.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 52101
   :PG.Title: Much Ado About Something
   :PG.Released: 2016-05-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \C. \E. Lawrence
   :DC.Title: Much Ado About Something
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1909
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
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      MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

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      BY C. E. LAWRENCE

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      AUTHOR OF "PILGRIMAGE," ETC.

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      LONDON
      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
      1909

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      TO
      MY FATHER AND MOTHER

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `DOWN FAIRYLAND WAY`_
II.  `THE MADNESS OF JUNE`_
III.  `PARADISE COURT`_
IV.  `COCKNEYDOM`_
V.  `TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND`_
VI.  `POST-PRANDIAL`_
VII.  `ARCHIDIACONAL FUNCTIONS`_
VIII.  `MAN AND SUPERMAN`_
IX.  `THE PROGRESS OF OBERON`_
X.  `THE IMPORTANCE OF BIM`_
XI.  `A PROSE INTERLUDE`_
XII.  `A NIGHT OUT`_
XIII.  `IN SOCIETY`_
XIV.  `CONVERTING A DUCHESS`_
XV.  `LIBERTY HALL`_
XVI.  `PROGRESS`_
XVII.  `THE ARISTOCRACY MOVES`_
XVIII.  `A COMPACT`_
XIX.  `NEW YEAR'S DAY`_
XX.  `IN PARLIAMENT`_
XXI.  `OBERON AT LAST`_
XXII.  `CROWNED`_





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.. _`DOWN FAIRYLAND WAY`:

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   CHAPTER I


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   DOWN FAIRYLAND WAY

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Fairyland!  Fairyland!

There was to be high revel in Fairyland.  From
far and wide, from uphill and down dale, from
here, there and all about, the little people were
to gather in the Violet Valley.

Oberon and Titania were coming, as well as
Mab, Puck, Gloriana, Tinkerbell, and innumerable
unnamable others of the princes, thrones,
dominations, powers of Elfdom.

Pixies, gnomes, kelpies, sprites, brownies,
sylphs, every shadow and shape owning allegiance
to the Fairy King, would endeavour to be at
that congress of the mimic immortals.

It was a red-letter night in the history of the
aristocratical democracy: the greatest occasion of
the kind since the year One.

To-morrow would be Mayday, and midnight
was not just yet.

Nightingales were tuning, preparing.  The air
was honeyed with the scent of flowers.

A round white moon looked from a shining sky
on the Violet Valley.  It lingered; travelled
tardily across mountains and spaces of leisurely-drifting
clouds, waiting with its best dilatoriness,
intending to see all that was possible of the
approaching revels.

It looked upon and lighted a scene of young-leaved
trees, grass of the freshest green, new-come
flowers, and sparkling waters.  The world
which is always beautiful wore its best loveliness
then.

That was Fairyland.

Far away northwards there was a lurid, hazy
glow in the sky.  Red, vast and vague it loomed,
obliterating the stars beyond, marking the place
where Fairyland was not.

That was the shadow which shone over London.

In the country there was peace--absolute
peace; then, mellowed by distance, the chimes of
a church clock.

Twelve!  The fairy-time had come.

At once a nightingale began its emotional
song; and others, scattered on many trees,
gradually joined in the throbbing chorus.  Every
moment their melody grew in joyousness, and,
ever spreading, roused nightingales on still more
distant trees to join in the anthem of rapture,
until every glade in Fairyland was happier for
their happiness.

There was some reed-fringed water in the
centre of the Violet Valley.  It was a pond or
lake, according to the charity and imagination of
the mortal who looked at it.  To the fairies it
was a lake, large and estimable enough for their
most ambitious purposes.

A bright light appeared in the depths of that
water, and slowly uprose till it reached the
surface, when the nymph of the pool appeared.
She sat, a shining figure, on a water-leaf and
waved a glistening wand.

In prompt obedience gnomes appeared.  Pell-mell,
up they came tumbling, a multi-coloured
host, every one with shining face and as full of
excitement, activities and the thousand mischiefs
as is the moonlit night of shadows.  So rapidly
they swarmed, elbowing, scrambling, hustling,
stumbling, clambering, from hidden holes and
grass-shrouded crannies of earth that actually
slender paths were worn bare by their hurrying
feet.  From the branches of trees they dropped,
over hillocks of grass they hastened, to prepare
for the revels.  The gnomes are the democracy
of the Elf countries, and, like some of us
mortals, are the folk who do the necessary
drudging work.

They set to labour with willingness.  Not often
had fairy eyes seen such obvious earnestness to
be well done with irksome business.  Weeds,
which are really weeds, nauseous and
mischievous, and not flowers become unpopular,
were carefully uprooted and packed away, fuel to
feed the fires of brownies' anvils; a broad tract
of green was made flawless that fairies might
dance there unhindered; glow-worms were
coaxed or forcibly carried to places where their
blue-white lights would be at once ornamental
and useful; dew was scattered broadcast to
reflect from myriad points the diamond
moonlight; the lamps of the flowers were trimmed
and lit, and soon, from all sides, were shedding
gentle radiance.  Dreams came drifting down
from the opal spaces.

While the gnomes worked they whistled--not
fairy songs, now; but snatches of lame melodies
borrowed from holiday mortals.  It was a hotch-potch
of sounds, a sizzling blur, not so unpleasing.
Gnomes are rather fond of that sort of thing.
Their ear for music is, possibly, imperfect.

Presently there was trouble.  Bim was a centre
of petty uproar.

He was a gnome, very young as they go; and,
from top to toe, red as a holly-berry.

While his work-brothers rushed and bustled,
Bim was languid.  Even Monsieur Chocolat himself
could hardly have been less useful.  He did
his best--little better than nothing; but then he
was very tired.

All that day and through the previous night he
had been travelling.  From the distant Land of
Wild Roses he had toiled, following laboriously
the course over which a company of fairies had
easily flown or danced.  They had been hastening
to the valley of revels; and he must needs come
too, because June was amongst them.

It had been--such a journey!  The mere
remembrance of the toil caused him to ache
through every one of his six inches.

He had started on the previous evening, the
instant the moon had peeped above the horizon.
The fairy contingent had preceded him some
hours earlier.  He had only the vaguest notion
of the way to take, never having been out of the
Land of Wild Roses before.

Three things kept him, more or less, to the
right track.  He saw now and then solitary
fairies on the wing wending their ways towards
the place of assembly; more frequently, he passed
flowers of sweetness so refreshed that evidently
they had been touched by beneficent wands but
recently.  Thrice owls, hooting, had spared a
word of advice and direction to the persevering
wanderer.

The moon, which lighted his pathway, had
followed her course till lost in the shine of
morning.  The stars had brightened and quivered
and gone.  The sun had lived his period of hours;
the birds had worked and sung, the flowers and
grasses had waved through a long bright April
day, and still the determined gnome had laboriously
journeyed on, following the flight of the
fairy June.

Bim had been several times led astray through
his ignorance, but all his wanderings, stumblings
and weariness could not dim or lessen his
determination.  He rested but once, sleeping for a
sunny hour in a welcome bedroom of nightshade
and nettles in white blossom.  At last he came
to the turning of his long, long lane.

Now he was in the Violet Valley, and pressed
with the others of his below-stairs brethren to
the work of preparation: and he could not.  He
had the full weariness of a new arrival.  Those
of the gnomes, even those who had journeyed
long distances, had been able to rest before
labouring.  There was no such fortune for Bim.
Here he was, and at once he must do his share.
A great many gnomes, noticing his languor,
ceased work altogether to insist that he did not
shirk.

So there was uproar.  Five minor
tyrants--self-appointed foremen--began to kick him.  Bim
squealed like a tin whistle; then justice, in the
person of the nymph of the pool, intervened.

And thereby hangs this tale.

One word from the water-fairy was enough to
release Bim from his persecutors, and to send
them hurriedly to work again--till all preparation
was ended and the Violet Valley was ready for
rejoicing.

"Gnome," said the nymph, "you must be
young as spring-time, or you would not have
come so far and arrived so late.  You are, I see,
from the Land of the Wild Rose.  So was I.  So
is June--our June.  You shall be favoured.  Lie
under that dock-leaf; keep still and take rest.
You shall see the best of the wonders.  Lucky
gnome!"

Bim obeyed, creeping to the hiding-place and
lying there, resting, his eyes alight, as quietly as
a mouse with suspicions.

The gnomes, their business well ended, ran to
points of vantage.  They clambered along boughs,
clung to tree-creepers and shrubbery, like blobs
of living fruit.  Cross-legged they perched on
mounds, whistling, singing, playing impish
pranks, chaffing and chiding one another, in all
the happiness of easy idleness.  They were the
jolliest mob in Fairyland that night.  There was
not a grumble in the whole assembly.

Then the fairies began to arrive.

From here and there, like musical snowflakes,
they fell, flying down from the skies.  They
sparkled like gems, their wands were pointed
with brilliance, their wings shone with
iridescence, their garments were spangled gossamer.
As each elf-knight alighted, he folded his wings
and marched, with lance or slender sword
upraised, to an appointed place, and stood there
attentive, waiting, while in myriad gnome-voices
the heroes were acclaimed.  As every gentle
fairy came to earth, she tripped or lightly flew
over the dancing-ground and sat or reclined
among the flowers.  The Violet Valley was
thronged with a thousand pictures of loveliness
and enchantment.

All the while the gathering proceeded they
and the fairies were singing a world-old
fairy-song.  The bells of Elfland musically jangled.

Bim and the stars were delighted.  So was the
moon.  Fairy horns and trumpets pealed: a
fanfare of welcome rang with echoes over the
higher-land grasses.  For here are the royalties!

A procession worth seeing slowly approached
and passed.  The pride and panoply of mortal
pageantry is tinsel and crudeness in comparison
with what the fairies can do.

Leading came a bodyguard of gnomes, looking
quaint and important in their warlike furniture.
Their round faces, wearing expressions of
tremendous seriousness, their goggle-eyes, and legs,
some spindle, others bandy as half-way hoops,
gave a sort of pantomime poetry to the proceedings.

"Shiar-shiar-shiar!" shouted their commander
in his best militarese.

They halted, turned inwards in two long lines,
stepped backwards, leaving a generous space
between, and shuffled into comparative exactness
of places.  They were ranged in companies,
according to colour, the pride of position
belonging to the sky-blue and grass-green companies.

Following came the flower of fairy chivalry.
Knights, whose duty it is to control and
imprison the dragons which long ages ago terrified
and destroyed humanity, passed along, proudly
cheered.  Down into fiery depths of earth these
happy warriors go, and there, with infinite
courage, flashing swords and magic spears, do
battle with and awe the flame-breathing furies,
preventing their escape to earth, where they
would wreak mischief, work havoc, and destroy.
Fortunate for us--if only we knew it--that we
have the fairies to rid us of these monsters and
keep them in restraint.  Banish the elves from
our imaginings and many hidden horrors would
rise again.  The old forgotten terrors and a
million uglinesses which ever threaten us would
resume their evil reigns.  Banish the elves,
indeed!

There were knights tried by all manners of
adventure, thousand-year-old young heroes
whose efforts always help in the battle of right
against wrong.  They are the joyous chevaliers.
The fairies are bright, as their services have
been beneficent.  The best of the warriors are
as dazzling as sunlight at noontide; and as the
knights marched in inverse order to their prowess
and worth, the most meritorious and honourable
last, the procession became brighter and brighter
as it progressed, till only elf-eyes could have
endured its absolute brilliancy.  It was as a
rippling river of light, travelling through fields
of melody.

Bim, to whom all this was a magnificent dream,
trembled with excitement and awe.  He had heard
tales of majestic doings, told by gnomes who had
made adventures and seen; but nothing before
had sounded so fine as the mere shadow of this.
He lay in his burrow, snug; and repeatedly
pinched his leg to remind himself of his wonderful
good luck.

He saw the knights group themselves in a wide
semicircle round a double-throne, gem-built and
golden, made by moonbeams and magic out of a
nest of wild-growth.  Jack o' Lantern, Will o' the
Wisp, and their shivering green company kept
guard about it.

Goblins gathered on a poplar-tree.

Then after an interval came perfection at its
best, sweetness in all its qualities, loveliness
beyond adjectives--the fairies who watch the
flowers in their building, and tend them that
they may give generously of their treasures in
scent, colour and brightness; who teach birds
music and win from them their finest songs;
who carry day-dreams to those who require
them--they only bring some of the dreams of
night; who help Santa Claus during his Christmas
mission; who put hopes in the hearts of the weary.
They flew slowly, on fluttering wings, just over
the grass: the beads of dew beneath glistening
sharply, a thousand thousand points, reflections.
Last of that chapter of the marvellous procession
came one whom the lookers-on acclaimed with
ardour--the heroine of that silver night.

"June!  June!  June!"

In her honour all this rejoicing was made.
The great event of that calendar night was to
be the crowning of June.

Then with new trumpetings came Oberon and
Titania, the most puissant of kings and queens;
whose realms and governance extend from the
depths beneath, where the brownies in their
fire-shops labour and create, to the high-built hidden
palaces of the clouds.  All castles in the air are
in the kingdom of Oberon.  Remember that!  The
royalties of Fairyland are royal indeed.

They were accompanied by an escort of princes
and princesses, of knights, elves, and gnomes;
until the procession ended.

Oberon and his queen sat on the double throne.
He raised his sceptre in signal; the revels began.
Many of the fairies who had been waiting,
thereupon ran to the dancing-green, and on wings and
feet as light and graceful as moonbeams on
flowing water, danced.  It was a vision of loveliness,
the perfect poetry of music and motion.  And so
it went on and on, a kind of dream and of worship,
till every one of the fairies had sung and danced
her share.

All the while there was the singing of elf-songs,
to an accompaniment of nightingale voices, and
joyous feasting on honeyed nectar and cates, the
produce of fairy kitchens.

The moon drifted along, jealous of the passing
clouds which occasionally veiled her view, watching,
and, from her loneliness, rejoicing with the
fairies in their joy.

Till Oberon arose.  The birds ceased their
songs.  An owl hooted five times.  Bim,
forgetting caution, came boldly out of his
hiding-place, the better to watch.  The king raised an
opal cup and gave the word:

"June!"

Every voice in Fairyland echoed him.  The
woods repeated the name:

"June!  June!  June!"





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.. _`THE MADNESS OF JUNE`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE MADNESS OF JUNE

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Throughout the revels June was sitting but
three hand's-breadth distance from Bim, so that
he--who is our chief authority for these pages of
history--better than anyone else could see, hear,
and know all that happened in Fairyland on that
very, very young May morning.

June had been sitting there smiling, enjoying
herself supremely.  It was hard for her to believe
that this banquet of sheer delight was entirely to
her honour.  Even Oberon, Titania, and those
others whose names are as immortal as the
passing pages of the books of humankind can make
them, were there in a new relation--her subjects
for the time being.

The crowning was the only event which
remained undone: it was the culmination of the
revels, and would not happen until the cock which
crows in the last of the morning darkness had
duly squawked and shrilled.

Every year in Elfland the fairy credited with
the greatest number of kind doings, as entered in
the Golden Book of Bosh, wears the magic crown
which the spirits of Merlin, Prospero, and Michael
Scott met to make and charge with their mystic
powers on a howling night of eclipse.  Five-and-twenty
sheeted spectres had watched its making
and guarded the crown when made.  It had been
transported to the valley wherein Dante met
Virgil, to Ariel's Island, to the Hill of Tara, to
that Valley of Shadow in which Christian fought
Apollyon--who was Abaddon, to the altar in the
Chapel of Arthur's Palace at Camelot, to the
Never-Never-Never Land; and in each of those
places had rested for a year and a day, gathering
the mystical, magical powers of the place.

Now by unanimous acclaim, June was again
the chosen favourite.  For the second time in
succession she had won the crown--a circumstance
unique!  Never before in the long annals
of Fairyland--in comparison with which any mere
national history is but the record of a few stained
and noisy days--had such a circumstance been.
That was why there was so great a gathering;
why all the notables--and Bim--were there!

The crown which, with its changing colours,
sparkled with brightness better than sunshine
had been placed on a cushion before the throne.
During the revels, chosen knights--proud
sentinels--stood guard over it; the brightest eyes of
Elfdom watched it then.  June watched it too.

But there was something which, even in that
hour of magic and of triumph, troubled and
perplexed her, and drew away her attention from
the revels.  It was as a shadow of sorrow
overhanging the happiness; the only blur on a
condition of perfect contentment and peace.

Where she sat, facing Oberon and Titania, she
also faced that vague and lurid glow which showed
where Fairyland was not.  It was strange and
weirdly troublesome to her.  There was no such
dismal shadow over any part of the Land of Wild
Roses, and never before during her previous visits
to the Violet Valley had she seen that brooding
glare.  But now its ugly glory oppressed her.
Again and again it won her eyes from the happiness,
and filled her heart with a growing burden
of pain.

The owl had hooted.  "June!  June!  June!"
had come the king's, and then the universal, cry.

Chanticleer gave the note for the crowning.

The king rose, took the crown from the chief
of the knights attending, and raised it that all
of Fairyland might see.  The singing and the
laughter died away, and were hushed to a
tremendous silence.

June flew towards Oberon, but suddenly
stopped, and gave a cry of pain.

There was wild excitement at this.  It belied
experience, was an unkind precedent, made the
long night's harmony suddenly crooked and
awry.  What ailed June that she should act so?
The fairies with all their wisdom were impotent
to read the mystery.

But soon June made it plain.  She pointed her
wand at the glow beyond, and cried:

"Evil!  Evil!"

Every gnome, elf, fairy--all--turned to look
at the vague red light over the far-away city.
Oberon and Titania alone did not move, but
gazed at June, solemnity in their eyes.  They
knew.

"June," said the king to her, "that light is the
shame of Fairyland.  No one of our glad
company can live beneath it.  It is the land of
unhappy ghosts, where the shadows called men
make and endure infinite ugliness, shame and
pain.  Slowly the fairies who would have loved
and helped them have been driven away."

"I must go there," June said.

"No, no!" cried Titania, hurriedly stepping
down from her throne, and clasping the fairy's
shoulder, holding her wings.

"We can't spare you, June," said the king.
The hearkening elves sang agreement with him.
"It is all quite hopeless.  Time was when the
fairies ruled in London and the other great towns,
and were believed in, welcomed, appreciated.  In
those days England was called 'Merrie,' and
deserved the joyous name.  Then things began
to change.  Men became less in sympathy with
the beautiful and the unseen; their faith in us
dwindled.  They wanted more than they should
have done the dross called riches; and in following
and finding wealth lost much of their welfare.
It was a sad experience for fairies, who one by
one deserted the wilderness of streets and went
to their work in the country.  The condition of
the towns grew worse and worse.  Then came
that age of material progress, the Mid-Victorian
Period----"

"You should have seen their wall-paper, my
dear!" Titania interposed.

"And in despair the last of the fairies went!"

June sighed.

"Is it hopeless?" she asked.

"Hopeless, hopeless!" declared the king
solemnly.  "Only Death can do away with that
wilderness--Death and his cousin Decay.  More
than that, the men there would not be helped by
us if we would.  They are vain.  They have no
love for the fairies.  They like their grime and
their grubbing.  They hoard their dross and
tinsel, and are greedy about it.  That world of
stone and shadow beneath the red haze is marked
with doom.  Let it alone, June, as we have done
and are doing.  Fairyland is large enough, and
can spare to mortals those blotted areas."

June hid her face in her hands and shed fairy
tears.  Tears on that night of triumph!  A flower,
close by, in sympathy quivered and put out its
lamp.  Titania felt her royal firmness oozing out
of her wings.

"Let her go, Oberon!  Why should not fairies
go even to the wilderness if they can help there?"

"I cannot spare them," he answered.

"We should spare them," the queen asserted.
June raised her head to listen.

"Titania?" said Oberon, in surprise.

"The fairies ought not to have left London to
ugliness," the queen exclaimed; "besides--is it
so ugly as you in your eloquence make out?"

"Titania?"

"Even if the fairies have deserted London--and
shame to us for it--many men and women,
strengthened and inspired by us, have been doing
fairy-work there.  I am not so sure that London
is so hopeless!"

"Titania?"

"May not June go?" the queen then asked.

"I said 'No!'" Oberon declared with loud
authority.

