having a look at this monumental history?' Saw him
shoot a glance in his wife's direction, and he said, 'Oh, no, not now,
Hapgood. Never mind now.' And his wife said, 'Mark, what _can_ there be
for Mr. Hapgood to see up there? It's too ridiculous. I'm sure he
doesn't want to be looking at lesson books.'

"I said, 'Oh, but I'd like to. In fact, I insist. None of your backing
out at the last minute, Sabre. I know your little games.'

"Sort of carried it off like that, d'you see; knowing perfectly well
the old chap was keen on going up, and seeing perfectly clearly that for
some extraordinary reason his wife stopped him going up.

"By Jove, he was pleased, I could see he was. We got in the maids and
upped him, to a room he used to sleep in, I gathered, and up there he
hobbled about, taking out this book and dusting up that book, and
fiddling over his table, and looking out of the window, for all the
world like an evicted emigrant restored to the home of his fathers.

"He said, 'Forgive me, old man, just a few minutes; you know I haven't
been up here for over three weeks.'

"I said, 'Why the devil haven't you, then?'

"'Oh, well,' says he. 'Oh, well, it makes a business in the house, you
know, heaving me up.'

"Well, that didn't cut any ice, you know, seeing that I'd seen the
servants rush to the job as if they were going to a school treat. It was
perfectly clear to me that the reason he was kept out of the room was
because his wife didn't want him being lugged up there; and for all I
knew never had liked him being there and now was able to stop it.

"However, his wife was his funeral, not mine, and I said nothing and
presently he settled himself down and we began talking. At least he did.
He's got some ideas, old Sabre has. He didn't talk about the war. He
talked a lot about the effect of the war, on people and on institutions,
and that sort of guff. Devilish deep, devilishly interesting. I won't
push it on to you. You're one of those soulless, earth-clogged natures.

"Tell you one thing, though, just to give you an idea of the way he's
been developing all these years. He talked about how sickened he was
with all this stuff in the papers and in the pulpits about how the
nation, in this war, is passing through the purging fires of salvation
and is going to emerge with higher, nobler, purer ideals, and all that.
He said not so. He quoted a thing at me out of one of his books.
Something about (as well as I can rememb