enly,
and pursued him through the tale of his connexions. When he came to
the plumber, Mrs. Chaffery remarked with an unexpected air of
consequence that most families have their poor relations. Then the
air of consequence vanished again into the past from which it had
arisen.

Supper finished, Chaffery poured the residuum of the beer into his
glass, produced a Broseley clay of the longest sort, and invited
Lewisham to smoke. "Honest smoking," said Chaffery, tapping the bowl
of his clay, and added: "In this country--cigars--sound cigars--and
honesty rarely meet."

Lewisham fumbled in his pocket for his Algerian cigarettes, and
Chaffery having regarded them unfavourably through his glasses, took
up the thread of his promised apologia. The ladies retired to wash up
the supper things.

"You see," said Chaffery, opening abruptly so soon as the clay was
drawing, about this cheating--I do not find life such a simple matter
as you do."

"_I_ don't find life simple," said Lewisham, "but I do think there's a
Right and a Wrong in things. And I don't think you have said anything
so far to show that spiritualistic cheating is Right."

"Let us thresh the matter out," said Chaffery, crossing his legs; "let
us thresh the matter out. Now"--he drew at his pipe--"I don't think
you fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the Essential
Nature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. You are inclined to
discredit one particular form of Imposture, because it is not
generally admitted--carries a certain discredit, and--witness the heel
edges of my trouser legs, witness yonder viands--small rewards."

"It's not that," said Lewisham.

"Now I am prepared to maintain," said Chaffery, proceeding with his
proposition, "that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic and
disintegrating force in society, that communities are held together
and the progress of civilisation made possible only by vigorous and
sometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothing
more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and
humbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are the
mortar that bind the savage Individual man into the social
masonry. There is the general thesis upon which I base my
justification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particular
instance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundly
indolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse to
writing, I would make a gre