"You are as obstinate as ever," Titania
observed impatiently.  "Since you played your
trick on me with that oaf--that clown--that
donkey's head; and foolishly I gave way to your
tricks and pleading, you have been----"

"Silence, Titania!  You are my own dearest
queen; but I am your king and the king of Fairyland.
I forbid June to go."

There was an end of the suggestion.

Applause, loud and long, greeted the royal
pronouncement.  The elves did not wish their
favourite to go.  They feared for her.  Titania,
realizing that the last word was said, for the time
being--what a model for some!--returned to her
place by Oberon's side, and June roused her
drooping happiness.

"Now, fairies," cried the king, "the triumph song!"

They sang.  All sang, proudly, proudly!  How
it rose, swelled, rolled in a volume of musical
delight, over the tree-tops, waking any birds that
foolishly might have been sleeping, compelling
them by its power, joy and confidence to share
the grand chorus.

Only June, of all the bright multitude on which
the moon then looked, was silent; only she,
though sharing in the pride and happiness--how
could she have done otherwise?--stood,
seemingly unemotional, there.  She was thinking,
thinking, thinking of the great dim wilderness,
whose crowded wretchedness, referred to by the
king, called for the gifts and presence of the
fairies, and could not enjoy them!

"Oh, sad city," whispered she to herself, while
her comrades were singing the triumph song.
"Oh, pitiful shadows, foolishly imprisoned
there!"

Dawn came creeping up.  The moon grew pale
with annoyance that daylight was coming to close
the revels.  The more timid of the stars closed
eyes and went to sleep.  Only the boldest lights
in the greying sky fought against the progress in
the east.

Then the song ended--dying out with a note
of long-drawn content, the sigh of satisfied
victory.  There was silence again except for the
awakened birds, which, well aware of the rapidly
approaching day, chattered and twittered with
increasing energy, careless of the history
happening beneath them.

June was stirred from her inopportune reverie
by the touch of the crown which Oberon,
descending from his throne, placed upon her.

A great shout went up.

"June, June, June!"

That was the moment of her triumph.  It was
the moment of her madness too.

The touch of the mystic rim quickened her
indefinite aspirations and sharpened her sadness.
She would go!  Not Oberon and all his fairies
should prevent her.  The crown--charged with
mighty powers--gave her strange new determination
and an influence more potent far than she
had ever possessed before.  That town-world
might be hopeless, but she would not say so till
she herself was convinced of it.  She would go to
London.

Oberon, watching her face, was aware of this
fleeting debate in her mind and the disobedient
decision.  He is the gentlest knight in Fairyland,
and for June, who deserved so well of everyone,
had an especial reverence and affection.  That
she should disobey his public command would be
almost as hurtful to his pride as allowing a dragon,
pent in its subterranean prison, to escape.

"June," he said to her gently, "you will go
back to your home in the Land of Wild Roses.
A hundred of the fairest knights will guard you
and the crown--your precious burden.  You will
go at once.  The revels are ended."

Daylight filled the sky.  The moon was a pallid
shadow of her former self; the stars had become
invisible.  The birds, self-centred, were flying
hither and thither, bustling about for the
wherewithal to live and to help live.  One by one the
flowers put out their ineffectual lamps.

Ordinarily, the fairies would have decamped
forthwith; the gnomes in weary, grumbling,
clumsily-clambering pell-mell, every one of them
with the fear at his elbow that he might be chosen
for some fatigue duty--as our straight-backed
friends of the scarlet tunic expressively call it.
But on this occasion they stayed.  Not an elf
stirred.  Everyone stared and wondered.

"Was June in disgrace?" they asked of each
other, "and if so, why?"

The questions were answered by further
questions.  There was a jostling of inquiries
without any progress made.  Rumours rioted.
It had been a night indeed!

Again June made appeal.

"Let me go just to see--for only one day and
a night!"

"Not for one hour can you go," the king
obstinately replied.  "Men through their meanness
and worldliness have driven the fairies away.
We went regretfully, unwillingly; but we went,
at last, absolutely.  There are innumerable homes
of men-folk where the elves are believed in and
are welcome.  We carry our gifts to them.  There
the children have smiling eyes and happy faces:
but in the narrow world of mean streets and
mistaken people, over which that glare is a pall,
the children fade, are shrunken, neglected, have
some of them forgotten how to smile."

"That is enough!" cried June, and she looked
straight at Oberon.  "Wherever the children are
neglected the fairies ought to go.  How can you
blame the people for being mean and the places
ugly if the elves are forbidden entrance there?
Great king, I go!"

In the most daring manner, she raised her wand,
made profound obeisance, and was off, like light.
Her wings shimmered in the shining of the
rising sun.

Fairies started forward to stop her; but she
was away before they could do so.

"I told you so!" said Titania, to nobody in
particular.

"Stay, all of you," loudly commanded the king.
"June has gone wilfully, and must suffer.  I
would not use the smallest power in Fairyland
to bring her back.  She has gone disobediently.
She can return when she will.  I will not send
for her.  She has gone foolhardily, and must
endure alone.  We are all of us sorry.  There
will be no more elfin revels till June has come
back again."

"The crown!  She has taken that!" said Titania.

Oberon echoed the queen's words.  "She has
taken that.  It cannot perish.  June cannot keep
it beyond the year.  She will have to bring it
back then, or earlier.  Now, fairies, May-day has
come.  To your homes and the daytime labours.
Away, away!  The revels have ended indeed!"

Then there was hurry on the part of the gnomes.
Oberon and Titania and their sparkling company
flew in a long procession on a winding aerial
course, to the palace of the king, which is hidden
from eyes of men on an Irish mountain.

They were there in a twinkling.  Wink thrice
and a fairy's journey is ended, though it be over
deserts and beyond seas.  It is not so with the
gnomes.  They must labour and struggle along,
like mice and men.  But the winged lords and
ladies of Elfdom are the happy fortunate.  They
can put Time in a thimble when they please, and
play leap-frog with continents.

In less than three and a half minutes, as
measured by a well-behaved clock, the Violet
Valley was deserted by all but the birds and Bim.
Even the nymph of the lake was invisible.  She
had sunk to the depths of her pellucid palace the
moment June made her bold decision.

Bim waddled to the place where the throne had
been.  It was rank wild-growth again.  No one
not a fairy could have dreamed that such a sight
had been there but a fragment of time before.
He threw himself at full length--such a little
full length--on the grass where June had been
standing, and thought for a long while with his
very best wits.

He made a soliloquy.

"King Oberon said we were not to go.  He
said that June was to come back alone.  He said
no one was to follow her.  I shall be punished if
I go.  Pricks and pains and aches and beatings!
Ugh!  But would that be worse than Fairyland
without June?  No, it would not.  Fairyland will
not be Fairyland to me without June.  I am going
after her; Oberon can beat me till I'm blue."  So
declaring, he sprang to his feet.

"Brave gnome!" said a voice behind him.

Bim turned about in fright.  The courage which
had risen during his soliloquy went--pluff!--like
an unset jelly.

The nymph of the lake had spoken.  She had
returned, and stood again on her leaf in the middle
of the pool.  He was pleased to see she looked at
him in the friendliest manner.

"We are behaving very badly indeed in being
so disobedient," she said; "but June is from the
Land of Wild Roses.  So are you and I.  Go to
her, gnome.  She is alone, and even you from
Falkland--I beg your pardon for putting it
so--are better than nothing.  I have no counsel to
give you but keep a stout heart.  You will need it.
You don't know the way!"

Here was the truth.  Bim was an expert in ignorance.

"You will find June in the wilderness of stone
and evil.  In the daytime it is covered by cloud
and fog.  In the night-time the red glare of lights
reflected shines over it.  That is what to follow
and where to go.  When you come back I will
find a gift for you.  Away with you.  Go!"

Bim went.





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.. _`PARADISE COURT`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   PARADISE COURT

.. vspace:: 2

There are many Paradise Courts in London.
The one which comes into this story is identifiable
from the fact that a public-house is by its
entrance.

Probably this hostelry has given the court its
name, for it was the nearest approach to anything
of an Eden character which that blotted part of
existence held.

The public-house has been known at various
times by different names--The Red Lion, The
Green Man, The Blue Dragon, The Queen's Head.
Possibly it is spoken of by another name now, for
its management has always changed pretty
frequently, and almost as frequently celebrated the
occasion with a new title.  It may perhaps be
called "The Laughter of June"--who knows?--but
digressions are sinful, when they anticipate.
These facts are stated to help the reader to find
the Paradise Court of the story--if he wants to.

To describe Paradise Court is to tell the picture
of one or other of more than a thousand of the
mean ways of London.  It was narrow and
flagged, with cracked slabs of cold stone; was
utterly dismal, dingy, dull.  Its tenements were
brown with years of smoked atmosphere; the
windows stained, or stuffed with paper, or empty
of glass; the doors, broken gates, giving entrance
to inner realms of squalor and nakedness.  There
is no place on earth more thoroughly hopeless
and ugly than was that dismal colony of
condemned humanity.  The makers of Hell would
probably be ashamed to imitate this limbo, where
the poorest of the poor crowded and managed
to exist.

Hunger and fear were unfading terrors in
Paradise Court.  Every room was haunted with
the tragedy which never dies.  No tears were
shed there, for the heart which knows despair is
dry as a river of sand.  In Paradise Court only
the babies could have any glimmer of hope, they
being utterly ignorant and unable to know.  The
others were mere mute bodies, too hurt and
heavily burdened to feel weary and sore.

There were dangerous brawls sometimes
amongst the Paradise Courtiers--they hit their
hardest and cunningest to kill; but, fortunately,
used fists or sticks--though sometimes the boot
found play, and always fought with drink-muddled
senses.  The men, women and children there
knew how to blaspheme: and though the range
of language in use was limited, it was violent
enough for any ordinary occasion.  Sometimes
the supply of available adjectives was insufficient
for a very special purpose, and then Jim, Bill and
'Arry, Sal, 'Arriett and Liz, repeated themselves
unconscionably.  The ears of the neighbourhood
were not sensitive, which, perhaps, was as well.

Once upon a time a policeman, presuming on
his proper faith in a new uniform and the
truncheon in his trouser pocket, followed and
tried unaided to capture a sneak-thief who had
found refuge in its Alsatian sanctuary.  When the
policeman emerged from the court empty-handed,
he was limp and battered; and report--on the
lips of the curate, who heard it from someone,
who was told by so-and-so, who learned it from
somebody else--asserts that his lost truncheon
was used thereafter promiscuously to settle
private quarrels with.  Since that ill-advised
adventure, the police only entered the place when
they had to, and then went in adequate numbers.
Paradise Court had become an independent
republic, where the King's authority had ceased
to run, and, in effect, was a little farther out of
civilization than the forests of Mumbo-Jumbo.

There were fourteen houses in the Court, with
five rooms in each, a passage and flight of stairs.
On an average four persons slept in every room,
and in the summer months the stairs had their
occupants, so that the population of the place was
as near three hundred as need be.

Paradise Court was, in brief, a piece of Black
Country, given back to Chaos and old Night, the
haunt of such terrors as are bred of insanitation,
rack-rents, thriftlessness, drunkenness, extreme
poverty, utter and absolute neglect.  It was one
of many wens in the metropolitan wilderness.

On every side of it London stretched;
immediately about it were clattering thoroughfares,
with hurrying streams of life, constant processions
of rumbling and jingling vehicles, and buildings,
buildings, buildings, streets after streets of them,
nearly every one looking jaded, faded, an edifice--fine
word!--in despair.  Only the public-houses
remained clothed in glaring, brave livery, and
looked prosperous and vulgarly perky.

June found herself in Paradise Court in the
course of that May-day afternoon.  How she got
there, even she did not know.

Out in the country her journey had been plain
flying.  She had skimmed over the fields and
hills like light in a happy hurry.  But gradually
the air became heavier, and her wings, which
in a joyous atmosphere could have moved
unweariedly for almost an eternal time, lagged.
She struggled along bravely, and, not for the
shred of a moment, wavered in her purposes: but
eventually, bewildered by the clamour beneath
her, the closeness and thick smoke, which
overhung everything--there was the pall which,
lighted, was visible from Fairyland--felt her
powers vanquished.  She tried all her arts--the
fairy arts--to make the way easier; but the spoilt
air of London oppressed her--it was to her--who
more sensitive?--as fiery breath from
dragon's nostrils, nauseous.

The crown pressed on her brow with a heavy
rim of pain.  She clung to remembrance of the
children who needed her.

She became as helpless in the hands of
circumstance as a snowflake, the sport of winds; was
borne hither and thither, buffeted up and down
as though mighty mischiefs made her their
shuttlecock.

For hours she was hustled along in this condition
of blind bewilderment: and then--slap!--felt
herself brought sharply against a window-pane,
for all the world as if she were a blind
wasp or blue-bottle imprisoned in a summer
room.  She tumbled and clung desperately to the
rough stone sill whereon she found herself; and
there rested, breathless, draggled, exhausted.

She was the tiredest fairy in and out of
Christendom.

So June found Paradise Court.

She rapidly recovered, and looked about her.

"This is very, very ugly," said she to
herself.  "The fairies can't have been here for
ages."

She touched the dingy window-pane with her
wand.  The glass divided and opened inwards,
as if its two parts were separately hinged; but
the atmosphere of the room was so old and very
evil that June waved the wand and closed the
pane in a hurry.  Human eyes, examining the
glass, ever so carefully, would have been
positive it had never been parted.  Brothers, how
blind we are!

"Can the fairies ever have been there!"
murmured June to herself.

She cleared the pane with wishes.  It became
so clear and burnished that the glass itself seemed
invisible; and then, pressing forward eagerly,
she looked inside the room, and examined
mankind in one of its cages.

"It is a good thing they are shadows, and
cannot know or feel very much.  If they were as
real as we are, that would be bad--bad!  Even
now I should like to turn them into sparrows;
they would be far more fortunate so.  Poor people!
And there is a child!"

The sight of Sally Wilkins working constantly
with ever-weary hands, made June so to tremble
and shake with agitation, that she nearly dropped
her wand and fell from the sill; but once more
she clung with her infinitesimal hands to the
narrow column of wooden framework, and, beginning
now to feel indignant and angry, looked still
more eagerly into the room.

The picture she saw was, alas! not uncommon.
Ten thousand interiors of London life down in
the grey parts where grinding Poverty is king,
were more or less repetitions of the sight June
gazed upon.

Two women squatted on the floor, sewing
rapidly, with machine-like steadiness.  A third
suckled as well as her poor means allowed a
feeble baby.  The mother stared before her with
eyes which were very tired.  Unlighted--as grey
stones in a hollow face--they gazed at a present
and a future, too dreary for dreams.  All her life
was a stain and a grief.  One of the women,
her companion, was racked with a consumptive cough.

There was by the inside wall of the room, a
pile of half-completed clothing--raw material for
sweated needles to work upon--and very little
else.  There were a frameless looking-glass; a
few bottles; a battered beer-pot, stolen from the
haunt of liquid happiness at the entrance to the
Court; one chair, which served as table, cradle
and cupboard, when there was something to hoard
underneath it; a verminous straw mattress; and
some broken wood, cardboard, and rags--the
gleanings of rubbish boxes.  That is a complete
inventory of the furniture, the ornamental as well
as the useful.

On the window-ledge were broken crusts, as
stale as the phrases of charity, and a black-handled
fork, with pieces of string, cotton, needles, several
empty reels, which would make firewood some
day, and cards of buttons, the capital and
essentials of those women's industry.

June, fresh from the revels of Fairyland, was
appalled at her picture, and as near to tears as an
indignant fairy could be.  She felt hot anger
against Oberon.

Then again she gazed at Sally Wilkins and
studied the hapless child.  The fairy's whole being
was eager sympathy and love.  June knew Sally's
history at once through the influence of her powers
and the crown.

That was a child who had never seen a green
field, or heard any wild birds singing; though
very well she knew, as every town-child must do,
the twittering of the pert sparrows in the streets.
Sally was a lump of solid ignorance.  She had
heard of God because His name was some necessary
part of several favourite swear-phrases; but
of the fairies and other sweet realities she had
heard just nothing.  She lived--poor lass!--in so
narrow and limited a world that she might as
well have been born in a grave as to the child's
destiny in Paradise Court.

She sewed and she sewed, with hardly a pause--"seam
and gusset and band"--though in her
case it was buttons and buttons and buttons.  So
constantly was she threading her way through
the dark material that life was to her nothing
more than a dreary pilgrimage into and out of
eternal button-holes.  Her fingers were the
all-important machines.  Her brain was dulled: her
soul unquickened.  She was twelve years old;
and composed of skin, bones, hunger and
weariness, wrapped in a modicum of Nothing.

June could not endure the sight any more.
Her wings quivered with indignation.  She
touched the window, flew into the room, and
alighted on Sally's shoulder.

The child, without her fingers resting from work
for the least part of an instant--time means life to
the working poor--looked up wondering.  Why
did she seem suddenly lighter?  Was there
sunshine in the room?  No, everything appeared
precisely as before: though--yes, somebody had
certainly, through an obvious misunderstanding,
been cleaning the window.

June took off the fairy crown and perched it
on Sally's tangle of hair.  The consequence was
amazing.

Sally began to dream for the first time in her
life.  A new world was opened to her.  She was
in a wonder country, and felt she had enjoyed as
much food as she wanted--plenty of hot gravy.
Her thoughts were always drifting on a river of
gravy, towards the promise of pudding.

Under her feet was a kind of green hair--grass--far
stretches of it, as cool as the night-wind,
but infinitely pleasanter.  Flowers, looking for all
the world as if they had been picked off stuck-up
ladies' bonnets, were pushed into the ground,
where they waved, looked and smelt as delicious
as--more gravy, Sally's only simile.

The sky was strangely blue, and much broader
and higher than the London sky ever was.  How
did they keep it so clear?  She could not see a
house, but there were any number of trees shading
the grass, trees of all sorts and sizes, some so
high that their tops tickled the sky; others with
branches so broad and full of leaves that a
hundred children like herself could have slept
without quarrelling in the shade of any one of
them.  What a very nice world this was!

There was more still, for look at that very
round "spadger" with the red breast that perched
on a branch, and went twit, twit perkily, and that
very large bird--could that be a spadger too?--with
brown speckled breast, and that tiny blue
upside-down, eager thing with its sweet chirrup,
chirrup; and the other mite of a brown creature,
with saucily upturned tail; and this scolding
black gentleman with his yellow bill; and more
birds too, many more.  What a lot there were!
Why don't we have fellows who look and pipe
like them down our court?--and don't they sing
cheerily?  My!

There is one going up and up, as if it were
climbing a round stairway which couldn't be seen,
singing all the while like--like--a tune gone balmy.
Sally could hear the soft prevailing sound, and
opened her eyes wide--to hear better!  There
was a brown cliff, and down, tumbling with much
splashing and thudding, came water in a shining
flood.  At first she shivered--water is so cold,
and cleansing; but the fright went suddenly
when Sally, examining herself, found that though
she had no recollection of the horrible process of
washing, she was quite clean.  So she need not
wash, and could, without fear, admire the falling
water.  Hooray!  This was a splendid country.
She revelled in its light, warmth, freedom, happiness.

There were loud unsteady footsteps on the
stairs.  June removed the crown, without
removing the sweetness of the dream-world from
Sally, and flew to the empty keyhole to reconnoitre.

A man, one of the masters of Paradise Court,
was stumbling upstairs, making hob-nail
progress.  He was mazed; because of the public-house
at the corner--the nearest place where the
community could discover the correct time.  Long
experience of similar circumstances safely guided
his feet up that rickety rat-haunted staircase, and
he lurched into the room, clumsily kicking the
door to after he had entered.  June hovered over
him, flew round and round his head, and still
more puzzled his foolish wits.

"'Ave I got 'em?" he asked most seriously, and
stared at the revolving wall.

The three women looked at him listlessly.  One
spoke.

"Shut yer jaw, Bill," she said, and paused to
thread her needle.  "'Ullo, brought some beer?"
she continued, when she saw the tin can he
dangled.  "Give us a drop, mate!"

June, steadying herself by grabbing his stubbly
beard--for fairies are not entirely impervious
to the law of gravitation--leaned forward and,
just as he had said "Garn!  I brought it for----"
touched his lips with her wand.  He substituted
"Sally" for "myself."

Bill put the beer-can on the chair, and rallied
himself with an effort.

