when he gets
into Surrey, isn't out for averages.'" (Can't you hear the cheers at
that?) "'He's out for fine art and a long day at it in pleasant
surroundings: and,' I winds up, 'if you reckon I sometimes take a
while, down there, to bowl a man _out_, just you wait till I come
down and help to bowl a man _in_!' Your servant, Mr. Farrell!"

Neat, eh? Well, we made our entrance right on top of it: and though
the great Bath was no more than three-parts full, you couldn't see a
vacant seat, the audience rocked so.

Now I must tell you a queer thing. . . . You know what it feels like
when you're talking away easily, maybe laughing, and all of a sudden
the Bosch puts in one that you feel means business? Something in the
sound of the devil makes you scatter. . . . Well, I can't explain it,
but through the noise of the stamping, hand-clapping, cheering, all
of a sudden and without rhyme or reason, I seemed to hear the shriek
of something distant, sinister, menacing. . . . Oh, I'm not an
imaginative fellow. Very likely it was a note set up by the wind
outside. I can't even swear that I _heard_ it; sort of took it down
my spine. Shrill it was for a moment--something between a child's
wail and the hiss of a snake--and, the next moment, not shrill at
all, but dull and heavy, like the flap of a great wing beating the
air, heavy with evil. . . . Yes, that was the sense of it--heavy with
evil. I pulled up with a shiver. The Chairman was on his feet,
waiting for the applause to cease, ready to announce the next
speaker. The little steward touched him by the arm; he wheeled about
and shook my hand effusively as I was introduced. "Delighted!
Flattered!" he said, and shook me by the hand again. The shiver went
out of me: but it took something out of me at the same time. I had a
most curious feeling of depression as I found my place. . . . I
looked about for Foe, and spotted him. They had given him a chair
close under the platform, a little to my right. He had taken his
seat and was scanning the platform attentively. The arc-light shone
down on his face, and showed it white, bewildered, a trifle
strained. . . . But this may have been no more than my fancy.

The Chairman asked for silence. He was a bald-headed small man of no
particular points and (as Jimmy whispered) seemed to feel his
position acutely. He said that, whatever their personal differences,
they would all agree that Mr. Jenkinson's speech had uplifted the