ke secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There
are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is
like plunging into a pool. In these places the man and I paced up and
down talking about Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians
do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew
quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older
England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like
Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers
carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between
all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when
we went into the church.

In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured
windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the
passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts.
At length I said to my companion:

"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the
angel at the sepulchre."

He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows.

"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?"

After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre
said?"

"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off to in such a
hurry?"

I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen's
almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I
was going.

"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines on the
beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my
photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original
bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready
to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education
should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is,
if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was
commanded me by the angel in the stained-glass window."

"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put you in
charge of your relations."

"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity owes
much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a
type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain
perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit
of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even f