"I *am* drunk!" he asserted most seriously, as
though a mighty uncertainty had suddenly been
put straight.

Sally was still in the green joy-land, whereto
June had enchanted her; but she took the can
dreamily, and put it to her lips.

That was too much for the man.  He stooped
forward and grabbed the can.

"Not 'arf!" he said, as he took it from her,
spilling some of the contents.

Sally's thoughts were torn from the trance-world.
She was snatched from the green dream-country,
brought back summarily to the hungry,
grey realities of the present.  She looked at Bill,
and then blasphemed fluently.  June, horrified by
the child's fierce anger, touched her lips with the
wand.  Sally was obediently silent, though still
her mouth moved with muted imprecations.  The
two women had, meanwhile, gone on with their
work, and the mother stared, her eyes two stones.

Bill sprawled on the boards, and pillowed his
head and shoulders on the pile of half-completed
clothing.  He supped at the beer with long
luxurious satisfaction, and slowly tumbled into
sleep.  The emptied can slipped from his fingers
and rolled half-way across the room.

June, who in the presence of this experience
had been bewildered and unprepared, flew to
where it was lying, and contemplated it thoughtfully.

"There has been magic there," she declared,
"worse than the evil of witches."

Sally went on with her sewing.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`COCKNEYDOM`:

.. class:: center medium bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center large bold

   COCKNEYDOM

.. vspace:: 2

That night June made her nest among the
chimney-pots.  There was a broad cleft in the
mortar which bound the stack, and a black
hammock of thick cobweb swinging as the
wind-drift blew upon it.  June put the crown for
safety underneath her; and, clasping the wand
with both her guarding hands, reclined on the
cobweb and waited for slumber.

Ordinarily sleep comes to fairies as it comes to
birds, instantly and absolutely.  But now June
could not lose herself in its blessed forgetfulness.
For a very long time she lay awake, staring at
the veiled sky and listening with strained attention
to the eternal throb and hum of the moving
life around her.

Very far away, it seemed--far higher than ever
in Fairyland it had appeared--the moon was
ghostily journeying.  There was now no such
expression of interest on the lunar countenance,
as there had been on the previous night, but dull
wakefulness and watchful indifference.  All the
elves might have run awry and the flowers
have withered, for aught the moon appeared to care.

June felt lonely then, especially as not a star
was showing, and there were no nightingales.
Fairyland seemed millions of miles away.  She
began to feel strange depression, to fear she had
not done well in taking on herself the impossible
quest.  Just as every Quixote smarts from the
despondence of folly, during the cold periods of a
divine pilgrimage--so then did she.

June was as dismal as London could make her
during those hours of involuntary vigil.  As she
swung in her cobweb, and stared at the starless
mirk, she tried hard to impress on herself the
need of her service, and the wisdom of that
adventure.  Owing to much weariness and the
gloom, she took a lot of convincing.

The life of those mortals was truly a sad
business.  To think of Sally and her grown
companions working continually for the sake of
mere existence, enduring a life of want and
ugliness, with the fairies nowhere near, was truly
very sad!  All the more need for her to go on
and labour.

So it was settled.

The thought was so comforting that her wakefulness
came to an end.  She fell asleep almost
at once, and dreamed she was resting in her own
home-bower, in the Land of Wild Roses.  Happy
cobweb!

The moon went into the clouds, and the hours
marched by.

June was awakened by a shrill whistle.  A
factory called, and the fairy rose.

London at dreary dawn!  It was more than
ever a dismal scene which greeted her on that
grey young morning.  Her despairing hopes of
the previous evening went down, plumb, to zero.
She looked at the miles of black roofs and dingy
chimneys.  What a hideous world it was!  Not
so great a wonder, after all, that the elves had
determinedly deserted it.

She preened herself carefully, tested both wings
to see they were uninjured, fared on the magic
food which fairies can, when necessary, make
from dew and the west wind, and then felt ready
for a day's activities.  Her remedial work was to
begin at once.  To watch evil, and not to check
it, was to invite despair and failure; but to
displace bad with good was encouraging, and the
fairy's business!  June put on the crown and began.

Her first duties were with the folk of Paradise
Court.  She spread wings and was wafted down
to the window-ledge.  Early as it was, the women
and Sally were already labouring with their
needles.  They were breakfasting while they
sewed.  Their fare was stale bread, rejected
refuse from middle-class tables, and some fearful
meat bought--a pound for a penny--from Mother
Wolf, a hag in the neighbourhood who made
profit by selling offal for human food.  How that
purveyor of nauseousness escaped the penalties
due for so doing is a mystery; but so she did.

Bill was still sleeping, another man by his side.
The lords of creation had the pile of clothing
to themselves for bed, pillow and quilt.  The
feminine members of the establishment had
managed as well as they might do, lying close
together to keep each other warm.  That was
the usual order of things.

June entered by the magic way of the window,
and tickled Bill's nose with her wand.  He
sneezed, stretched, got up; his first words were
just a little lively language--an ungenial
good-morning to his companion in luxury, which
effectually roused that gentleman.

The men put on their caps--so completing
their toilette--yawned, and, without saying a
word to the women, went out to look for work.
That was their profession--looking for work.
They never found it, but ever continued
seeking.  They breakfasted on beer, bread and grease
at the hostelry which gave joy to Paradise Court.
The liquid part of their meal lasted till not
another copper could be found, borrowed or
cadged.  Bill's life was a long process of
idleness, blessed with beer.

In the morning the clothing that was finished
had to be taken to the tailoring firm in the City
for which it was made.  The various garments
were arranged in a bundle, tied round with one
of the treasured pieces of string, and perched on
Sally's narrow shoulder.  She clasped it tightly
with her thin hands, trying to believe it was a
baby to be nursed.

June decided to go with Sally, to help her bear
the burden.  This she managed to do by sitting
upon it, using the wonderful wand, and wishing
the bundle should seem only a tenth part of its
real weight.  So it was made to be; but Sally,
who had not been encouraged to observe things,
or to estimate differences, did not become aware
of its lightness.  In any case, the burden, even
when reduced by June, was full heavy enough
for a child of her strength and years.  But many
another like Sally was bearing a similar burden.

Down the stairs and out of Paradise Court
went the girl and the fairy; along a dreary,
slippery pavement, passing a thousand people,
self-interested, self-centred and hurrying, who
might laugh, talk, bustle and frown in their
individual ways, but who still to June, as to
Oberon and all else of the better land, were poor,
pitiful shadows, journeying, worrying, moiling for
a few thousand days until the extinguisher was
put over them.

Yellow and blue tramcars went jangling by.
June, seeing people get into and out of them,
was minded to make one of them stop, so that
Sally could ride; but it was better this first time
for Sally to go her own gait as usual.  Anyhow,
June was alert to be helpful, and handled her
wand as the infant spendthrift fingers his penny,
determined to use it as speedily and extravagantly
as possible.

Sally toiled along slowly.  She kept to the
chief road, never daring to relax her hold of the
bundle, because of the difficulty of recovering it.

She came to a wide crossing--a tramway and
omnibus terminus--and passed through a maze
of carts and people.  June began to feel frightened
because of the clamour and crowding, but soon
lost her unworthy fears by remembering that
these creatures and things--in comparison with
herself--were only shadows, permitted to dwell
for a little while in the beautiful world which
belongs to the fairies, and others of spirit-land.
She had more power in her wand and will than
they in any or all of their Brobdingnagian
faculties.

June was profoundly impressed by the
wonderful powers of the police.  The way the
helmeted man of authority stood in the midst of
the press and ruled it, appealed to her as nothing
had done since she had witnessed Oberon in his
majesty commanding the shapes and princes in
the Violet Valley.  As Sally went slowly by the
policemen, June gave each a fairy's blessing.
They became thereafter, and are to this day, more
than usually polite and attentive to the timid.

Sally plodded along steadily.  She passed a
pump dripping with water.  June saw several
fat sparrows before it, squabbling over the corn
which had fallen from a horse's nosebag.  She
went to chide them, as fairies do to birds in the
country when their manners would bear mending;
but these town sparrows, in their Cockney ignorance,
never having seen a fairy, or dreamed there
was anything in existence more important than
themselves and perhaps some thin stray cat,
pecked at her disrespectfully.  As she paid no
attention to their surliness, they took sudden
panic and fled in a fright, chattering at one another
in fine unanimous complaint.

June resumed her perch, but now on Sally's
hat.  She throned herself on its broken brim,
and viewed London with exalted detachment.

The squalor was left behind, but to fairy eyes
the City was particularly dreary.  The buildings
withal so heavy, high and ambitious, wore looks
of decay, and were stained with grime.  The
coarseness of the atmosphere, too, was
oppressive.  What a life!  What a place!  June could
not resist wistfully thinking of that happier world
where the flowers are free and soft winds kiss
them.  She deeply pitied the folk, who, voluntarily
or not, were foolishly imprisoned in the
stuffy stone-land.

Sally turned down a court and threaded a
series of alleys, bewildering to a stranger, till
she came to an ill-painted door and rang a bell.

She lowered her bundle gladly and sat on the
step in a state of weakness and exhaustion.  The
powers within were dilatory or inattentive.  She
had to wait a good long while before the door
was abruptly opened by a lantern-jawed youth,
with red bristles on his upper lip, hair plastered
with oil, and a paste diamond pin stuck in his
yellow necktie.  His associates knew him as
Ernie Jenkins.

"Why wasn't you 'ere earlier?" he asked.
"You'll 'ave to wait now.  Mr. Oldstein's out and
I'm busy.  You seem to think you can come when
you like.  But you can't.  See?  You can leave
the goods inside and 'ook it for a time.  Now
remember, and look alive next week.  See?  Come
back in three-quarters of an hour and get yer
money."

The door--the back-entrance to Mr. Emmanuel
Oldstein's wholesale tailoring emporium--was
forthwith shut.  Sally, meanwhile, must amuse
herself as best she might.  Again, with the
patience of the starved, she sat on the step to
wait, and sufficiently forget herself to think she
would like to cry.  However, she refrained from
tears--the neglected have none to spare--and, as
usual, centred her mind on things to eat.  Food,
food, food--there was her aspect of Eden.  The
object of her particular desire was again, as
always, gravy, "'ot and smelly."

June read her thoughts, and went to work to
realize them.

A school-boy was going by, whistling.  He
had been excused his lessons for the day and was
cheerily hurrying to the Oval to see the year's
first cricket-match.  A white-paper parcel,
spelling lunch, was tucked under his arm.

June gazed fixedly at him, waved her wand, and
willed him to look at Sally.

He did so.  The spell was on him.  One glance
was enough to influence his inexperienced
heart--he was not old or wealthy enough to have
learned caution in his charity.  He could not now
have enjoyed his cricket, remembering, as he
must do, the pale, starved face of that weary
child, and not have helped her.

He hid his actions in the shelter of a convenient
doorway, opened the packet, took out two
sandwiches and a chunk of cake, shoved the rest in
his jacket-pocket, and, running shamefacedly by,
dropped the provender on Sally's lap.  He heard
her give a gulp of joy as he went on with singing
heart, to be the happiest lad in Kennington.

Surrey did better than usual that day.

While the child greedily munched and waited,
June, grudging the wasting of time, flew skywards
to investigate.

She was soon above the roofs, and awed by the
myriad chimneys.  Her attention was caught by
the dome of St. Paul's, which gloomed like a
round purple cloud, over and above all else.
It was, as it is, the crown of London.  She had
never seen anything like it in Fairyland, and
wondered at the patience of men.  Truly, they
were poor things, transient creatures, and all
that; but they have faith in what is material, and
manage many things in their few years.

Her wings moved rapidly.  She sped like a
flash of fragrant light over the intervening courts
and houses, and quickly came to St. Paul's
Churchyard.  She passed between the branches
of the trees in the railed garden, greeting sparrows
and pigeons as she went, and wishing--wishing
heartily--she could meet some of those bright-hued,
happy-songed friends of hers, who bless
the friends and skies of the country.  But that
could not be.  The birds she loved had followed
the fairies, leaving prose in feathers behind.

She circled slowly right round the big dome,
and wondered more than anything else at its
crusted dirt--which dated from the Stuarts.  She
settled on the weather-ruined statue of an
apostle--whom it represented being as indistinguishable
as Shem in the nursery Noah's Ark--and gazed
with wonder and without admiration at the moving,
stretching scene--the live panorama--before her.
Roofs and steeples and streets--stretching on and
on--that was the picture seen by the fairy.  It had
its wonders, no doubt; but oh, the pity of it, the
crowding and the treelessness!  What a woeful
waste of space!

The fairies, amongst their shortcomings, have
absolutely no sense of political economy.  Had
June been told that ground-rent on Ludgate Hill
is so many pounds sterling a square inch, she
would have been totally unimpressed and possibly
bored.

"Where could the children find room to play?"
she said to herself.  "And the flowers must all
be smothered!"

She flew to the open space below, and perched
on the statue of Queen Anne, to watch with
sorrowing eyes the tired and hurrying people.  Poor
shadows!  In a little while they would be back
again in the ground which gave them, their
opportunities for kindness and happiness ended; and
here they were, thinking only of to-day's gains,
rushing after the mirage, losing what mattered.

She had grown weary almost to weeping of the
sordid scene, and was thinking miserably of its
contrast with Fairyland.  Oh, why had the elves
forsaken London?--when--there was Bim!

The gnome was toiling up Ludgate Hill.  He
seemed to have shrunk and become a very pale
red.  Weariness and bewilderment had, for the
time being, taken the colour out of him.  He was
awe-struck and terrified by the rolling volume of
traffic, which, though it could not possibly have
hurt him, seemed very formidable.  He looked
with round eyes at the lumbering vehicles, and
though to him they were really but shadows
bearing all manner and shapes of shade, he was
bewildered by their multitude and variety.

With its shining slope and insistent traffic,
he found Ludgate Hill a trying and slippery
ordeal.

He was repeatedly in straits during that
scrambling ascent.  The horses could see him;
the human beings could not.  Time and again
a boot threatened him, a skirt swished by him;
the wheels of a vehicle often seemed over him;
but always he managed--though not without
numerous sprawls and tumbles--to avoid contact
with the objectionable shadows.

He reached the top of the hill and stood panting
and triumphant.  Suddenly he saw June, a fairy
crowning the effigy of the queen who is dead.
He squealed with joy and stared in goggle-eyed
rapture.  Hoo-oo-oo-oo-ray!

His happiness received a check.

A scavenger boy, running along, crouching,
scooping up refuse, scooped up Bim!  Before
the gnome could say "Robinson" he was up,
carried away to a receptacle for dirt, and
forthwith tumbled in.

He crawled out puffing and disillusioned.  He
blessed the scavenger boy thoughtfully for his
hospitality; squatted bewildered upon the kerb;
then, remembering, turned about and lost all woes,
aches and weariness in the joy of seeing June.

"Bim, my brave Bim," she greeted him.

He stared open-mouthed, panting and smiling.
He had now no words for answer, and needed none.





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   CHAPTER V


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   TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND

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Bim was almost top-heavy with joy at meeting
June just when his hopes had been at their lowest;
she was hardly less delighted at seeing him.  For
not only was the gnome something from Fairyland,
a reminder of its dear delights and golden
days, and the means of strengthening her strained
determinations; but he had come from her own
particular corner of the delectable realm, the Land
of Wild Roses, and brought to jaded Cockneydom
some fragrant home memories.

But she must get back to Sally.  She flew down
to Bim, and held out her wand.  he grasped it,
and forthwith was up in the air, magically borne
along by the hurrying fairy.

It was no new thing for Bim to have an aerial
journey.  One of the favourite games of gnomes--naturally
no more able to fly than a pig is capable
of "Bo"--is to grab the legs of a pigeon and cause
the silly bird to go circling.  This was the first
time his means of sky-progress had been a fairy.
It was an experience strange, terrible and new,
to be dragged and wafted over that wilderness of
roofs.  But it was also exhilarating.  He began
to sing in his croak of a voice an old elf-song about
moonbeams that became icicles.  June, listening
to him, and watching the scene beneath, vowed
and vowed again that she would not rest till
London was restored to Fairyland.

Bim had no consciousness, as he croaked and
dangled there, of the effects of his influence on
the fortunes of the dark city: London likewise
had no idea of it.

Sally was still waiting, though the passing of
people on business to and from the Oldstein
establishment had required her to move to
another doorstep, where she sat and watched
for the summons.

This seeming neglect on the part of the red
young man so irritated June that she flew in
hottest haste, head first, through the opening for
letters in the door, prepared energetically to
remind him.

He was sitting on a counter with stacks of
clothing about him--how musty it all smelt!--hard
at work reading a worn "horrible"--"Sweeney
Todd" its hero--and yawning.
Atmosphere, rather than weariness, caused the
gape, which came to an abrupt close.

As June was entering the warehouse from the
back way, Max Oldstein, the only son of the
"firm," was to be heard descending the stairs
opposite.  Jenkins was off his perch in an instant,
and busily tumbling a bale of clothing from the
counter to the floor.

June viciously poked with her wand the
scraggy nape of his neck to remind him of Sally.
Her protest was effectual.  He went to the door
and shouted:

"Come in, Kid!"

Sally eagerly entered.  She stood on the door-mat
trembling.

"Pay her four and twopenth," said the master,
as he put a tick on the paper he held, "and tell
'er that if 'er people don't do the work betterth,
they'll be wantin' it."

Max turned abruptly, and went to the other
end of the shop, where he lighted a cigarette and
thoughtfully admired the great gold ring on his
large little finger.  June, feeling angry because
of his blatant unpleasantness, wished him a
punishment of pain, which he felt.

"My corn!" he said, "it'th goin' to rain."

Meanwhile Jenkins was addressing Sally.

"You 'eard what the young guv'nor said?
And don't you forget it!  There's the oof--count
it!--and 'ere's another lot of material.  See?
Twenty pieces.  Now, you can sling your 'ook!"

Sally poised the pile of cloth on her shoulder
and went.  June followed her into the street,
made the load as light as good wishes and touch
of wand permitted, and instructed Bim, who
during her absence had fallen fast asleep in the
gutter, to clamber on Sally's hat and go
home--"home"--with her, to guard her.

Then she returned to see what could be done
with Max Oldstein, whose ripe, unusual vulgarity
fascinated her.

Sally, with Bim sprawling along her hat-brim
like invisible red trimming, jogged slowly
eastward.  The exhausted gnome was soon again in
his own little nod-land--sleep pulled so hard at
his eyelids--and did not return to this world of
the infinite unrealities till Sally was in the
bed-workroom at Paradise Court, and the weary
women had greedily counted and grumbled over
the few coins brought to them.

At once they returned to the sewing, and plied
desperate needles through the new mass of
half-made clothing.  So wore away more hours of
their unblessed lives.

Bim, awakened and sent tumbling by Sally's
doffing her hat, crawled into the beer-can, which
still was lying where it had rolled when Bill
dropped it; curled himself up like a squirrel in
its winter fastness, and was asleep again.  This
shows how over-tired the poor fellow was; Bim
was, however, not too weary for dreams, and in
the visions of slumber, once more made that
fearsome journey from Fairyland which ended
with the finding of June.  This proves that
gnomes can ride nightmares too; a fact for the
Psychical Society.

Max Oldstein puzzled June.  She could not
make him out.  His interests and actions seemed
so purposeless and mean.  During that busy morning
he was forty unpleasant persons rolled into one.
When a customer who spelt prosperity arrived,
Max lost himself in oily politenesses.  He laughed
vigorously at humour hardly there, and smirked
and toadied like a *nouveau riche* at a Primrose
tea-fight.

When there followed a journeyman-tailor who
had wasted his opportunity in drink, and was
impelled by repentance and family needs to beg
pitifully to be taken on again, Max's politeness
went like a bang.  He snubbed the tailor-man for
his ingratitude, and abruptly closed the poor fool's
pleadings with a turn of his back.

There were so many other starvelings to take
that wretch's place.

In the course of the morning Max showed himself
shrewd, petty, fawning, arrogant, determined,
stupid, vulgar, and cruel.  Ernie Jenkins, who
copied his manner as well as he was able to, lived
in mortal terror of him.  To Ernie, Max Oldstein
was a mean necessity, his bread and butter, his
all.  To lose that hateful, pitiful employment
would be to cut off every one of his private
luxuries--his evening glass of bitter, with its
opportunity for badinage with a barmaid, the
Woodbine cigarettes, the weekly visit to a
music-hall, the Sunday walk with Emily.  So he went
on, like a hundred thousand others of his
kind--selling his life for a pittance, swallowing infinite
insults, cringing and mean.  Poor Ernie!  What
is to be done with such humans as he?

