he vital point of the case of Mr. H. G. Wells. On the other
hand he wrote a very jolly article about beer and "tavern hospitality."
The argument marked time for two weeks more, when Mr. Belloc once again
entered the lists. The essence of his contribution is "I premise that
man, in order to be normally happy, tolerably happy, must own."
Collectivism will not let him own. The trouble about the present state
of society is that people do not own enough. The remedy proposed will be
worse than the disease. Then Mr. Bernard Shaw had a look in.

In the course of his lengthy article he gave "the Chesterbelloc"--"a
very amusing pantomime elephant"--several shrewd digs in the ribs. It
claimed, according to G.B.S., to be the Zeitgeist. "To which we reply,
bluntly, but conclusively, 'Gammon!'" The rest was mostly amiable
personalities. Mr. Shaw owned up to musical cravings, compared with
which the Chesterbelloc tendency to consume alcohol was as nothing. He
also jeered very pleasantly at Mr. Belloc's power to cause a stampede of
Chesterton's political and religious ideas. "For Belloc's sake
Chesterton says he believes literally in the Bible story of the
Resurrection. For Belloc's sake he says he is not a Socialist. On a
recent occasion I tried to drive him to swallow the Miracle of St.
Januarius for Belloc's sake; but at that he stuck. He pleaded his
belief in the Resurrection story. He pointed out very justly that I
believe in lots of things just as miraculous as the Miracle of St.
Januarius; but when I remorselessly pressed the fact that he did not
believe that the blood of St. Januarius reliquefies miraculously every
year, the Credo stuck in his throat like Amen in Macbeth's. He had got
down at last to his irreducible minimum of dogmatic incredulity, and
could not, even with the mouth of the bottomless pit yawning before
Belloc, utter the saving lie."

By this time the discussion was definitely off Socialism. Chesterton
produced another article, _The Last of the Rationalists_, in reply to
Mr. Shaw, from which one gathered what one had been previously suspected
that "you [namely Mr. Shaw, but in practice both the opposition
controversialists] have confined yourselves to charming essays on our
two charming personalities." And there they stopped.

The year following this bout of personalities saw the publication of a
remarkably brilliant book by Chesterton, _George Bernard Shaw_, in
which, one might have expected, the case against