perplexed him, and
often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating
impression of returning youthfulness--a buoyancy of feeling and a
delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after
ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world
below him. His brain was very clear and active--and whenever he chose to
talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ready to listen. One day
the morning papers were full of great headlines announcing the
assassination of one of the world's throned rulers, and the Weircombe
fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David"
concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be
drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent.

"Why should kings spend money recklessly on their often filthy vices and
pleasures," he demanded, "while thousands, ay, millions of their
subjects starve? As long as such a wretched state of things exists, so
long will there be Anarchy. But I know the head and front of the
offending! I know the Chief of all the Anarchists!"

"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Twitt, who happened to be standing by.
"Ye don't say so! Wot's' 'ee like?"

"He's all shapes and sizes--all colours too!" laughed Angus. "He's
simply the Irresponsible Journalist!"

"As you were once!" suggested Helmsley, with a smile.

"No, I was never 'irresponsible,'" declared Reay, emphatically. "I may
have been faulty in the following of my profession, but I never wrote a
line that I thought might cause uneasiness in the minds of the million.
What I mean is, that the Irresponsible Journalist who gives more
prominence to the doings of kings and queens and stupid 'society' folk,
than to the actual work, thought, and progress of the nation at large,
is making a forcing-bed for the growth of Anarchy. Consider the
feelings of a starving man who reads in a newspaper that certain people
in London give dinners to their friends at a cost of Two Guineas a head!
Consider the frenzied passion of a father who sees his children dying of
want, when he reads that the mistress of a king wears diamonds worth
forty thousand pounds round her throat! If the balance of material
things is for the present thus set awry, and such vile and criminal
anachronisms exist, the proprietors of newspapers should have better
sense than to flaunt them before the public eye as though they deserved
admiration. The Anarchist at any rat