At one o'clock Max hurried to the "Haversack"
for a large meal of stout and boiled beef with
carrots, and, while eating, read with sniggerings
a weekly pink paper, which gave oracular advice
on race-horses, interspersed with funny
paragraphs about lodgers.  Also there was talk, in
which barmaids, customers and waiters joined
familiarly--of the X street murder, the betting
prices, and the divorce case of the day with its
pretty details.

Then Captain Crowe, whom the folk of his
world knew as "Charlie," came in, and Max was
pleased to speculate a shilling on a hundred up
with him, which the young man lost with a very
bad grace, till the Captain, who really had once
upon a time held a subaltern's commission in a
disbanded battalion, having borrowed half-a-crown
from a casual customer, who knew him but indifferently
well, restored his opponent's good temper
with the gift of a soda and whisky and some
flowers of speech, so leading the way to another
game of billiards and another defeat for Max.

June was awed by all she saw, and puzzled how
to win back to Fairyland--this!  She sat amongst
used tumblers on the mantelpiece, below the
marker's board, patiently watching and wondering.
What could she do to mend things?  How difficult
it was!  Were human beings worth saving?
Was not Oberon in his ruling right, and she
wickedly wrong?  These creatures--so mean and
sordid--were worse than ever they had been
painted to her by their most candid critic in
Fairyland.

Then she remembered Sally, and the sweated
women in their evil home, and decided to persevere.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" she said
thoughtfully, unconsciously plagiarizing.

The whisky ended, and the business of recreation
done, Max Oldstein paid his score unwillingly,
and returned to headquarters.  Ernie met him at
the door-step.

"Guvnor's come.  Been waiting an hour," he
warned him.

Max ran upstairs, two at a time, to see his
father, and hastily concocted a detailed account
of the business which had detained him.  The lie
was not required that day.  He mentally pigeon-holed
it for a later occasion.

His senior greeted him with a loud, glad laugh.
Max wondered.  His father showed him an invitation
card with the arms of the City upon it.

"Max, my boy!  Look at that!" cried the old
man, clearing his throat.  "What d'ye think of
Papa now, eh?"

He rose, chuckled violently and rattled his
golden watch-chain.  Max took the card and read
it.  It was an invitation to dine with the Lord
Mayor and some representatives of commercial
houses.  He felt a twinge of envy, and then of pride.

"Bravo, Dad!" said the son.  They shook hands
solemnly.  "It'th to-night, too!"

"Yeth," said Emmanuel, taking the invitation
and frowning at it.  "Thoth idioth at the potht-offith
nearly mitht my thecuring thith 'igh honour.
'Ere's the envelope.  Look at the thtamp.  Pothted
a week ago, and I only got it to-day.  Put in the
wrong letter-box.  I've written to the
Potht-mathter-General to complain.  A 'ot and strong
letter I've written.  Very nice of the Lord Mayor,
ain't it?"

"'Ow did you get it, Dad?"

"Lord knowth!  I lent one of 'is footmen
money.  P'raps that 'elped!"

"'Ave you accepted?  You mutht, you know!"

"Twice; to make sure, I sent two letterth by
expreth, from different poth-offithes."

"My word, Dad, you are spendin'.  That'th
what I call extravaganth."

"No, my boy, you muthn't look at the pennieth
when there'th a twenty-bob dinner in store.
That'th policy and busineth too.  You can't teach
Papa nothin', you can't!  Now, 'ow are things?"

They talked of clothes, market-prices and details
of their trade for a couple of hours, while June
listened and wondered.  How these mortals did
waste their time over the wealth which isn't worth
having!

She made up her mind to go to the banquet
at the Mansion House.

When the office-clock chinkled five the elder
Oldstein looked at his watch to confirm the news,
and hurriedly put away his papers.

"I mutht be off to dreth," he said to his son.
"I'm going' to 'ave a bath."

He went, June after him.

He drove westward in a slow omnibus.  The
fairy sat on his knee, and, looking about her, felt
disappointed with civilization.

At length they stopped by Maida Vale, and the
wholesale clothier having ridden his full
three-pennyworth, waddled down two streets and
arrived at his dwelling.  It was one of a row
of buildings, mostly boarding-houses, in their dull
unornamental dinginess strangely similar to each
other.  They were Mid-Victorian--the Drab
Age!--and looked it from boot-scraper to roof-tree.
Oldstein's private residence, like his business
house, seemed in dire need of paint.  What
the household could do was done.  What they
could not do must be done without.

"Wathte of good money, my boy;" and then,
"Next year, per'aps."  And so on, season after
season, year after year.  Like Alice's to-morrow,
the Oldstein next-year never came.

The clothier and his family lived at forty-eight.
The next house was number fifty.  The two
front-doors were immediately adjacent, the
entrances separated by a row of rusty railings.

As he ascended his steps, Emmanuel slyly
slipped a folded, printed paper out of his
breast-pocket; and leaning over the railings, gently
dropped it into the next-door letter-box.

The same instant his front-door was opened by
Hannah, the ever-indignant, eldest daughter of
the house.

"Those people have been at it again!" she said,
and angrily crumpled up and threw down a
circular she had just taken out of the letter-box.

"The thame thort?" her father asked, shutting
the door quietly.

"Yes, of course, this is the ninety-second they've
dropped in.  It makes me wild!  I've made up
my mind when the hundredth comes--if it does
come--to give Aaron Hyam's youngest tuppence
to break their kitchen window."

"Don't waste yer money like that; am I a
millionaire?"  He picked up and smoothed out
the circular, and began to read it aloud:
"'Thothiety for the Conversion of the Jews;
an evenin' meetin' with addretheth.'  Oh, put it
with the retht, Max will make a spill of it.  Leave
it to Papa, dear.  I've got a better plan for dealing
with 'em; I've begun to put it in practice already."

"'Ave you, Dad?  I'd like to scratch that little
nincompoop of a son of theirs.  He makes me
mad with his soppy smile, and sandy whiskers,
and conceited sanctimoniousness.  I'd give 'im
hymns at the street corner."

"A much better plan, my clear.  You may as
well give me them little billths--all of 'em.
They'll be useful.  They're poor, ain't they?"

"They are--as synagogue rats--if the faces of
the tradespeople are anything to go by."

Hannah was very vicious.

"Well, then, leave it to me.  Every time they
invite us to be converted, I invite them to borrow
money from me--from Jabez Gordon.  They've
'ad fourteen of my circulars already.  I gave 'em
a fifteenth to-day.  That'th the best bait for those
birds.  Trust Daddy, my dear.  They will
bite--that sort of body always does.  Trutht a
hymn-smiter for a quiet gamble; and then----"

"You will fleece them?" she cried, with fierce
exultation.  Something of Jephthah's daughter,
of Deborah, of Hagar, of the ancient heroines of
Israel, lived in her breast.

"Oh no, Hannah!  Fleeth! we never fleeth.
I will help them to some very good bithness, that
ith all."

"That will do!" she said.  "They convert *us*!
The fools!"

"And ith the shirt well aired?" he asked.  "I'm
nervouth of cold white shirts."

"You'll find everything all right, Dad.  Your
bath-water will soon be ready.  Mother's in the
drawing-room ironing your dress trousers.  Now
don't you worry.  Just wait while I'm putting
your things ready, and listen to a tune on the
gramophone.  You've plenty of time.  The
brougham won't be 'ere for a good hour yet."

He went into the drawing-room.  June fluttered
above him.  Her brightness was faintly reflected
on his dingy bald head.  She was strangely
curious for a high-minded fairy.  The home of
want she had seen; now for the home of the
master!

The sight awed and depressed her.  She
perched on the chandelier and studied everything
closely, while beneath her a gramophone--set
going by Becky, the second and last of the
daughters--blared a blatant anthem of the streets.

The furniture was worthy of the house--Mid-Victorian
to the last.  A green mirror with gilded
frame, a golden eagle perched at the top of it,
reflected an untrue version of the objects before
it.  There was a clumsy clock, with black
ornaments to match it on either side; at each end of
the mantelpiece was a lustre with spills stuck
into it.  Photographs of Hebrew celebrities--singers,
actresses, and politicians of a certain
party complexion--were ranged about shelves and
tables.  There were albums and unreadable books
with cheap, bright covers here and there.  Some
coloured engravings of sentimental pictures hung
against the red wall.  A dead musical box, waxen
water-lilies in a glass case, and--but enjoyable
as it is to take a verbal photograph of a characteristic,
respectable British interior, it is unnecessary
to do so here.  We shall not require to enter that
room again.

The more June watched the place and its
people, the more she wondered.  And then, while
she waited for Mr. Oldstein to bathe and adorn
himself in glistening raiment, she decided on a
plan of campaign.  In her dreams of prediction,
even then, in that centre of hopeless banality, she
saw Fairyland exultant where vulgarity gloomed.

The crusade was to begin that evening.  So
let London hope!





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   CHAPTER VI


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   POST-PRANDIAL

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Mr. Oldstein drove to the Mansion House in a
hired brougham.  Hannah travelled with him, for
the sake of the drive.  He talked of his father,
who had been a publican in Petticoat Lane.

June was on the box with the coachman most
of the time.  She found looking at the passing
lights and strange shops more entertaining than
the conversation inside, which, indeed, was no
better than the ordinary stodge most of us talk.

The fairy rested.  She still felt the strain of
the crowds, the noise, and the atmosphere; but
not so severely as she had done during her
entrance to London yesterday.  She rested her
very best.

They arrived at Walbrook in good time.
Emmanuel had no intention of missing anything.
This was a chance to be swallowed whole.  The
carriage found its place in the gathering queue,
and slowly approached the side of the Mansion
House where the guests were alighting.

June watched a few belated pigeons which had
not yet gone to roost.  An idea came.  Dim would
be of use that evening.

She charmed one of the birds to her, put her
spell upon it, and despatched it at its special speed
to Paradise Court.  The pigeon flew well; it was
to be rewarded.

In twenty-five minutes it was back again, with
Bim clinging to its feet.  June praised the pigeon
and touched it, giving it nobler plumage.  It was
no longer grey and ordinary, but brightly speckled
and a pouter.  Sudden pride ate up its quieter
qualities.  It did not wait even the tail-end of a
minute, as courtesy required, but was up in the
pigeons' dormitory over the architrave, as
swaggering and important as Bumble, showing off and
strutting before its mate, who woke from
domesticated dreams of well-laid eggs to gaze and
grumble.  She had been quite contented with the
lord and master as he was.

Bim's sleep had restored him.  He was once
again his old berry-hued self, and June's as
devotedly as ever.

Mr. Oldstein had long since entered the
Mansion House and been welcomed by the host and
Chief Magistrate of the City, Sir Titus Dodds;
but not all the guests had yet arrived.  The most
important--the representatives of the Church, the
State and the halfpenny Press--were in fact but
then arriving.  So June flew and Bim scrambled
up the red-covered steps together, and entered
the palace of feasting in good time to share the
greatest event in Oldstein's life.

Bim stared at the stockings of the footmen,
awed, and Emmanuel followed his example.  He
admired and examined the mayoral furniture,
appurtenances, ornaments; the busts, pictures
and tapestry, appraising their value with eager
professional interest.  It must have cost a good
twenty thousand pound!  He determined to
remodel his own drawing-room on Mansion House
principles, provided he had good luck in Wardour
Street.

He regretted now that he had not sought civic
responsibilities and honours for himself.  Dear,
dear!  Economy is a bad policy when it costs
anything.  He began to know golden-chained
hopes; but the ambition never extinguished the
tradesman.  He wondered whether he might
surreptitiously drop one of his Jabez Gordon
circulars on that corner ottoman, and decided not to
do so.  There were too many risks.

He wished that his wife, Hannah, Becky,
Max, could have seen him in his glory, waiting
amidst that high company, and that they might
have watched him shaking hands with the Lord
Mayor--his fingers tingled with pleasure still.
He must have an appropriate coat-of-arms--something
gold and scarlet, with a rampant lion if
possible.  Social ambitions quickened within his
brain.  Yes, he would come into public life, if it
did not cost too much.

So Emmanuel Oldstein went on building his
castles--forgetting, forgetting they were based on
piles of clothing sewed and made saleable by the
needles of sweated women.  That aspect of facts
did not even for a half-moment occur to him.
This was the prevalent fact--that he was a
gentleman, enjoying the company of baronets and
Common Councillors, received within the hospitable
walls of that Zion of commercial probity and
prosperity--the Mansion House.

The welcome summons came at last, and, the
Lord Mayor leading, the guests trooped into the
Egyptian room, place of daytime dullness and
evening festivities.

The banquet was begun.

June, who afterwards confessed herself much
impressed by the Lord Mayor's robes and
diamonds, perched herself on an epergne full of
delicious spring flowers.  She feasted on their
delicate scents and colours, while Bim sprawled
lazily on a jelly.  Little did the masters of Gog
and Magog, feasting there on their soups and
meats and sweets, dream that a fairy and a gnome
were watching them.  June was thinking hard
about Sally, and the hunger of the slums.

A solid hour was eaten away.

The loving-cups were brought in, and distributed
to the various tables.  Now was the time
to act.  June gave Bim her wand.  In obedience
to her command he dipped it deep in the spiced
wine of the loving-cups.  Never a common drink,
it was nigh to nectar now.  There was magic in
it, and liquid warmth-of-heart, a loving-cup
indeed!  Every man drank the new ambrosia and
passed the cup to his neighbour.  So the fairy's
influence went round, and the distinguished
company of commoners was linked together in a
union nobler than any of them knew.

The fun was beginning.  How likeable seemed
their fellow-guests! what a nice bright kindly
world it was!  They thought this generosity of
feeling was their ordinary post-prandial
satisfaction, fed upon warm meats and the drinks that
are Philistine; but the fairy at the board knew
better.  Later on, some of the guests realized the
difference too, for they are astute--those gentlemen
in the City.

The toast-master made himself evident.  He
had a magnificent voice, and a big broad beard,
which would get entangled with his watch-chain.
Bim could not resist it.  He gazed with longing,
and then tucked the wand under his elbow, took
a flying leap on to the arm of the mayoral
chair, ran up to the back of it, and sprang at the
beard.  There he clung, and hid, peeping out
of the brown forest at the concourse of happy
gourmands.

The loyal toasts were given, cheered and sung.
There was conversation and amateur music by
Guildhall scholars.

The Lord Mayor uprose to propose the toast of
the evening, "The Commerce of London."  He
was a picture of rubicund prosperity, a man of
drab and scarlet.  He began a pompous speech.

"My lords and gentlemen, the Lord Mayor
and the ancient Corporation of London have often
greeted at their hospitable board gatherings similar
to this, yet never before, my lords and gentlemen,
never before, has any Lord Mayor had the high
honour of welcoming to his table a more
distinguished gathering of leaders in commerce than
that which graces it now."

The orator stopped to look at his notes.  A
rolling round of applause told him he was doing
well enough.

Emmanuel Oldstein, whose seat was some distance
from the speaker, craned forward better to
hear.  He--a leader in commerce!  Good!

"Round this table," the Lord Mayor continued,
with a sweep of his white fat hand, "are
magnates of banking houses, shippers, merchants of
all kinds of produce brought from the farthest
ends of the earth, heads of railways, representatives
of all departments of commercial industry.
The prosperity of the United Kingdom--let me
say the British Empire--is represented here.  It's
a happy, a very happy, condition of things."

Another pause for note-reading; another roll
of hand-clapping and "Hear, hears."  Cigars
were lighted, wine sipped; the audience was in
a particularly sympathetic mood.  It is flattering
and delightful to be reminded you are rich,
and--the wand in the loving-cup had done its work.

The fairy who ruled the feast was frankly
bored by this display of prose.  To her critical
ears it was drivel.

Some use must be made of this talkative
gentleman, round whom the incense of tobacco--how
can men make that stifling smoke?--was being
assiduously burned.  She flew to his shoulder,
hovered for one deliberative moment above his
head, and forthwith crowned him with the fairy
crown.  It shone like a golden drop on the shining
bald space--a glorious globule on a barren sphere;
but none of the mortals could see it.

The Lord Mayor at once threw down his notes.
He had gained the confidence of Demosthenes.
He smiled, and braced himself for an effort.  His
pomposity was forgotten; his hesitancy gone.

June was making a miracle.  The wonders
went on.  Never before at a Mansion House
festival had any such speech been heard as was
then to be delivered; but now it was heard--and
applauded.  June flew back to the epergne to
listen.  She had reasons for being interested now.
Bim, seeing his mistress's activities, crept out of
his tangle and returned to sit cross-legged on the
table to watch and listen with eyes and mouth at
their widest, till the warmth and the smoke took
their toll, and he lapsed into sleep.

"Now, my friends and fellow-citizens, I want
to speak to you as man to men.  I put a plain
question plainly, and you will accept its truth.
What is the good of our wealth if it is not well
used?  How can it bring us true happiness, if it
does not bring others happiness too?  Would you
like to think that your possessions meant want in
others?"

"No!" shouted Emmanuel Oldstein.

"No!" shouted everyone else.

"Of course No.  You are true men.  Princes
of Commerce!  And yet look facts in the face.
Does our wealth bring those others who help us
to create it anything like an adequate return for
their labours in happiness or kind?  It does not!"

Men rose from their seats to shout agreement
with this utterance.

Was this the Tory City or an improved Tower Hill?

The toast-master--in his private life a talking
Radical, who always voted Conservative--listened
with perturbation and amazement.  He had not
drunk of the loving-cup as had the guests.  The
speech was not strange to them; they understood,
they sympathized, and at intervals punctuated
it with rousing cheers.  It was the very
thing they wanted.

Archdeacon Pryde, who all his life had
persistently blocked progress with many words of
heartfelt sympathy, smiled benediction, and
tapped the table, loudly encouraging the Lord
Mayor to go on with his revolution.  The Lord
Mayor went on.  Nay, he broke another record,
established another precedent for the Mansion
House, did what Mr. Pickwick did--stood on his
chair that he might be better heard.  The
toast-master watched and hearkened, deeply grieved.

"It is just six months since the City did me
the honour of electing me Chief Magistrate.  I
have tried to do my duty.  I have tried to serve
the City well."

"You have, you have!"

"Half my term of office has ended.  The second
half begins.  During the time remaining I intend
to do something to make my year of office more
than ever memorable and worthy of the City.  I
am going to use my opportunity and my wealth
to set an example and undo some of the evil that
many of us have thoughtlessly done.  I
depend on the leaders of Commerce to help me.
Gentlemen, will you?"

He looked around from his chair, the Olympian
citadel, and was encouraged to continue.  All the
guests were listening eagerly.  Cigars were going
out.  The wine in the glasses was forgotten.  The
speaker's face was the focus of eight hundred eyes.

"Money is a good thing," he went on.  "It is
necessary for economic activities and commercial
life.  In private hands, well used, it yields
comfort, freedom, happiness, to countless homes.
Never let us despise the goodly things of life!"

"Hear, hear!" said Archdeacon Pryde.

"But too much wealth in a few hands is an
evil bringing disastrous results.  Where is there
greater unhappiness than with those multi-millionaires,
in America especially, whose mass of
possessions grows and grows, increasing their
harassing responsibilities and anxieties, haunting
them with panic fears of rapid ruin; useless in its
vastness, mischievous, greedy?  Like a golden
horror, this Frankenstein-monster of overgreat
wealth brings sleeplessness, madness, death, in
its train.  There you see money a burden and
a curse."

Sir Titus paused again; and once more swept
the faces of his hearers with a keen glance.  The
room was as still as a tired church.  The
toast-master now shared the interest of the guests.
June sat on the epergne smiling.  Bim noiselessly
snored.

"It is trebly a curse when, its creator dead, it
passes to the children.  Think of those victims of
fortune, and pity them.  In the beginning they
are glad because they own so much.  They plan
the enjoyment of an infinity of pleasures, and
wonder how they can spend the hoard their fathers
have left them.  They are victims caught in the
toils.  The great machine goes on.  Still the
wheels of its production are moving; the labourers
are toiling, aching, and wanting.  But the brain
which has guided their operations has become
cold.  The new controllers of the machinery are
comparatively effete.  The old genius is gone.
Hired managers do their best, no doubt; but the
master, the head of the enterprise, is dead, and
his place cannot be filled."

