onder did I look at
the smudgy, quivering symbol of the unknown things that were rushing
upon us out of the inhuman void, before I rebelled? But at last I
could stand it no longer, and I reproached Parload very bitterly
for wasting his time in "astronomical dilettantism."

"Here," said I. "We're on the verge of the biggest lock-out in the
history of this countryside; here's distress and hunger coming,
here's all the capitalistic competitive system like a wound inflamed,
and you spend your time gaping at that damned silly streak of
nothing in the sky!"

Parload stared at me. "Yes, I do," he said slowly, as though it
was a new idea. "Don't I? . . . I wonder why."

"_I_ want to start meetings of an evening on Howden's Waste."

"You think they'd listen?"

"They'd listen fast enough now."

"They didn't before," said Parload, looking at his pet instrument.

"There was a demonstration of unemployed at Swathinglea on Sunday.
They got to stone throwing."

Parload said nothing for a little while and I said several things.
He seemed to be considering something.

"But, after all," he said at last, with an awkward movement towards
his spectroscope, "that does signify something."

"The comet?"

"Yes."

"What can it signify? You don't want me to believe in astrology.
What does it matter what flames in the heavens--when men are starving
on earth?"

"It's--it's science."

"Science! What we want now is socialism--not science."

He still seemed reluctant to give up his comet.

"Socialism's all right," he said, "but if that thing up there WAS
to hit the earth it might matter."

"Nothing matters but human beings."

"Suppose it killed them all."

"Oh," said I, "that's Rot,"

"I wonder," said Parload, dreadfully divided in his allegiance.

He looked at the comet. He seemed on the verge of repeating his
growing information about the nearness of the paths of the earth
and comet, and all that might ensue from that. So I cut in with
something I had got out of a now forgotten writer called Ruskin,
a volcano of beautiful language and nonsensical suggestions, who
prevailed very greatly with eloquent excitable young men in those
days. Something it was about the insignificance of science and the
supreme importance of Life. Parload stood listening, half turned
towards the sky with the tips of his fingers on his spectroscope.
He seemed to come to a sudden decision.

"No. I don't agree with you, Leadford," he said. "You don