have reached
their high position."

"'Per ardua ad astra,'" quoted Luke.

"Hold your jaw. Three more cutlets. Think of the clowns. They tumble
over, they fall from horses, they fail to jump through the rings. They
are lashed by the whip of the ring-master. What a lesson in reverence
is here. People who jeer, people who make fun, people who parody great
works of fiction always and invariably come to a bad end. It will be
not only a mammoth circus but a moral circus. It will be the greatest
ethical institution in this part of the world. Its work will be more
subtle than that of any other. Its appeal will be to the unconscious
rather than to the conscious mind. Freud never thought of that. I did
it myself. I am a genius. Potatoes."

After lunch it was s