"Hear, hear!  Hear, hear!  Hear, hear!"

Agreement came in a rumble, followed with
appeals to hush.

"There are dislocations in the machinery,
labour troubles, angers, strikes.  I need not
detail to you the consequences of swollen industrial
organizations, or the infinite troubles which
come to enterprises over-capitalized or run by
incompetence.  Let me, at present, be content to
remind you of the effects upon the fortune-ridden,
unfortunate children.  The worldly folly of the
fathers is visited on them.  All their lives they
have been preserved from experience.  They
have not been allowed to learn from contact
with the roughnesses of the world.  They
have been spoiled babes, pampered children,
gilded youths; and so grow up to responsibilities
which they cannot realize, and are perpetually
blind to facts, victims to the rapacity of rascals,
puppets of fashion, tools and fools--wasting,
extravagant, weak, morally ruined.  The greatest
evil a man can do is to leave his sons so much
money that they need not work.  The only occupation
left them is play; and so they spend their
lives, pitting excitement against ennui.  Better
far be poor with brains and character than rich
with the fortune of Dives and Croesus.  Is it
not so?"

"It is!" agreed the Archdeacon, looking down
his nose.  He had a fine voice, kept in condition
with constant lozenges, so that his approval was
heard all over the room.

"Hear, hear!" cried others.

"The useless children of the over-rich are with
rare exceptions prodigal, spendthrift, the gulls of
unscrupulous rogues--no curse can be greater
than the glaring and manifold inequities which
come from undue wealth.  I need not further
remind you of these facts, for you are thoughtful
men and sympathetic.  But this counsel I venture
to give, and this counsel henceforth I pledge
myself to keep.  When you have secured your
sufficiency for comfort, for legitimate industrial
enterprise, and for the proper training and equipment
of those dependent on you, don't you think
it better, instead of accumulating and still
accumulating loads of unrequired wealth, to use the
surplus for the communal good, for the improvement
of the locality, and the betterment of your
neighbours and fellows?  I shall do this, I pledge
my word to it.  To-morrow I go to my office, and
will ensure that every one of my employés has a
fair wage and a secure prospect, provided he does
his duty."

Such applause of approval went up, breaking
the Lord Mayor's speech, that Bim awoke with a
start.  He sat up and looked around affrighted;
but seeing June sitting among her flowers,
laughing, he became the courageous gnome again.

He picked up the wand, and went for a stroll
down the table, wantonly touching men's hands
as he went by, impelling them to clap and thump
the louder.  He was delighted to be wielding
such powers.  It was a comedy out of Fairyland,
a farce with an effective ending.

The Lord Mayor stepped down from his chair
and lifted his glass of champagne.  His voice
took on new seriousness:

"My lords and gentlemen, I have not forgotten
the toast I am asking you to drink.  'The
Commerce of London' is a mighty fact, a tribute to
our national energies and honourable name.  It
is potent; yet its power might be greater than
ever for securing human happiness.  All that is
required is a little more humanity, sympathy,
imagination, easy sacrifice on the part of--*us*!
We, the masters, can do great things.  Let us
manage this.  We shall not make our means and
wealth appreciably less by securing that those
dependent on us have sufficient to live on in
decency and comfort; nor shall we lose anything
worth the keeping if we resolutely refuse to
condescend to such shoddy evils as sweating,
jerry-building, wild-cat speculations, and the
maintenance of the slums.  Let us live well, and avoid
dying leaving preposterous fortunes behind us.
Let me make a public confession.  I own five
houses in a street in South London.  They are
old, ill-built, badly-drained, rack-rented.  I know
it well, but have never thought of the true facts
about them till now.  Those houses shall be
destroyed; and, in their stead, buildings erected
that will provide decent and comfortable homes
at a fair rent for the present occupiers.  I shall
not lose much, if anything, through the improvement;
but the happiness I shall in consequence
gain will be immeasurable.  There will be no
skeletons in my cupboard henceforth.  My lords
and gentlemen, am I to go on this crusade alone?
Will you join me in this effort for human good?"

Every man in the assembly, including the
toast-master, rose in his place and shouted "Yes!"

"Then may I suggest that each of you takes
his menu and writes on it resolutions--no pie-crust
promises these, no New Year good intentions,
but resolutions to be lived up to and with
determination kept?  If I fail in my intention, hoot me
and stone me at the end of my year of office; but
I will not fail!  I will not fail!"

June flew, and kneeling on the top of the Lord
Mayor's head--so round and smooth and shiny--kissed
it delightedly.  A new inspiration thereupon
came to him:

"Above the resolutions write--'Let us make
London fit for the fairies!'  My lords and
gentlemen, I give you the toast."

They drank it in bumpers.





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   CHAPTER VII


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   ARCHIDIACONAL FUNCTIONS

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When the excitement which followed the Lord
Mayor's speech had to some extent subsided,
there was a hurried borrowing and sharpening
of pencils.

The Lord Mayor wrote his resolutions with
a flourish.

"I'll have that framed," he said, as he gazed
with head a-slant at the inscribed menu.  The
Archdeacon wrote his in Latin verse.  Emmanuel
Oldstein--far away--began his with a gold pencil
as large as a cigar; and then paused, puzzled.

"'Ow d'ye thpell fairieth--oh, and what are
fairieth?"

He had a faint fear that they were something to
do with the Book of Common Prayer.

The man he addressed was a Personage, the
Past-Master of a City Company--which had no
longer a Hall, and was blessed with a dwindling
income of seventy pounds per annum.

"The fairies," he began, with a tremendous air of
authority--"tales, you know--ah!--the fairies--."

Bim, who happened to be wandering along his
part of the table, hearing this hesitancy on the
most real and important subject under the sun
and moon, raised the wand and gave him a
punishing rap on the knuckles.  At once the
Past-Master was an informed authority.  He
talked like a school child who knows his lesson
too well, hurriedly, glibly.

"The fairies are the mimic rulers of the world.
Where beauty is, where purity is, where love is,
there is Fairyland.  Oberon is the king, Titania
queen.  The little people are the only living
realities.  We--you--I, these others--are shadows,
only shadows!"  He paused.  "May I trouble
you to pass that candle?" he asked, and lighted
a new cigar.

Oldstein was impressed.  He wrote his
resolutions--there were necessarily many, as his past
social defects had been numerous--with firmness
and slow care, in a good commercial hand.  While
he did so, the music was playing, and there were
brief, ecstatic, uninspired speeches, built on the
lines of the Lord Mayor's.  June waited for
higher game.

At last the Toast-master's voice rang out for
the last of their orators.

"My lords and gentlemen!  Pray silence for
the Venerable Archdeacon Pryde!"

The ecclesiastic slipped a final voice lozenge
between his lips and calmly absorbed it, while
the applause which welcomed his rising went on.
The hand-clapping and table-rapping coming
unexpectedly and abruptly to an end, he swallowed
the last of the lozenge with a gulp.

"My lords and gentlemen, the toast which it is
my privilege to propose is in an especial manner
also the toast of the evening.  I am going to ask
you to drink with me the health of our host, the
Right Honourable the Lord Mayor!"

During these words Bim had been clambering
up the Archdeacon's right-arm coat-sleeve.  It
was a fine piece of mountaineering.  He arrived
safely at the summit, and squatted cross-legged
on the speaker's right shoulder, proud and
pleased, intending to lead the cheering with
waves of the wand.  June decided once more to
be an influence at the board, so she fluttered
up to the archidiaconal head, and reverently
topped its raven tresses with the crown; then
she reclined on the gentle slope of his left
shoulder.  Again the effect of the crown was
instantaneous.

The Archdeacon, let it be confessed, had
prepared a speech.  It was to be full of adulation
and carefully considered impromptus.  There
were to have been a Greek epigram, two quotations
from Shakespeare, one from Stow, one from
the Archdeacon's own version of the "Georgics,"
two old stories from Punch, and a reference--dragged
in somehow--to the Oxyrhynchus papyri.
The peroration, as devised, was a golden picture,
with purple slabs, of the wide, wide, circling
Empire, with the Lord Mayor's bounteous table
as its hub.  That speech was like the heroine
of an old-fashioned love tale, beautiful and
doomed.

The speaker gasped when the crown touched
him, and cried, "Ahem!"  Then the words came
in a torrent, tumultuous, tumbling, liquid, verbal
waters of Lodore.  He clenched a fist and looked
sternly at his hearers.

"This is no conventional evening.  The Lord
Mayor--honour to him!--has set an example of
high purpose and pluck, which I shall
unhesitatingly follow.  Once upon a time, dear
friends, I was a curate, pale and young, 'tis true,
but also ambitious and hopeful.  I saw the world
as a vast wilderness, waiting to be redeemed
from its emptiness, to be adorned again with
blossoming roses.  As the immortal Bard of Avon
has told us--but never mind that now!  I said to
myself in those young days, Here am I, chosen to
share in the greatest work that can be done by
man.  Here am I, dubbed by my fellows reverend.
The task I have to do is a great one.  I will
do it.  Gentlemen, I did not do it.  For seven
months I laboured as I should have done, then
adulation and tea-parties made mischief of me.
I forgot my early aspirations, lost my young
ideals, forgot the sacred character--the responsible
privilege--of my calling, and began that long
process of careful courtliness which has brought
me worldly appreciation, a large correspondence,
many paragraphs in the papers, and a useless
life.  Behold in me an Archdeacon who has lost
the illusions!--an Archdeacon who will find them
again!"

Bim waved his wand; and, the Lord Mayor
leading, the excited gathering broke into a round
of applause.  The Archdeacon looked about him
gratified: not often did his words gain appreciation
like this!  The idea that he too should mount
the chair the better to speak flashed through his
brain.  But that was not to be.  Archidiaconal
dignity is no light thing; even the power of June
could hardly have lifted it.

The ruling fairy, reclining on his left shoulder,
her head resting against his coat-collar, forgot the
present in waking-dreams.  In her mind-world
she wandered again through glades of Fairyland,
sun-lighted, flower-haunted, and shining with
dew; and was singing a song to an audience
of wrens and squirrels.  The even flow of clerical
oratory, though so near, seemed to her
dream-laden senses merely the sough of the wind
through charmed branches, the roll of a distant
sea, the murmur of waterfalls drumming on
swollen rivers--musical, soothing.

"My friends, we need the illusions: even more
than dividends we need the dreams.  Have not
we, the practical men, lost very much through
our mere matter-of-factness?  We have been too
careful, we have neglected the gift of vision, and
the world has lost immeasurably thereby.  The
time has surely come when Quixote should live
again.  We want one brave enough and sufficiently
unselfish to tilt against the windmills,
possibly to destroy the ugly shadows which
frighten, certainly to recreate Knight-errantry,
and give Mrs. Grundy, the better-half of Mammon,
her right dismissal.  Ah, brethren, how much I
am asking!  Convention is the greatest of citadels
for weak men to conquer.  It were easier to put
the Monument into a cigarette-case than remove
the formalities, snobbery and narrownesses--due
to lack of sympathy, and loss of the touch-faculty,
as Ruskin calls it--which hinder man's humanity.
What said Tennyson--yes, I must give you this
quotation--

"'Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he
were here again!'--would that he were here, to
sweeten the selfish world of to-day as he sweetened
the Middle Ages!  And not he only.  We want
the saints--every one--with their selflessness and
rapture, to come again.  Oh, that we could once
more see haloes about the heads of men.  Joan of
Arc, too, the lily-maid of Domremy, we want her;
would that she could return, bringing the inspiration
of her Voices to help us throw off the tyrants
of selfishness, lust, foolish formality, and greed,
which burden and endanger our beloved land!"

The Archdeacon paused--he was thoroughly
enjoying his eloquence--to moisten his lips with
wine.  Bim touched the golden liquid with the
wand, drawing the speaker's purpose fairywards.

"Joan of 'oo, did 'e say?  Joan of what?" asked
Emmanuel of the Past-Master.

"Hush, friend!" was all the answer he received.
The Past-Master meant to say "Shut up!"; but
the influence in the loving-cup compelled
euphemisms.

"The Lord Mayor, in a moment of splendid
inspiration--yes, splendid inspiration--bade us
so live and do that London should be rendered
fit for the fairies.  A delightful idea!  Let us live
up to that bidding.  But primarily shall we pause
and think?  What are the fairies?  What but
sweet invisibles, the fruits of happy imagination,
through whose influence the buds open and become
beautiful flowers, the birds lift their songs, and all
of us are kind.  Delightful fancies!  Delightful
fancies!  Truly it were well for ourselves and
our fellows if we could make this great City, this
hub of Empire--may we not regard this bounteous
table as the core of that hub?--this influential
centre of the wide world, a joy to the dainty
denizens of Fairyland?  We may make it so; and,
friends, we will make it so--I repeat, we will!"

Bim was quite frantic at this bold announcement.
To have a real Archdeacon pronouncing benediction
on Fairyland was beyond expression delightful.
No suburban aristocrat paragraphed in a
London paper could have rejoiced more fully.
He lost himself in ecstasy, and compelled that
audience to cheer for three solid minutes, till
they were hoarse and began to feel foolish.  The
Archdeacon took advantage of the well-spread
enthusiasm to eat another voice lozenge.

"The fairies will be with us in our enterprise;
the angels also.  Both these spiritual forces are
on our side.  Dear me! dear me!  How wonderful
it seems!  Now to facts!  Naturally from my
office I am most concerned with the materialism
about us, a materialism which finds expression in
the hateful cocksure ugliness abounding in this
London of ours, as well as in the devil-may-care
thriftlessness, the drunkenness and vice, the mean
excitements of gambling in its many forms, the
squalor, the poverty, the want, which make wide
areas of this unequalled Metropolis a Devil's City.
Everyone here knows, as well as I do, the shame
of it all; and the greater shame which hangs over
us, the practical men, for the existence, persistence,
continuance of this state of things.  It is iniquitous,
intolerable; yet it goes on.  How much longer
shall it continue?  For years, or for weeks, or
for days?  That rests with us.  All here, following
the Lord Mayor's example, have written down
resolutions, which, if they are kept, will modify
this evil everywhere, and end it in parts.  The
more thoroughly we live up to our intentions, and
redeem our voluntary pledges, the sooner the end
of these iniquities will come.  For mark this,
gentlemen.  The greed or the carelessness--more
the latter than the former--of individuals has
wrought the havoc.  The unselfishness and
scrupulous care of individuals alone can undo it.  It
is no good crying for Government to do the work."

"Hear, hear!"

"The Ministerial machine is a lumbering instrument.
It takes the breath of gods to inspire it, to
get it to move along the right way, and then is
apt to break down suddenly and finally, in an
amazingly human manner.  The State is a sleepy
inconsequent monster, which when it acts is apt
to do so like a thunderstorm, with violence and
but casual good results.  It is individuals--you,
I, the man in the street--who can do things, if we
will: and now we must do them.  We are pledged
to it.  Our words have been taken down by the
Mercuries of the Press to be--within an hour or
so--flashed to all parts of England, eventually to
reach the farthest limits of the earth.  We are
bound, in honour, to keep our words!"

After that mouthful of eloquence the Archdeacon
was compelled again to pause.  But the audience,
their due excitement heated and quickened by
Bim's insistence, cried incessantly, "Go on!  Go
on!" while June, far away from this effort of prose
statesmanship, was dreaming of Faerie.

She was back in the Violet Valley.  She saw
Oberon and Titania, with their most wonderful
court.  She heard the silver melody of countless
elf-voices, she hearkened with worshipful intent
to the trills and throbbings of nightingales, she
knew the welcome of the flowers, the breath of
a soft wind journeying over grasses; and then,
through the joys of dreaming, those influences
called to her--called to her pleading, to leave her
wild mistaken quest in that world of dust and
shadows, and return to the happiness and beauty
of the old loved life.

Fairyland, in all its voices, pleaded with her
earnestly; it drew her heart with its magic, and
made her yearn to go back again; but--no, it
should not be!

The Archdeacon went on talking.  Bim was
satisfied now.  He lay down once more to rest.

"I will follow our host's example in telling you
what I shall do.  My income is a thousand a year,
with a house.  What do I want, even after
satisfying the calls of necessary hospitality, with more
than four hundred a year?  I shall have to sacrifice
some luxuries, true; but I shall have found
a new luxury--the best of all luxuries--of
knowing that through the wider use of my income,
comforts--impossible before--will be enjoyed in
twelve poor clergyman's homes.  By giving fifty
pounds annually to each of these deserving
servants of the Church, I shall reduce their anxieties,
insure that they and their families have a better
standard of comfort, and so make these, my
comrades of the cloth, better and more efficient
workmen for the cause.  I shall make it a condition of
the gift that every one of them acts cordially with
the other priests and ministers in his
parish--whatever their denomination may be; because,
however much we must and shall differ on points
of doctrine--till the truth is found in the world
invisible--we all should be soldiers under the
one banner, united for the one cause, though in
different regiments, to forward right, to end
wrong, to raise the fallen, to fight sin, to
encourage the weak, to discover and destroy those
causes which, unchecked, lead to the starvation,
disease and death of body, mind, and soul.  For
this purpose all men and women, members of the
churches, and those who follow the light without
belonging to any organized branch of the Church,
should see in one another comrades, united for the
great purpose of making the world shine with
beauty, love and happiness."

Bim, tired through his past enthusiasm, had
gradually sunk into slumber.  He grasped the
wand firmly, though he was asleep.  June, on the
left shoulder, was still in fairy glades.  This is
why the Archdeacon had become so serious,
and his style and words more suited to his gaiters.

The guests still followed his speech with
eagerness, and were strengthened in their new ideals
and brave determinings by his bold, plain speaking.
It was the strangest banquet they had ever
attended, but none of them thought so; and
the unconventional addresses seemed just what
should have been expected.

"One more personal word in my concluding
remarks.  I have had many critics, who have not
hesitated to say that I lived up to the meaning of
my name.  Perhaps I have!  Perhaps they were
right.  But, believe me, I will study to reduce
my pride.  I can see now, as I never saw before,
how mistaken I have been in forgetting humility.
For a clergyman to be worldly is for him to be
unworthy of his faith.  It will be a hard battle to
be rid of old habits and tendencies, the results of
long custom; but I will try.  I will endeavour
earnestly so to act that the meanest tramp by the
wayside, the poorest child, the humblest old man
or old woman, may see in me one like themselves,
a comrade and a helper."

He paused and remembered the peroration,
laboriously prepared under the study lamp; and
decided to abandon it.  He ended simply.

"It is the Lord Mayor, by his happy lead and
example, who has begun what I believe is to all
of us a great revolution.  My lords and gentlemen,
I beg you to join with me in drinking his health."

They did so.





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.. _`MAN AND SUPERMAN`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center large bold

   MAN AND SUPERMAN

.. vspace:: 2

The banquet ended with a buzz of tongues.  The
guests rose, and, standing in clusters, eagerly
gave expression to their views of the evening's
happenings.  Emmanuel Oldstein, his nature
softened by unusual fare and strange appeals,
went with a rush to button-hole the Archdeacon
and build a monument of promises.  The ecclesiastic,
greatly daring, asked him to tea--when
the rapturous resolutions were fulfilled.

Such was the beginning of a revolution wrought
by one Lord Mayor in league with a fairy.  What
could not such powers do, if they would
cooperate more frequently!

Sir Titus gave a general good-night, and retired
to his private apartments, to convert the Lady
Mayoress to his views--no light task, as Sir
Titus very well knew.  June, with Bim--who as
he went seized an armful of fresh spring
flowers--departed, and the mortals went their ways.

The two from Fairyland stood by the Mansion
House railings watching the carriages draw up
and drive away, bearing their excited loads of
men with purposes.  Not till the last had gone,
and the City resumed its wonted state of
comparative peace, did June and he turn in the
direction of Paradise Court.

How to get there?  A solitary motor-cab waited
by the pavement on the other side of the road,
the chauffeur talking of tyres and race-horses to
a loafer.  The driver was one of the impossible
brigade, who mark their superiority to ordinary
folk by disdaining to accept passengers save
when it exactly suited them.  June saw this
monarch of the road reject the prayers of five
stranded wayfarers for no other reason than that
his views on the coming Derby were not yet
fully told.

