re, a boneless lot without
organisation. I say it myself, I said it only larst night in this here
bar, and I say it again, for two pins I'd chuck my party. I would so.
For two pins I'd chuck the country, and leave the whole lot to stew in
their own grease."

He addressed himself to his beer, and Jones, greatly marvelling, lit a
cigarette.

"Do you live here?" asked he.

"Sh'd think I did," replied the other. "Born here and bred here, and
been watchin' the place going down for the last twenty years, turnin'
from a decent residential neighbourhood to a collection of schools and
lodgin' houses, losin' clarse every year. Why the biggest house here is
owned by a chap that sells patent food, there's two socialists on the
town council, and the Mayor last year was Hoover, a chap that owns a
lunatic 'sylum. One of his loonies got out last March and near did for a
child on the Southgate Road before he was collared; and yet they make a
Mayor of him."

"Have another drink?" said Jones.

"I don't mind if I do."

"Well, here's luck," said he, putting his nose into the new glass.

"Luck!" said Jones. "Do Hoover's lunatics often escape?"

"Escape--why I heard only an hour ago another of them was out. Gawd help
him if the town folk catch him at any of his tricks, and Gawd help
Hoover. A chap has no right comin' down and settin' up a business like
that in a place like this full of nursemaids and children. People bring
their innercent children down here to play on the sands, and any minit
that place may break loose like a bum-shell. _That's_ not marked down on
the prospectices they publish with pictures done in blue and yaller, and
lies about the air and water, and the salubriarity of the South Coast."

"No, I suppose not," said Jones.

"Well, I must be goin'," said the other, emptying his glass and wiping
his mouth on the back of his hand. "Good night to you."

"Good night."

The upholder of Church and State shuffled out, leaving Jones to his
thoughts. Wind of the business had got about the town, and even at that
moment no doubt people were carefully locking back doors and looking in
out houses.

It was unfortunate that the last man to escape from the Hoover
establishment had been violently inclined, that was the one thing needed
to stimulate Rumour and make her spread.

Having sat for ten minutes longer and consumed another glass of tepid
beer, he took his departure.

Mrs. Henshaw let him in, and having informed her