operations and remove all life to a safe distance, as everything
was going to be blown up by secret mines, "_and no telling at what
moment--therefore, vacate at once_." These people knew me, and
had confidence in my word. They would clear out without waiting
to part their hair, and I could take my own time about dating the
explosion. You couldn't hire one of them to go back during the
century, if the explosion was still impending.

We had a week of waiting. It was not dull for me, because I was
writing all the time. During the first three days, I finished
turning my old diary into this narrative form; it only required
a chapter or so to bring it down to date. The rest of the week
I took up in writing letters to my wife. It was always my habit
to write to Sandy every day, whenever we were separate, and now
I kept up the habit for love of it, and of her, though I couldn't
do anything with the letters, of course, after I had written them.
But it put in the time, you see, and was almost like talking;
it was almost as if I was saying, "Sandy, if you and Hello-Central
were here in the cave, instead of only your photographs, what
good times we could have!" And then, you know, I could imagine
the baby goo-gooing something out in reply, with its fists in its
mouth and itself stretched across its mother's lap on its back,
and she a-laughing and admiring and worshipping, and now and then
tickling under the baby's chin to set it cackling, and then maybe
throwing in a word of answer to me herself--and so on and so on
--well, don't you know, I could sit there in the cave with my pen,
and keep it up, that way, by the hour with them. Why, it was
almost like having us all together again.

I had spies out every night, of course, to get news. Every report
made things look more and more impressive. The hosts were gathering,
gathering; down all the roads and paths of England the knights were
riding, and priests rode with them, to hearten these original
Crusaders, this being the Church's war. All the nobilities, big
and little, were on their way, and all the gentry. This was all
as was expected. We should thin out this sort of folk to such
a degree that the people would have nothing to do but just step
to the front with their republic and--

Ah, what a donkey I was! Toward the end of the week I began to get
this large and disenchanting fact through my head: that the mass
of the nation had swung their caps and shouted for