So she acted.  She took her wand and waved
it.  A puzzled expression flitted over the face of
the man.  He mounted the seat of the cab, moved
the steering wheel, jerked a lever, and drove to
where the fairy and gnome were waiting.  The
loafer and an interested policeman who had
sauntered up looked amazed at this comedy of
mystery.

They watched the machine stop, the driver
alight and open the door with a bow of great
respect to--nothing.  They saw the cab at its
best speed pass rapidly into Cornhill and hurry
eastward.  When it had glided out of sight the
loafer breathed an incredulous whistle, and the
policeman found words of wonder.  "Well, I'm
blowed!" was the inadequate all he could say.

Their astonishment was nothing to that of the
driver.  He was astounded.  He could do nothing
but continue his course, steering the car boldly
along clattering streets, travelling as if guided
by an overwhelming unseen influence, here and
there, through tortuous strange ways, until
instinctively he applied the brake and stopped
beside a mean public-house at the entrance to
an alley.

Hurriedly, as if fearful of keeping important
patrons waiting, he sprang from his seat,
reopened the door of the apparently empty cab,
and again made obeisance.

Then, when the invisible passengers had
alighted, he shut the door with a bang, and
swore thoroughly till he found relief.

June did not enter any of the houses, but with
Bim dangling at the end of the wand--his left
arm still clasping the flowers--flew up to the
roof, carrying him with her.

At once reaction came.  The excitement and
the interest of the day's proceedings had kept
her going; but now, when the time for quiet had
come, she passed into a state of torpor and depression.
She forgot her triumphs, lost the exhilaration
which success had raised in her, and knew,
even more than after her first arrival, the
grossness and almost hopeless ugliness which beset
her.  For the first time in a delightful life, she
was visited with the blues.

That was an opportunity for Bim.

The long bouts of sleep had refreshed him, and
he proved less sensitive than June to the effects
of their environment.  He took the flowers, and
with rapid fingers wove a fairy-bower about her.
The white and yellow cups and one purple violet,
refreshed by his affection, revived in sympathy.
June, noting Bim's helpfulness, took cheer and
courage again.  For a whole day she remained
harassed and weary; but on the following evening
she faced her task again.

She flew languidly to the brink of a chimney-pot
and studied the world around.  Black roofs,
seedy houses, blank windows and glaring lights
on every side: over all stretched the haze that
had frightened her.

"Poor humanity!" she murmured, "doomed
day and night, year after year, from birth to
death, to be bricked in like that!"

She did not now waste energy in expressing
apostrophe, but made immediate plans.  She
attended to the flowers which Bim had rescued
from death.

She touched the cut ends and strengthened
their power of life; then lovingly she arranged
the best of them about the dusty base of the
chimney-stack.  They were precious possessions,
treasures to hoard.

Bim had seen in a forgotten flower-box in a
corner of the court mould, gathered years before
from a lost garden.  That would do!  He went
to get some, while June stood on the flat parapet
and looked on the court below.

Darkness, dirt, decay!  How very like life in
the town!  She looked above at the wounded
sky.  Two planets and the moon shone dimly
through London smoke.  The fairy yearned to
be above that cloud, to swim in the azure ocean
of night, to be closer to the stars, nearer the
ideals, farther from muck-raking men.  Up, up,
and up!

She spread wings and climbed the skylark's
stairway.  Up and up she went, deliriously happy
now, thinking the thoughts the laverock sings.
For a while she absolutely forgot weariness and
heartache, and only knew gladness of life and the
passion to be nearer the light.

Her wings did not cease their beating till she
was out of the haze, breathing again the
untroubled air which is, indeed, to men and to
fairies, life.  Then resting on wings outspread,
she hung motionless, an atom of light potential,
brooding over the miles of lurid city.

Her heart became heavy and sorry because of
the burdens of men.  To her sight, London was
a ruined wilderness, lit here and there with yellow
flares.  Where the parks stretched was mere
blackness, interspersed with dimly shining slabs
of pond and lake as the shrouded moonshine
happened to fall on them.  The Thames, except
for occasional gleams of reflected moonlight, was
a grey ribbon, a wedge driven through luridness,
a forbidding fact.

The red canopy of haze which in Elfdom had
oppressed her stretched underneath.  It was a
barrier between man and the stars--heavy and
palpable.  The shining worlds which lend magic
to the night are so potent an influence for
mind-good, bringing exaltation and the high dreams,
that what hindered their contemplation was an
evil to be banished and destroyed.  So June
argued, puzzling how to end it.  Fairy
cogitation!  Yet is it so futile?

She was glad to change her gaze and look
above her.  There it spread--star dust, the
firmament, myriads of worlds and suns supremely
magnificent, infinite, uplifting, yet, with all the
stir of the soul it occasioned, bringing strengthening
humility.  If men used their eyes and minds
and saw more of the shine of the universe; if
they watched the constellations in their annual
orbits, knew the unique Sirius as a friend,
recognized Arcturus, greeted the Pleiades after their
summer absence, would not ideals be nobler,
hopes happier, tolerance of meanness in its many
shapes impossible?

While the fairy rested in her blissful aerial
loneliness, she became aware of a gradual
gladness, an added sense of joy--more subtle than
had blessed her spirits since her flight from the
Violet Valley--visiting her.  It roused her from
reverie to realities.

Fairies--her own people--were approaching,
calling her.  Their voices and brilliance were
better than pearls and wealth.

"June, our June, come back to us!  Come
back!  Come back!"

The appeal was powerful.  With almost the
swiftness of light the fairies flew.  It was the
company of knights, half a century strong, who
had been commissioned to conduct June after the
crowning home to the Land of Wild Roses.  She
turned with gladness to greet them.  Like was
coming to like.  Sympathies were drawing
together.  They were her own people, her comrades;
they pleaded with her to leave her crusade
in the darkness, and return to delight.

Their presence was welcome, but not even then
could she forget the children and those others
whose plight required the gifts of the fairies.  When
the elf-world had helped them, she would go back
gladly, but--not yet.  She could not leave Sally
and her mates of Paradise Court or the other dim
millions whose need of beauty and joy and light
she knew.

She closed her wings and sank to earth, leaving
the knights above the cloud, wheeling and calling
to her in vain.  They looked through the veil at
the world beneath and reluctantly flew back to
Fairyland.

She found Bim busy, home-building.  He had
gathered some "smoke-dried" moss from roofs
and chimneys, wondering the while at the angular
world he clambered over, and had beaten it into
a bed for her, with cobwebs for coverlet.  He
was coaxing the newly-planted flowers to feel at
home, and all the while was singing, croakingly
and cheerily, as if a draughty roof over Paradise
Court was as near Fairyland as need be.  So it
was to him then, while working for June.

She did not interrupt him--his activity and
happiness were balm and strength to her--but
descended the chimney into the room.

Sally was fast asleep, so were the two men and
the mother of the babe.  The infant was weakly
crying.  The two other women were awake
and working, toiling by the light of a candle.
Their eyes were dazed and weak through its
flickering uncertainties, but the effort had to be.
All the protest they made was to curse and chide
the wailing infant.  June, heedless of the economies,
touched them to sleep, and prudently put out the
light.

She gave the sleepers dreams to cheer and
comfort them.  Sally was back once more in the
land of the glorious waterfall.  Bill was tramping
along a dusty road with the promise of beer
ahead.  Then June quieted the baby by kissing
its eyes, giving the hungry mite the comfort of
slumber.

What was to become of that mortal, born to be
blighted and doomed?  There she touched our
heaviest problem.  The fact of life meant misery
to that mite.  The fairy noted with sadness its
sunken eyes, pinched cheeks, and limbs no
thicker than firewood, and wondered and
wondered what to do.  If that child was left so,
neglected and starved through the innutrition
that was all its mother could give it, it would die.
Should that be?

She wished that some of the wasted provender
from the Lord Mayor's board could be given to
the children who needed food, and decided forthwith
to fetch some for the many infant victims of
Paradise Court.

She passed through the window, waving to it
to open and shut as she went, and was away like
light on her quest.

She flashed along the silent streets, rose to pass
over the City, brushed with her left wing the
dragon on Bow Church steeple, fluttered for a
contemplative moment over the west door of
St. Paul's, came to earth at the Griffin.

She watched omnibuses and cabs go by, and
streams of belated people.  She looked eagerly
into their faces, but found none quite to her liking.
So she resumed her flight along the Strand and
rested on the railings before Charing Cross.

Two gilded youths came swaggering along,
helping and hindering each other, their arms
linked.  They had white, empty faces, crush-hats
were villainously aslant on their heads, their
black cape coats were open, showing broad
shirt-fronts with shining diamond studs.

They sometimes sang a spasm of chorus,
sometimes peevishly quarrelled, sometimes were
uncomplimentary to passers-by.  They were adopted
sons of Silenus, swollen with insolence and wine.

June descended to the junction of their linked
arms, and poked each vigorously, thrice, with her
wand, putting good purposes into their muzzy
brains.

Their ideas became clearer.  They stopped,
lurched, and with a fine effort stood upright like
manly men.  One assumed his monocle, and said,
"Jove!"  They crossed the road, ignoring the
rapid traffic as if it were not, and entered a
confectioner's shop, which remained open nightly till
the fairy hour.

Each planked down two sovereigns.

"Buns," said one.

"Milk," demanded the other.

"Chocolate."

"Cups!"

The weary waitresses thought the youths were
making fun of them, but seeing the gold, and
glad to be rid of their balance of scones and buns,
they piled all they had before these customers,
brought great tins of milk, and packets full of
chocolate, with all the chipped, cracked cups they
could hurriedly find and spare.

One of these unwitting philanthropists stared
at the sixpence-halfpenny change which a
conscientious cashier had put in his gloved hand; the
other gazed through his eyeglass, startled by the
quantity of their purchases.  June smilingly
approved their deeds and intentions.

"We'll have a growler!" they declared together.

A curious crowd of waitresses and passers-by
helped them to load the vehicle, repeated their
united command to go "That way"--Eastward--and
sped them on their journey with a laughing cheer.

"What have we done this for?" said the one to
the other.

"Lord knows," was the answer, "but we'll do it."

Lulled by the closeness of the cab, the smell of
the buns, the rattle of the cups, and their innate
sense of virtuous doing, the happy couple put
heads together and slept, till they were wakened
by the rattling and clattering of the cab passing
over a granite causeway.

The Jehu came to his senses first.  June, who
had been standing in his chest pocket, where he
illegally kept his badge, stopped him by Paradise
Court.

"I dunno why I done it, but I did!" he said to
a policeman, who, seeing a waiting cab, had
sauntered up.

Bim came scurrying down from the roof.

"Sit on his head," June commanded him.  The
gnome perched on the policeman's helmet.
"Make him help!"

The youths dragged at and lifted down their
tins of milk.  Then the cabman, policeman, and
they boldly entered the court, crept into every
room of every house--there are few locks in
Paradise Court, and bolts are seldom shot there--and
put by each sleeping child a cup of milk, a
bun and a piece of chocolate--surprises for their
awakening.

The good things were just enough for the
number needing them, with five buns left over,
which the cabman pocketed.

The human quartet eventually emerged from
the court, radiant with kindness.

"I could do a drink," said the policeman,
darkening his bull's-eye lantern.

"Same 'ere," said the heated charioteer.

"And so say all of us!" chimed the youths.

The policeman gave a peculiar whistle.  An
upper window of the public-house was quietly
opened.

"'Oo goes there?" whispered Bung.

"Us, Tim," said the policeman.

"Right-oh, Alfred! 'arf a mo'."

The wearer of the monocle produced some silver.

"My turn," he said; "four whiskies."

While these givers of goodness rewarded
themselves, June went to her nest for sleep.

"This is the beginning of the new Fairyland,"
she said gratefully to Bim, who beamed.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PROGRESS OF OBERON`:

.. class:: center medium bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center large bold

   THE PROGRESS OF OBERON

.. vspace:: 2

The Lord Mayor's Banquet became history, though
in the beginning the newspapers were inclined to
pay slight attention to it.  If it had happened in
the dog-days, when attractive "copy" for holiday
idlers is at a premium, it would without any
especial effort on the part of the fairies, have been
seized by journalists and made the easy rage of a
summer season.  It would have swamped the
sea-serpent, rendered the giant gooseberry an
unblown bubble, prevented imaginative pessimists
from indulging annual fears of the future of
our daughters and the failure of our marriages;
would have made the ordinary Silly Season a
period of real, recreative, intellectual bliss.

But June, in her decisions, had no concern for
any mere editor's convenience, and caught the
powers of Fleet Street just at their busiest time.
Parliament was still mouthing about the Budget,
and adding to the troubles of Tadpole and Taper;
a miniature General Election--three by-elections
at once--was in progress; the summer worlds of
sport were getting into swing; an earthquake
had played havoc with the island of Zikki-baboo;
the natives of the North-West Frontier of India
had been once more at their sniping, inviting a
new punitive expedition to be despatched; Gertie
Feathergirl of the Gaiety had become romantically
engaged to the Hon. Stanley Stallboys, and was
making her last appearances--to the delight of a
gushing multitude--before she retired to private
life and the management of a motor business; the
Very Grand Duke of Hotzenbosch had written a
postcard, marked private, which necessitated the
rapid commissioning of two flying squadrons: in
brief, everything that could possibly happen at
that crowded time was happening; and
news-editors began to wonder why they lived.

Then June came to town, and what had to occur
did occur!  The Lord Mayor made his speech,
the Archdeacon followed suit.  A revolution in
ideals was blowing up.  What was Fleet Street
to do?  Should the circumstance be made a splash
of; or interned in a few facetious paragraphs?
What a pity, said they, it had not been kept till
the year was in its wilderness!

The facts were too important to be buried and
ignored.  A Lord Mayor is not original, an
Archdeacon not on the heights, for nothing!  Editors
can do most things; but any attempt on their
parts to smother the influence of the fairies is
as futile as the broom of Mrs. Partington; it
merely demonstrates that they are only human
after all.

The banquet and its tendencies had to be
reported and commented on, with headlines.  So
the papers took it up.

Parliament, Gertie Feathergirl, war, actual and
diplomatic, with all other matters of passing
concern, were compelled to take their proper
subordinate places in the daily prints and public
interest.

The best of the newspapers, that which you and
I support, O reader, began the Press crusade.  It
gave four columns of description and appeal on
its principal page; and this was the heading:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   OBERON SHALL BE KING.

.. vspace:: 2

And all the while Oberon was in one or other
of his castles--in Ireland, in Wales, in Spain, in
that dim country where the dreams are made, in
Weissnichtwo--living the fairy life, making the
birds, flowers, clouds and rivers happier; yet,
never for the tithe of an instant, forgetting the
madness of June.

The particular newspaper we refuse to have
anything to do with, O reader--the newspaper
whose opinions we despise and deplore--scoffed
at the fairies in its usual cocksure way, as was to
be expected!  It professed to regard the Lord
Mayor's plea as the agreeable sentiment of a
well-dined gentleman, and made play with a leaderette
in which Titania was called a myth and the fairies
fruits of nightmare.

Such conduct on the part of a widely-read
journal had to be answered.

June--let it be granted--treated its iconoclastic
persiflage with the toleration of contempt.  She,
too, did not read the newspapers; but Archdeacon
Pryde, who recognized that Sir Titus would not
condescend to defend himself against such an
attack, and remembering that he also was involved
in that halfpenny condemnation, called a cab,
packed a snuff-box with voice-lozenges, and went
with heat and dudgeon to the headquarters of the
offending newspaper.

He was welcomed with a military salute by the
commissionaire at the gate; snapshotted
thrice--when paying the cabman, eating a lozenge, and
handing his card to a youth in the enquiry office.
When inside the editorial sanctum, he was
induced to pose for two flash-light photographs--one
showing him engaged in earnest talk with
the great man, the other with his hand resting
on the tousled head of a printer's devil.

These pictures were to illustrate an
"interview"--dictated to a shorthand writer--which explained
the Archdeacon's ideas and intentions in
connection with his and the Lord Mayor's new
determinings, and so gave the Editor an excuse
for a *volte-face*.

The Archdeacon was in a rapture of enthusiasm
white hot.  This prominent usefulness, or useful
prominence, was gratifying.  He promised to
send his menu, that the inscribed resolutions
might be reproduced in facsimile for the morrow's
issue; and ended by asking the Editor to tea.

He went home more conscious than ever of
being a man of influence and work.

So even the paper which you and I, O reader,
habitually dislike and ignore, came over to the
side of light.

The great organs of the Press, with amazing
unanimity, rolled their machines, blew trumpets,
and beat drums, in the interests of Fairy Reform.
It was no sudden affair, that splendid combination;
but a gradual all-round awakening to the
benefit, delight, and need of preaching the causes
of Elfdom.

The sober weeklies followed with such assumption
of authority that they seemed to think they
were leading.  They had no hesitancy.  The
monthlies and quarterlies also, in due time,
continued the chorus.  It took about four months to
bring this trend of influence to perfection, but
then the cause went on like a tidal wave.

Oberon and Titania, strangely unconscious of
the new-won rage for fairy goodness, became
social factors; they left the select preserve of the
Folklorists to become magazine favourites, the
darlings of Fashion, high and low.

But this is very like anticipation, that bugbear
of the sober historian, so we return to the present,
as it was.

Emmanuel Oldstein found the keeping of his
ideals a hard business.  His midnight enthusiasm
had strangely waned by the time of the milkman's
chant.

The breakfast-table on the morrow morn was
very like a battlefield; there were storms in five
tea-cups.  His family opposed his good intentions
with earnestness, broken English, and some
quotation of the Pentateuch, and thereby through
the rule of contrariness, kept him to his purpose.
Their obstinacy strengthened his.  He stuck
gamely to his guns, and began his course at once
by doubling Ernie Jenkins' wages, enabling that
young patriot to enlarge his indulgence in bitter
beer, to wear three clean collars a week, and to
promise Emily--with a few safeguarding "ifs"--that
some day she might be "Mrs. J."

Emmanuel's family yielded to his wishes when
he bought them over.  He gave Mrs. Oldstein a
purple silk dress trimmed with jet, a big bangle,
and a gold watch so small that its works could
never move.  Max, who presumed to strange
heights of impudent sarcasm on the subject of
"the guvnor's flum," was given a minor partnership
in the emporium, provided he was not merely
just, but generous, in all his dealings.

He quickly agreed, and became a pompous
person, forgetful of old associates.

Keeping the resolutions was certainly a hard
and bitter business to the old man; but it did
him good.  He never lost sight of the promise of
tea with the Archdeacon.

The hardest effort came when those pious folk
next door took the bait, and approached Jabez
Gordon of Jermyn Street for a loan--"to extend
their efforts for the Cause."

Emmanuel unwisely informed Hannah of the
fact.  Her eyes blazed with angry happiness.
At last!  At last!

"Now squelch 'em, Pa!" she pleaded, in her
commanding manner.

"Thertainly, my dear!" he said evasively; and
hurriedly put on his hat to commune with himself
in a walk round the squares.  Here was a pass!

The undying remembrance of persecution, endured
through ages by his people, flamed within
him.  Years of petty trading and the practices of
sharp finance had not entirely subdued his
inherited racial fire.  And of all the Anti-Semite
persecutors, none were so exasperating as those
infatuated, contemptible sentimentalists--the
pin-prick fanatics--who hoped to "convert" him,
asking him to exchange the breadths of his own
faith, based on centuries of national sacrifice
and fighting history, for their traditionless,
unimaginative, sapless sectarianism.  It was a hard
effort to spare those people at that moment of
possible revenge.

Shylock had his twentieth-century opportunity.

When Emmanuel reached home again he was
still undecided.  An ancient battle was furious in
his breast.  He slept that night with a pile of the
offensive mission notices beside his pillow, and
turned and dreamed in a troubled way, murmuring
Yiddish.

During breakfast he came to a decision, which
he kept to himself.

"Father, I am glad you can punish them,"
said Hannah significantly, as she helped him
with his outer coat.  That was the only remark
passed on the subject.  Wisely, he held his
peace.

He wrote from his office of finance in Jermyn
Street--at first view you would think it a place
of sale for strong cigars and strange red wines--to
the sanctimonious young man, inviting Mr. Lemuel
Buskin Junior to call upon Jabez Gordon
"to complete the little matter of business about
which Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior had written."

