st chapter of Corinthians says another. Two contradictory
statements may both be true, but "I am only a plain man, and I want to
know." Crowl spent a large part of his time in setting "the word against
the word." Cock-fighting affords its votaries no acuter pleasure than
Crowl derived from setting two texts by the ears. Crowl had a
metaphysical genius which sent his Sunday morning disciples frantic with
admiration, and struck the enemy dumb with dismay. He had discovered,
for instance, that the Deity could not move, owing to already filling
all space. He was also the first to invent, for the confusion of the
clerical, the crucial case of a saint dying at the Antipodes
contemporaneously with another in London. Both went skyward to heaven,
yet the two traveled in directly opposite directions. In all eternity
they would never meet. Which, then, got to heaven? Or was there no such
place? "I am only a plain man, and I want to know." Preserve us our open
spaces; they exist to testify to the incurable interest of humanity in
the Unknown and the Misunderstood. Even 'Arry is capable of five
minutes' attention to speculative theology, if 'Arriet isn't in a 'urry.

Peter Crowl was not sorry to have a lodger like Denzil Cantercot, who,
though a man of parts and thus worth powder and shot, was so hopelessly
wrong on all subjects under the sun. In only one point did Peter Crowl
agree with Denzil Cantercot--he admired Denzil Cantercot secretly. When
he asked him for the True--which was about twice a day on the
average--he didn't really expect to get it from him. He knew that Denzil
was a poet.

"The Beautiful," he went on, "is a thing that only appeals to men like
you. The True is for all men. The majority have the first claim. Till
then you poets must stand aside. The True and the Useful--that's what we
want. The Good of Society is the only test of things. Everything stands
or falls by the Good of Society."

"The Good of Society!" echoed Denzil, scornfully. "What's the Good of
Society? The Individual is before all. The mass must be sacrificed to
the Great Man. Otherwise the Great Man will be sacrificed to the mass.
Without great men there would be no art. Without art life would be a
blank."

"Ah, but we should fill it up with bread and butter," said Peter Crowl.

"Yes, it is bread and butter that kills the Beautiful," said Denzil
Cantercot bitterly. "Many of us start by following the butterfly through
the verdant meadows, but we