lost in the
yelling of newsboys tearing down the Strand. Too excited to speak, the
crowd engulfed them. The papers were torn from their hands. Short cries,
short sentences followed. Here and there Mr. Clarkson caught an
intelligible word: "Revolvers taken at gate"; "Expected Johnson would be
shot if victorious"; "Opening spar almost academic in its calmness";
"Old wound on Jeffries's right eye opened"; "Both cheeks gashed to the
bone"; "Jack handed out some wicked lefts"; "Terrible gruelling"; "Both
shutters out of working order"; "Defeat certain after eighth round";
"Johnson hooked his left"; "The Circassian remained on his knees";
"Counting went on"; "Fatal ten was reached."

The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing.

"Negroes had best crawl underground to-night," said the American; "it
ain't good for negroes when their heads grow through their hair."

"Another proof," sighed Mr. Clarkson, "another proof that, on
Roosevelt's principle, the United States are unfit for self-government."

When he reached his rooms it was nearly one, but a door opened softly on
the top floor, and the landlady's little boy looked over the banisters
and asked: "Please, sir, did Jim win, sir?"

"Let me see," said Mr. Clarkson, "which was Jim?"

XXIII

PEACE AND WAR IN THE BALANCE[7]

When your Committee invited me to deliver the Moncure Conway address
this year, I was even more surprised at their choice of subject than at
their choice of person. For the chosen subject was Peace, and my chief
study, interest, and means of livelihood for some twenty years past has
been War. It seemed to me like inviting a butcher to lecture on
vegetarianism. So I wrote, with regret, to refuse. But your Committee
very generously repeated the invitation, giving me free permission to
take my own line upon the subject; and then I perceived that you did not
ask for the mere celebration of an established doctrine, but were still
prepared to join in pursuit, following the track of reason wherever it
might lead, as became the traditions of this classic building, which I
sometimes think of as reason's last lair. I perceived that what you
demanded was not panegyric, or immutable commonplace, but, above all
things, sincerity. And sincerity is a dog with nose to the ground,
uncertain of the trail, often losing the scent, often harking back, but
possessed by an honest determination to hunt down the truth, if by any
means it can be