Then Oldstein went on to the City, and got
from Max a list of the workers--the sweated
workers--who gave their lives to the making of
his wealth.  He would visit them all, and
investigate their condition, doing whatever he
could--be it little or much--to modify their wants
and sufferings.  The last on that list of mean,
poor ones, was Sally Wilkins of Paradise Court.
Already he had arranged or made purposes to
pay every one of his employees a living wage,
whatever the result might be in the increase of
prices and consequent possible loss of customers.
It was a bold policy.  To Emmanuel Oldstein,
even still more to Max, it was very like inexcusable
sin.  To pay more than need be for anything
was to blaspheme against the gods of
Economics.  But he insisted on doing it, and
did it.  To anticipate for the last time, the policy
paid.

Emmanuel's blood was up.  He kept his written
resolutions before him wherever he went.  They
and the menu reminded him of the Lord Mayor's
appeal, of his own pledges, of his hopes of civic
advancement, of the Archdeacon's invitation to tea.
Again that night a battle raged in his breast.
Hannah kept watchful eyes upon him.

On the following morning money-lender and
victim emerged from their front-doors simultaneously.
Neither appeared to notice the other--according
to the canons of the unwritten law
which rules the no-relation of next-door neighbours.
None so far away as at the other side of a
party wall!

The heir of the Buskins was less beautiful than
good.  His nose was the index to his mind.  It
pointed heavenwards.  His thoughts were built
of texts and depression.  He had a saddened soul,
but was never bankrupt of pious hope.  He
yearned that sinners should walk with him on the
pearly pathways, and knew the naughty when he
met them.  So, in any case, it was not to be
expected he should notice Oldstein, who in every
respect offended and roused his religious
antipathies.  Lemuel was one of those whose thoughts
reach the heights of the chimney-pots; they soar,
yet are smothered with smuts.

Emmanuel noticed him.  The Jew's keen eyes
with a glance read the story told by the other's
clothes.  Lemuel was in blacks--his Sunday best.
The coat had a tail; the hat was silken.  He
carried brown gloves and his mother's umbrella
nicely rolled.  His little sleek yellow moustache
had upward twists; the whiskerettes which roused
Hannah's ire and contempt were carefully trimmed.
He wore a tartan necktie--to gratify that Scotsman,
Jabez Gordon.

Oldstein grunted--there was joy in his nose--as
they climbed into an omnibus together.  The
merchant took out his notebook and soon was
controlling figures, while Lemuel stared at the
advertisements or table of fares, stroked the
careful crease in his trousers, and nervously
fingered the points of his collar.

The omnibus stopped at Piccadilly Circus;
they alighted.  Lemuel had to ask the way to
Jermyn Street; Oldstein knew it, and was soon
in his office eagerly attacking a pile of letters.
Five minutes later his one clerk--a magnificent
creature whose greatest asset was a capacity
for being stylish on very little--brought in
Buskin's name.

"He must wait," said the master gruffly, "while
I dictate letters.  Hurry!"

He solemnly put the pile of mission notices on
the desk before him, and closely attended to his
correspondence.

Lemuel was waiting with the pitiful patience of
a deserted lamb.  His little heart was excitedly
fluttering.  He felt strangely fearful.  He was not
used to business.  He would have given sixpence
to have seen himself in a looking-glass, to be sure
his hair was tidy, his tie straight.  He eyed the
dingy furniture of the stuffy room, and felt his
courage going.  He had expected to see more
adornment than this; but he had read that the
truly wealthy make the least display.

He fixed his gaze steadily on the door through
which the clerk had gone, regarding it with
mingled dread and longing.  "Lasciate ogni
speranza, voi ch' entrate" might well have been
written above it.

Twenty minutes passed--Father Time, to spite
his impatience, grossly enlarged every one of the
twelve hundred seconds--before the splendid
clerk reopened the door, ostentatiously closed an
untidy shorthand book, and said: "Will ye go in?"

Lemuel Buskin rose trembling.  His knees
seemed to have forgotten their strength.  But he
remembered his mother's counsel, plucked up
courage, and repeated mentally the stimulating
chorus of a hymn.  He was, as he entered the
private office and took the offered seat, in such
a whirl of confusion that he did not at once
recognize the person of the financier.

Suddenly he was aware of Oldstein's identity,
and blushed hotly.

"I ca-came to see Mr. Gordon!"

"I am Mithter Gordon!"

"Ja-Jabez Gordon?"

"Jabez Gordon! and you are Mithter Buthkin."

"But you--I--oh!"

"Exthactly!  Oh! ith jutht the word.  Mithter
Buthkin, I'm glad to thee you.  We're old
acquaintanthes, we are, although you may not
know it!  You ask my daughter 'Annah 'ow
much indebted to you we feel.  My 'Annah lookth
on you ath a brother, a Christian brother.  Thee
them billth?"--Emmanuel slapped the pile of
mission notices with a dingy hand.  Lemuel's
last shadow of pluck was evaporating fast;
but Oldstein with the question challenged his
fanaticism.

"I'm proud to be a labourer in the vineyard!"
was the surly defiant reply.

"And well may be!  But you're an unthkilled
labourer, Mr. Buthkin.  Now I'm glad you've
called, for I want to talk to you; you're goin' to
listen and then we may do bithness."

Lemuel, surprised and unprepared, was cowed
by Oldstein's decision and speech.  He had
bitterness on his tongue, but refrained from any
retort.

"Do you believe in the fairieth, Mithter
Buthkin?" was the unexpected question.

Lemuel could only stare and wonder.

"Answer me!"

"Certainly I do not!"

"That'th a pity.  I do."

"I believe in higher things."

"And do you live up to them?"

Lemuel gasped.

"I didn't come here to be insulted."

"No, Mithter Buthkin, and I don't go 'ome to
be inthulted with them things--do you recognithe
'em?--in my letter-box.  Who put 'em there?
Look at 'em well!  You did.  Why?  Because
you're a tuppenny little thkunk--I leave your
parenth out of it, for they're too old to know
better; they're past mendin'--you're a little
tuppenny thkunk who prethumes to think that
your belief ith the whole and only truth, and that
my belief--which my fathers and their fathers
'eld for thouthandth on thouthandth of yearth,
long before London wath more than a puddle, ith--I
don't know what you think it ith.  You can't
compre'end it, Mithter Buthkin, no, you can't!"

The old man paused and watched his victim
keenly.  He then burst out with speech of
passion.

"You to convert uth!  You to wish to make
uth such Christians as yourselves--nuisances in
the street--thingin', blarin', thpeakin' uncharitably
of our neighbourth!  To convert uth!
Father Abraham!  I'd rather be a persecuted
Jew, stoned, starved, beaten, 'ated--as we have
been 'ated, starved and stoned for thousandth of
yearth--than such a Christian!  Even if I 'ad
to be a damned thoul burnin', rottin', stinkin' in
Gehenna for ever afterwardth, I would not be
such a Christian!  Thit down, Mithter Buthkin!"

Lemuel hesitated, but obeyed.  He hated and
feared this old man of anger, whose voice had
become powerful with passion.  Somehow the
armoury of texts seemed insufficient.

"I athked you jutht now if you believed in the
fairieth, and you thaid 'No.'  Well, I do believe
in 'em, and it ith well for you I do.  I meant to
punish you for worryin' us with them billth.  I
meant to crush you, to end you.  There'th
nothin' tho easy in bithness life ath for a
finanthier to crush a poor man, if 'e likes.  I meant
to crush you and your people because of your
cruelty to uth.  I'd 'ave lent you moneys at such
a rate of interest, on such artful terms, that you
couldn't 'ave paid it back; and I'd 'ave bought
you up and broke you, body and soul.  But the
other night I wath dinin' at the Mansion 'Ouse
with the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor
and my friend the Venerable Reverend Archdeacon
Pryde, who's athked me to tea with him.
You read what appeared in the papers, 'aven't
you?  Everyone there made resolutions, and, like
the others, I made promises, which I'm goin' to
keep.  Lucky for you, Mr. Buthkin, that I did.
Now I'll begin by makin' you a prethent.  I give
you back them billth.  Here they are.  What
common paper you do use for 'em!  I could put
you in the way of buying much better quality at
the price you pay, I bet!  Burn 'em!  Take 'em
'ome and burn 'em!  And now, if you like, we'll
talk bithness.  Mithter Buthkin, I was glad you
wrote to me.  Ha, ha!"  His laugh was not
musical.  "You must 'ave been agreeably
surprithed when you found Jabez Gordon was me!
'Annah would laugh, too, if I were to tell 'er 'ow
you looked.  But bithness now!"

Lemuel, who had just been feeling limp, made
an effort to rouse himself.  The genial note in
Oldstein's voice was to him as balm in Gilead.

"You want a 'undred poundth--to thpread the
cause, ath you call it.  Well, I ain't goin' to lend
you money to thpread any cause, but I'll be better
than my bond: I'll lend you a 'undred at 10 per
thent--50 per thent. would be low enough, too
low for such rotten thecurity ath you can
give--on condition that you pay your family's debts
with it.  I know about 'em, Mithter Buthkin;
E. Oldstein's a knowing one.  Also, that not one
'alfpenny of it goes to convertin' anybody.  I've
never made such an offer ath this before, and if
any man 'ad told me a year ago I'd do it, I'd 'ave
called 'im somethin'.  You can thank the fairieth
for it.  But that ain't all!  I'll give you ten pound
at once--'ere they are, nice fat yellow boys, ain't
they?--to buy food and clothin' for poor
Christians--Christians, mind!--who need it.  I'll trutht
you to dithtribute the moneys honestly.  Put 'em
away carefully, Mithter Buthkin.  To-night
you can come to my 'ouse--it's next door to
yours--number forty-eight, and fetch the loan and sign
the document.  Jutht realithe thith, Mithter Buthkin,
I'm treatin' you wonderfully well--the fairieth
'ave made me do it!--but, mind my words, put
another paper of any kind into my letter-box, or
let me find you even printin' a bill about the
Conversion of the Jewth--and fairieth or no
fairieth--I'll crush you!"

Oldstein sat down exhausted.  He took a strong
cigar out of a drawer, cut and lighted it with
quivering fingers.

Lemuel's mind was in a riot of confusion.
Qualms of conscience, of gratitude, of fear swept
through him.  He rose mechanically, picked up
and pocketed the ten sovereigns, and feebly
squeezed Oldstein's proffered hand.

"Do you thmoke, Mr. Buthkin?" asked Emmanuel.

"No!"

"Does your Dad thmoke?"

"No!"

"That'th a great pity.  So good for the 'eart!
If you wanted to buy thome cigarth at any time,
real 'Avanah, I could get you a 'undred--good
uns, mind; strong, with a flavour--for a very
low price.  Well, theven o'clock to-night!  'Annah
will be pleased to see you!"

Lemuel walked the whole way home, and more
than once said, "Dash!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE IMPORTANCE OF BIM`:

.. class:: center medium bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center large bold

   THE IMPORTANCE OF BIM

.. vspace:: 2

It was some few weeks before Emmanuel Oldstein
was able to fulfil his good intention of visiting
Paradise Court.  Sally was the last on his list, and
not till June's name-month was half-way through
could he come to her.

Meanwhile things had been happening.  The
newspaper crusade was going well, and the two
from Fairyland were using their efforts to help it
forward.

The gnome was becoming influential in Paradise
Court.  It was in especial his province.  June, with
her wings and magic, could visit a wide area; but
he, with his poor inches and limitations, was
necessarily stay-at-home.  Partly through accident he
began a revolution which was fated to have
important effect in the recovery of London.  This
is how it happened.

The old flower-box whence he had taken the
mould for their flourishing roof-garden was a
faded, decrepit affair; otherwise its meagre
quantity of wood would surely, long ago, have been
broken and used as fuel.  For years it had stood
in a dank corner, barren and forgotten.  Then, in
a fit of prankishness, Bim carried down a violet,
the only one gathered in the Mansion House
posy, and planted it.  June had given it power of
life; with the tenacity of its kind it had struggled,
flourished and come to bloom.

It was the gnome's treasure.  He was proud of
its being, and looked after it in a spoilt parental
way, exaggerating its few qualities, blessedly
blind to its defects.

For some days it bluely blushed unseen; and
then came into a prominence which half pleased,
half frightened it.

Poll Skinner cast her husband-blacked eyes
upon it.

"Lor' lummy!" she cried, "a voilet!"

She looked at the flower and thereupon fell in
a dream.  A violet in Paradise Court!  For the
first time for years she was out of the ugly present,
away from the base life about her.

Memories of old days, clean days, lived again.
She saw herself as she was, before sin, want and
selfishness had claimed and kept her.  As she
was!  As she was!  She remembered her father's
cottage, with its garden of pinks and wallflowers.
She remembered a wood near an ivied church;
and was once again a girl, hunting for primroses,
bluebells and violets.  She remembered her white
pinafore and her cleverness at weaving
daisy-chains.  How clean in all ways was that maiden
life!  And now----  Paradise Court!  Drink and
the devil had taken their toll!  God!

Poll found tears in her eyes when she woke to
the present.  She wiped her face with grimy hands
and left traces.

"Blimey, 'ere's old Poll drunk again!" said one
of the knights of the place, a hulking fellow who
called himself a dock-labourer, but whose idle
hands were almost rooted to his pockets.  "What
yer starin' at, Poll?"

Poll indicated the flower.  He saw it and
stretched forth a hand.

"There ain't much to blub about in that!"

"Leave it be, Mike!" she cried, fearing his
destructiveness.  "Leave it be!  It's a voilet!"

"A what?  Let's 'ave a look!  Who are ye
shovin'?  I want to look at it."  She resisted
him.  "I'll wipe yer eyes if ye don't!"

He pushed forward with all his strength, intending,
in sheer debasing mischief, to grab and crush
the flower; but Poll struggled like a cat-woman
to prevent him.  He lost temper and struck her
in the face.  She, shrieking and shrill, tore his
forehead with her nails, and tried to bite him.
Her hair came loose.  There was blood on her
cheek.  The animal emerged from Man.

The tumult of shuffling feet and foul speech
brought others of the Court to doorways and
windows.  Women, who knew nothing of the
cause of the combat, added their voices to Poll's
in vigorous denunciation of Mike.  The
men--brave fellows!--looked on and grinned.  One
slunk away from the scene of the encounter; that
was Skinner, Poll's natural protector and supposed
husband.  He went into the public-house and
ordered beer.

The battle ended when Mike had accomplished
his purpose and grasped the flower.  He threw
it on the pavement and ground it with his boot.
Then he went away leisurely to enjoy refreshment
after victory.  His thirst had found an
excuse.  Poll's fury lapsed into noisy tears.  She
entered her one room, threw a rusty flat-iron on
the floor, and nagged at the children.

Bim had watched this commotion from the
parapet above.  He sprawled on the cement-work,
peeped at the tangle of heads below, and
felt thoroughly frightened.  Deeply did he regret
that June was not there.  She would have fought
on the side of Poll and the violet, and given them
victory.  Had only her wand been left behind he
could and would have intervened effectively.  But
nothing could be done.  When he saw brutality
win, he went moodily back to the fairies' garden,
and pondered on ugly things.

The blues drove him into a brown study.  He
decided the affair should not end there.  He
uprooted a lingering primrose, and crept down with
it.  He carefully grubbed the mould in the box
to freshen its jadedness, and planted the yellow
flower--the fairies' oriflamme.

Back to the parapet he clambered to wait and
watch.

Hours passed by.  Nothing happened that day
to reward his patience.  The people of Paradise
Court are not observant.  The primrose lived and
shone without appreciation until the morrow, when
June magically drew attention to it.  Some children
first caught sight of it and curiously poked at it
with sticks.  It was a new wonder to them.

Poll saw the group about the box, and came to
look.  The wrath of yesterday was requickened
within her.  The children in their wisdom edged
away from the virago, who carried the box to
the sill outside her window, dumped it down;
and then, in a voice of challenge, screamed out:

"'Ere's a primrose come!  If anybody touches
this, by Gawd, I'll murder 'im!"

Mike, having won his battle yesterday, was
quite good-tempered to-day.  He sauntered up
to look at the flower and laughed.

"I won't touch it, Poll.  You can 'ave yer measly
primrose," and went off for another drink.

Poll hesitated, then followed him: their feud
was drowned in beer.

The primrose lived for a week, and held a sort
of continuous reception.  Bim was as proud as a
peacock about it.  He got stiff-neck staring over
the parapet, straining to hear the compliments
and praise.  Everybody in the Court paid it a
daily visit and undue tributes.  The children
could hardly be induced to keep their hands from
it.  Their fingers itched to pluck; but Poll Skinner
was a power to be feared.  She kept sober in order
to be the better sentinel.

Mike suddenly shifted the interest of Paradise
Court to his abode by bringing home three
flowerpots containing hyacinths--how he obtained them
had better not be asked.  As at the same time
the primrose happened to fade, and its plant had
no promise of buds, Poll felt chagrin.  The balance
of her world was shifted.  Mike held the hub of
the hemisphere.

She drank herself silly with gin, and beat her
children frightfully; but the return of sober sanity
brought new ideas.  Poll rose to the occasion.
She sent her "old man" to a distant churchyard
to steal some good new mould; and then
bought--actually bought--from the publican's wife, a
rose-plant warranted to flower.

Poll bore it home triumphantly, while Paradise
Court smiled.

Mike's hyacinths--in comparison with Poll's
aristocratic plant--had now to take a second
place, very far-behind, in the public interest.
And it was no good making reprisals.  Neither
his wits nor his wealth would enable him to do
better than Poll.  Moreover, the fashion of flowers
was spreading.  Three other residents in the
colony had put up rough window-boxes, with
green things in them; and the children, keen to
follow their elders, found tins, jam-pots, pickle-jars,
and planted within them anything they could
get; grass, if nothing of the flower kind was
available.

Bim felt a third of an inch taller; he trod with
an airier tread, now that his influence over
Paradise Court had become so manifest.  He laboured
with Salvationist ardour to help the people;
supplementing and moderating their energies,
and encouraged the flowers to live.  For hours he
would sit in blest invisibility by one or other
of the plants, enjoying the admiring remarks
addressed to them, sharing the general satisfaction.

Families came to talk of weedy green things
as if they were spreading chestnut-trees; while
those members of the community who, having
gone "hopping," had actual experience of wild
life and woodland facts were regarded as travellers
and oracles.  Living up to their opportunities,
they told vegetable counterparts of certain fish
stories.  Bim's blessed interference certainly
caused some white stealth and a multitude of
tarradiddles.

Nor was the indirect influence of the gnome
yet at an end.

'Arry Bailey was the instrument of the next
progressive step.  He had some nasturtiums and
was ambitious of getting them to climb in festoons
round his window.  He used nails, string, language
and glue.  At last he succeeded.  For a time his
nasturtiums were the rage.  Their blazing colours
and rapid growth made them popular.  But
Bailey, in whom the æsthetic sense must have
been recovering after years of hibernation, felt
that something was lacking.  He smoked three
ounces of shag and scratched his chin for
hours on end before it dawned on him what it was.

Then he said "By gum"--that was all he said--and
proceeded to surprise the Court by cleaning
his window.  One of the panes was badly cracked,
the mark of some midnight fracas; so--more
surprising still--he measured the gap, bought glass
and putty, and entertained a Sunday crowd of
chaffing, envious lookers-on by mending it
himself, making a clumsy good business of it.

Bailey's act of reformation occasioned criticism
and imitation--action is mostly imitation in
Paradise Court.  Before a further seven days had
dawned and darkened not a window on any floor
in the Court but was washed and polished.  In
cases where there was no money for mending,
new paper--preferably illustrated--was put in
broken places, window-sills and doorsteps were
whitened.

The inhabitants began to feel proud, to give
themselves airs, to wash their necks.

Curtains of all shapes and colours appeared,
rooms became tidied: homes tolerable.  Men
stayed indoors to smoke their pipes and gossip,
going less frequently to the public-house.  Not
that the improvement was so rapid as to seem
violent.  Paradise Court was, is, and will be till
the trump, a home of conservatism.  Its motion
is that of a glacier.  Yet it does move, and
did.  Though drunkenness and slovenliness,
with brutalities of words and of fighting, were
still over-frequent, there was real improvement,
and a quiet growth of self-respect, which, after
the lapse of months, had borne remarkable fruit.
Bravo, Bim!

