dig into me. After that I was playing a
pretty dark game, and had to get down and out of decent society. But,
holy Mike! I'm a new man. I used to do my work with a sick heart and a
taste in my mouth like a graveyard, and now I can eat and drink what I
like and frolic round like a colt. I wake up every morning whistling
and thank the good God that I'm alive, It was a bad day for Kaiser when
I got on the cars for White Springs.'

'This is a rum place to meet,' I said, 'and you brought me by a
roundabout road.'

He grinned and offered me a cigar.

'There were reasons. It don't do for you and me to advertise our
acquaintance in the street. As for the shop, I've owned it for five
years. I've a taste for good reading, though you wouldn't think it, and
it tickles me to hand it out across the counter ... First, I want to
hear about Biggleswick.'

'There isn't a great deal to it. A lot of ignorance, a large slice of
vanity, and a pinch or two of wrong-headed honesty--these are the
ingredients of the pie. Not much real harm in it. There's one or two
dirty literary gents who should be in a navvies' battalion, but they're
about as dangerous as yellow Kaffir dogs. I've learned a lot and got
all the arguments by heart, but you might plant a Biggleswick in every
shire and it wouldn't help the Boche. I can see where the danger lies
all the same. These fellows talked academic anarchism, but the genuine
article is somewhere about and to find it you've got to look in the big
industrial districts. We had faint echoes of it in Biggleswick. I mean
that the really dangerous fellows are those who want to close up the
war at once and so get on with their blessed class war, which cuts
across nationalities. As for being spies and that sort of thing, the
Biggleswick lads are too callow.'

'Yes,' said Blenkiron reflectively. 'They haven't got as much sense as
God gave to geese. You're sure you didn't hit against any heavier
metal?'

'Yes. There's a man called Launcelot Wake, who came down to speak once.
I had met him before. He has the makings of a fanatic, and he's the
more dangerous because you can see his conscience is uneasy. I can
fancy him bombing a Prime Minister merely to quiet his own doubts.'

'So,' he said. 'Nobody else?'

I reflected. 'There's Mr Ivery, but you know him better than I. I
shouldn't put much on him, but I'm not precisely certain, for I never
had a chance of getting to know him.'

'Ivery,' said Blenkiron in sur