The gnome extended his efforts further afield,
and was constantly dropping flowers before
children in the alleys and other drearinesses of
London, in order that they might be picked up,
taken home, appreciated, loved, and wanted.

June, learning from him, was glad to follow his
example.  She scattered love-bringing blooms
and blossoms--gathered without permission from
the parks--wherever there were brown plain
walls and ugliness.  She wanted the fairies to
come back to their ancient rights and rule; but
felt they certainly would not stay where flowers
were forgotten.

She longed--longed desperately--for the return
of the elves to their ancient dominion over the
town.

One night a company from Elfland made
grand appeal to her.  It was a full hour and
more after midnight, and absolutely dark.  No
moon shone on the scene, no stars shed brightness
from the sky.

Bim was sprawling on the roof-gutter lost in
dreams.  His head rested on a sparrow's deserted
nest.  June was in her bower, too weary for
visions, even too weary for sleep.  She was tired
at heart, thoroughly, utterly tired!  Her only
comfort came from the flowers beaming about
her.  She felt the loneliness of London.  Fairy
memories called and called and called to her.  She
was weary of burdens.  This pilgrimage in the
dark city was dreary, heavy, grievous and
horrible.  But still, she must stay.

Her quick ears caught the rustling of many
fairy wings in the distance; only one with
sympathies sensitive and truly attuned to the
wafting could have heard them so far away.  She
sat and saw elves on the wing.  They were
haze-shrouded, high in the sky above.  Would
they penetrate the murky canopy?  Had they
come in late answer to her appeals, to help with
the burden, to share in the task of re-creating
beauty in the wilderness?

She watched them wheeling in the upper air in
distant luminousness, curving, descending.  She
grasped her wand and followed their progress
intently, hoping all things, yearning to be with
them again.

The flowers about June's bed, the flowers in
the court below, lifted glad heads in greeting.
They freshened visibly.  Bim in his slumbers
sighed, and comfortably turned as he slept.

The elves alighted on the roofs around.  There
were thousands of them.  Half the folk of the
Violet Valley, of the Land of Wild Roses, of other
parts of Fairyland, must have been there.  They
were multitudinous, innumerable, and clustered
on rims of chimneys, on angles of houses, on
street-lamps and window-sills, making of dull
commonplace a remarkable series of pictures.  All
the while they were singing songs of sweet appeal.

June donned her crown, while they hovered
and settled, and stood to greet them.  Some
sparrows, surprised by the unwonted spectacle,
woke and began chirping.  It was beggarly music,
monotonous the word for it: but it served.
London, alas! had nothing better and the sparrows
did their best.  Fairy kindness overlooked the
deficiencies.

Suddenly there was silence: elves and birds
hushed.

"Welcome, sweet comrades from Fairyland!"
said June.  "I am glad you have visited me
amongst these shadows.  Will you stay and help
to restore London to Oberon?"

"Nay, nay," answered a hundred voices, slender
and silvern, from here and from there.

"June, our June!" a sparkling knight then
cried to her.  "Your going has brought gloom
into the elf-countries.  Oberon and Titania have
been grieved and absent since your flight; all
others of us have felt the changes.  Come back
to us!  It is like living in a valley with the
sunshine and moonlight always gone; like living
in a wood where the flowers for want of blessings
and dew are shrivelled.  Change this for us,
June!  Come back, come back!"

"Come back, come back!" echoed the wide
chorus, plaintively, pleadingly.

Clocks struck two.  A cold wind came from
the sea.

"Sisters and knights from the delightful
countries," June answered.  "To hear your
voices is music to a heart which has hungered
for melody.  To be with you again and for ever
is the dream of these days and nights.  O
Fairyland, Fairyland!  But for me that cannot be, until
this world-town of vanity and darkness is a part
of Fairyland too.  Help us, and work with us.
Already Hope shines through the misery.
Already we have been rewarded--Bim and I.  We
have begun well.  Laughter and flowers bloom
where a few weeks ago they could not.  We are
going to win.  Men have listened to our bidding.
Elf-rule is leading them.  Their puppet limbs are
bending to the light.  They are beginning again
in the darkest parts to live with beauty and love
the fairies.  Bear with us: and help them.
Before next Mayday comes, I must deliver up
this crown.  Sweet knights and sister elves, so
work with us that Oberon may be ruling over
London again."

In answer a fairy song went rolling from the
assembly, up and up, piercing the cloud overhead,
discovering the stars.  June rejoiced at the
hearing, though still it was an appeal to her--a
yearning appeal to her--to be done with her
madness, to submit to Oberon, to return.  June
felt alone.

The new song wakened Bim.  He sat up
suddenly, ears pricked sharply with eager
attention.  Fairies in London!

He clambered amazedly up the slanting roof
and knelt by the side of June.  She laid hands on
his shoulders.  The two waited and watched.

In twos and threes, reluctantly, the fairies
opened wings, and went away.  Over the houses
they journeyed, a glittering, saddened procession.
Higher and higher, and farther and farther they
flew.  The sound of their chorus gradually
diminished till there was silence--the silence of
sleep-bound London--again.

Gone!

June gazed on her garden of flowers.  The
gnome crawled away sadly, and squatted by the
chimney-pot, dangling his feet.  He felt a solid
piece of melancholy.

"That was a very nice dream," he said for
comfort's sake; and found the words not comforting.

"Let us be doing things," June counselled.





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.. _`A PROSE INTERLUDE`:

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   CHAPTER XI


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   A PROSE INTERLUDE

.. vspace:: 2

Oldstein came at last to Paradise Court, and two
good things resulted--Sally was taken out of her
slave-life and sent to a boarding-school at the
expense of her former task-master, and June went
to tea with the Archdeacon.

Emmanuel had been for six weeks living up to
his ideals.  It was the hardest of tasks to him,
but obstinate doggedness pulled him through.
He had come actually to like doing good, and
realized the subtle joys which live in generosity.
He developed a habit--learned indirectly from
the goodly practices of Dr. Johnson--of keeping
chocolates and pennies in his pocket, and dropping
one or other of them surreptitiously into the laps,
pockets, or hands of children.  June was proud to
smiling-point of this, her least-likely pupil.  He
was doing the fairies' work so pleasantly.

And virtue brought other rewards--as it must
do in a properly regulated existence.  Emmanuel
gave and gave, and still had a golden reservoir of
wealth for capital use and enjoyment.

At last he felt justified in accepting the
Archidiaconal invitation to tea.  He paved the way
of welcome characteristically by sending an
express letter of reminder and explanation,
and walked from Paradise Court to where
the blue tramcars were running.  After riding
here and walking there, he arrived at the
canonry.

June and Bim accompanied him; the fairy on
the brim of his glossy hat, the gnome in the
bulging breast-pocket.  Bim gazed with insatiable
curiosity at the passing phantasmagoria of
human shadows.  What a strange grey comedy
it was!

The London streets were still a troublesome
ghost-world to Bim.  He could not overcome an
unconquerable prejudice against shadows.  They
were born of the darkness; he liked things to be
moonlit at least.

They came to the Archdeacon's garden.  Its
delicious peacefulness was to June the first thing
in Cockneydom reminiscent of elvish glades.
Enchantment seemed brooding over it.

The ancient trees and young dusty flowers,
with the twittering of sparrows--only sparrows--about
them, gave new significance to the hum of
the distant traffic.  It made the medley music.
The old-world atmosphere of blessed repose
brought solace to both of them.  It gave June
hope.  It made her for the first time thoroughly
confident of fulfilling her purpose.

Why should not a similar spirit of peace hold
governance over every garden and public park in
London?  Wherever it reigned there would be
sanctuaries for tired minds and strained nerves--havens
of refuge from uproar and vulgarity.  If
Oberon's rule returned, anything and everything
of the kind was possible; and something was
begun.

Emmanuel pressed the button of the door-bell;
and, having done so, trembled.  A funeral-faced
footman appeared and ushered him in.

The charm of the garden reigned also within
the house.  A silver-tongued clock sang five.  It
reminded June of Titania's voice when, once, the
fairy-queen had surprised a blue-bell valley with
a passing song.

June entered with Oldstein.  Bim remained in
the garden, playing puss-in-the-corner with some
sparrows, to their fearful delight.

Evidently the footman did not approve his
master's guest.  There was an unnecessary air
of imitation-lordliness in his demeanour, as he
marched before Emmanuel.  His body seemed
mere idiotic backbone.  His face wore an expression
of patronage.  June, indignant at his sublime
churlishness, tossed a handful of magic over him,
and watched the conceit shrivel.  The pillar of
salt turned to man.  He was never a mere flunkey
thereafter, and in course of time became a
Sunday-school teacher.

"Delighted, delighted!" said the Archdeacon,
pressing Mr. Oldstein's hand.  Had it not been
for the fairies the welcome would assuredly have
been less cordial; but since the evening of
Mayday there had been changes.  The ecclesiastic
was living up to his creed.  He greeted Oldstein
warmly, and wondered why he had come.

Emmanuel was awed and enchanted.  Never
had he dreamed that life could be so clean and
precious as here he found it.  He felt, poor man
in the egoism of humble ignorance, a vulgar
intruder; and for the first time in his span of
existence, realized that his hands were large and
his manners out of polish.  Somehow the rings
he wore made his fingers uglier.

Tea was brought in on a silver tray.  The food
was daintily insufficient.  The Archdeacon sipped
at a cup and talked long words.  Oldstein said
"Yeth," mumbled at his slices of butter spread
with bread, and heard nothing.  He mentally
kicked himself for having blundered into that
Anglo-celestial place.  So it went on for a
time.

The Archdeacon was bored.

The fairy seeing things awry, hastened to put
them right.  She hovered before the Archdeacon's
head--her moving wings made music which only
fairies could hear--and touched his lips with her
wand.  She recognized that he was the man
to lead the talking.  He became at once more
sociable.

"Do you golf?" he asked.

"No, but I've thold golf-balls."

"Ah, you should play.  You should join my
new Association which pledges every member to
use one club only--preferably the mashie--on
a round."

Golf remained the subject while the tea lasted.
The Archdeacon kept the talk going.

"So our movement of fairy reform goes ahead
admirably," Dr. Pryde exclaimed, coming to the
real subject at last, as he rose, stretched, and
posed by the mantelpiece.  "We are comrades
under Oberon's banner--comrades in a growing
and victorious army."

He admired his rolling periods, and took his
box of lozenges from a drawer.

"Yeth," said the other, who still felt that his
feet were all boots.

"I had a letter from the Lord Mayor this
morning.  Sir Titus--a wonderful man, wonderful
man, truly one of us!--is instituting a new
league--Titania's Bodyguard it is called,
consisting of all sorts and conditions of old men
and maidens, young men and children; to remove
the blemishes which uglify--'uglify' is Alice's
word, not mine--which uglify London."

He ceased his pompous talk to look pomposity.
He caught his reflection in a mirror, and improved
his deportment.

"Yeth," again Emmanuel faltered.  He wanted
to express views, but in that present state of
shyness and nervousness his mind seemed mere
whirl and pudding.

"Talking of Alice, we could do with a little
more topsyturvydom in real life, could not
we?"  June smiled.  Here was proof that she had him.
"I wish Harlequin with his wand would transform
some of our business men and Bumbles and
give them better sympathies and wits."

"'Ear, 'ear!"

"What is generally wanted--almost before
anything else--is the power to get out of the ruck
of the commonplace, to look at facts from a new
point of view.  How blind we are to the obvious!
It is possible every day to pass by and not notice
a view which, if it were in another country, we
should travel for days in discomfort to see.
And why?--I ask you why?"  He gazed at the
ceiling, and waved a graceful hand.

"Goodneth knowth!"

The Archdeacon puckered his brows, and
looked down at his interrupter with an
expression of gentle remonstrance.

"The question was rhetorical, Mr. Oldstein,"
he said, in mild rebuke.  "I repeat, Why?
Because we are so used to it.  A Londoner
will see more beauty in a wood in May or
June than the man who lives at its edge; but
bring the yokel to London, and he will open
his mouth with awe at buildings of beauty and
history upon which the Cockney will strike the
cheaper kind of matches.  Familiarity breeds
blindness."

"Yeth."

"It does indeed!  The first thing is to teach
the uses of the eyes; the next the joys of
imagination.  Those are indirectly the purposes for
which the Lord Mayor's new movement--Titania's
Bodyguard--is instituted.  What a work
we of the Bodyguard--I am its chaplain--what
a work we have to do!  To get representatives
on the Borough Councils pledged to fulfil the
gospel of sweetness and light; to insure that
no houses designed and built in the future shall
be hideous, or contradictions in style to each
other--the brown Victorian age of architecture is
past; to insist that exteriors be clean, and, where
possible, brightly painted; and advertisements
artistic; to take measures to abolish smoke and
dust and flies; to distribute bulbs and flowering-plants,
and give prizes for the best-loved gardens
and windows; to encourage the growth of
creepers about buildings; to plant trees, and
establish fountains in the streets."

"Dear, dear! it'll cost a lot!" thought Emmanuel.

"There is much to be done even at the
beginning.  Then the next stage.  To remove
monstrosities in houses, courts, and slums; and
generally to undo Mr. Jerry Builder.  What a
work!  All but a few of the statues which frown
on our squares and gardens must be chipped into
little bits for road-mending.  Throughout London,
throughout England, there are statues not worth
their weight in mud.  They are mere blackened
bathos--futile memorials to the generally forgotten:
tasteless, obstructive, stupid.  Down with
the bronze gentlemen in mutton-chop whiskers
and Roman togas who pose like sorry Pecksniffs."

"'Ear, 'ear!" said Mr. Oldstein, who was
beginning, at last, to feel at home, though who
Pecksniff was, bless you! for his life he didn't
know.

June had indeed used her wand with effect.
Host in his eloquence, and guest in his
appreciation, beamed on each other, mutually pleased.
The Archdeacon was delighted with his flow of
words.  The fact that his new elf-induced ideas
were fresh to him increased the interest and
respectful admiration with which he always heard
his own utterances.  He actually forgot the
lozenges in his excitement; and noted the
admiration shining in Oldstein's eyes.  He felt a
reformer, a builder of progress, a force and a light
on the side of the angels.  He was pleased with
himself.

The fairy was satisfied with her work.  She
fluttered, singing the while, through the open
window, to quicken the slumbering joys of the
garden.  She lingered among the flowers, giving
them refreshment and radiance; and hovered
about the branches of the trees, studying their
conditions, admiring their long patience.

She called Bim to her, gave him her wand, sent
him out to the world wandering.  The sparrows
chirped good-night, and went their ways to rest
before another day of struggle, squabble and
feasting.

Meanwhile, the Archdeacon continued happily
in full swing.

"All forms of stone memorial are futile," he
declared, pushing back his hair.  "The day must
come when they are mere lumber, commemorating
foolishness.  The builders of the pyramids are
now but names.  The Pharaohs hoped, by
constructing those colossal tombs, to buy themselves
eternal glory; but we, remembering the cruelties--the
blood and the suffering--which went to
their building, think of them only as colossal
mementoes of shame."

The Archdeacon frowned, shook his head, and
felt the artistic call for a significant pause.

Oldstein was fired by the reference to the first
oppressors of his People.  He forgot his
awkward shyness, and broke out with vigorous
expressions of approbation and agreement.  He was
not rebuked now.  Applause is tolerable even to
the elect.  The Archdeacon graciously beamed.

It was then that June returned to the room, and
realizing that the privilege of speech had so far
been made a monopoly, threw a spell at Emmanuel.

Her will was a law obeyed.

The Archdeacon found himself not merely mum,
but verbally besieged.  He tried to make sorties,
to resume the thread of his argument; but until
June's spell was worn away, Oldstein's eloquence
proved irresistible.  His host could only fumble
about his desk and pockets searching for the
lozenge-box which was on the mantelpiece behind
him, and occasionally agree with "Yes."

"That wath a great evenin' at the Mansion
'Outh," he declared.  "I shall never forget it;
and, Mithter Archdeacon, nothing throughout the
proceedings imprethed me like your appeal for
charity among workerth for the cauth of right.  I
thaid to mythelf, 'That'th a man'--I thaid--'and
thith ith a lethon!  If that dignitary of the Church
ith brave enough to thay thith, there's 'ope.'  I
altho thaid to mythelf, 'It ithn't many parsons
with the pluck to make such an appeal to people
who would most thertainly take 'em at their word.'  But
you did it, Mithter Pryde! you did it!  At
my synagogue at all events your words 'ave been
acthepted."

"Yes?"  This tribute to his influence was
delightful, flattering.  It compensated for the
interruption of speech.

"Yeth!  Our pastor went out of 'is way to
order some coals from the local churchwarden last
week, and expressed the 'ope that before long
some prayer said in churches against Turks, Jews
and Infidels might be left unthaid!"

"Ah!"

The Archdeacon sat in his chair, and hid his
face in his hands, thinking.

"Make your appeal again, Mithter Pryde; and
again and again.  It ith, I assure you, very poor
fun being the under dog, as we Jews 'ave been for
ages!  Even nowadays it ith only necessary to be
a Jew to know what it ith to be despithed.  Not
that thome of uth mayn't detherve to be despithed.
We 'ave black sheep among us, as you 'ave, and
it'th easy to be 'orrid when you're 'ated.  I've
been 'ated and struck"--there was fire in
Oldstein's glance--"and I've 'it back, and taken good
care to 'urt.  Well, I'm sorry for many things.  I
wath a 'ard master.  I worked 'ard mythelf, and
worked others to the uttermost.  I took all the
shekels that were due to me, and would have
taken more if I could 'ave got 'em--yeth, I would.
People theemed to expect me to plunder 'em; I
did my best not to dithappoint 'em.  And why
was I so 'ard?  Why did I 'ate all Gentiles?
Why was my 'eart full of bitter malice to all
exthept my own people?"

"Ah, who knows? who knows?" the Archdeacon
said to the ceiling.

Oldstein, carried away by the passion of his
own words, glared at the questioner.

"The quethtions were rhetorical, Mithter
Pryde," he answered softly.  "Why?  Becauthe I
was fighting the old old battle which my fatherth
and their fatherth 'ad to fight since sin made my
people subject."  He raised his voice.  It was as
the voice of a prophet.  The Archdeacon, listening,
wondered, and forgot to notice the slurred words
and broken pronunciation which proclaimed this
Jew a stranger within the gates.  "Yearth ago--in
the dayth of the Pharaoh you mentioned--the
Curse was fastened upon uth; even now the yoke
ith not removed; we are tortured with its barbs
and burdened with its misery.  We are, even
now, regarded by many as rogues and thieves
and money-tyrants, but with all our faults as a
race we do not detherve it.  It ith ath a race we
are judged, and ath individualth of a race we
are punished.  We are regarded as unwashed
foreigners, as unclean beasts.  The whole tone of
religion is in this rethpect againtht its true thelf.
In teaching love for all men, it alwayth forgeth
the foreign Jew.  Mithter Pryde, will you preach
and teach and act so that we--the poorest and
the 'umblest and the worst of us--may get the
tolerance and fair play which is every man's right?"

Oldstein had exhausted the spell.  He had said
his say, had spoken for his people, with warmth
and earnestness.  His burst of eloquence was
done.  He was again one of the rank and file of
Judaism, conscious of his pride of race, conscious
at the same time of an incomprehensible sense of
inferiority to this large, clean, pompous,
well-intentioned Englishman.  Why was it so?  Was
it because, for years upon years, he and his
forebears, though inheriting the responsibilities of
agelong aristocracy, had forgotten their inheritance,
and been content to cringe before the
powerful and wealthy, pleased to pander to their
vanity and vices, for the sake of the shekels of
trade?

There was silence--almost noisy with thought--for
more than a minute.

June with her wand had stirred deep pools.
The insoluble problems of Israel were for awhile
alive again.  Another stage in the long-drawn
opposition of Gentile and Jew was manifested.
Can that antagonism ever be ended?  Is such a
fact to be numbered among human possibilities?
Questions, questions!

The Archdeacon, touched by Oldstein's earnestness,
lost his pomposity, and forgot his poses.
He leaned forward; put a hand on his guest's
shoulder.

"I wish we could all of us get hold of the larger
charity," he said earnestly.  "When I spoke at
the Lord Mayor's table, I confess to you I did not
quite know all that there was in my words.  I
gave rein to ideas I had never allowed to have
expression, even in my thoughts, before.  The
fairies--we put it all down to them, don't we?--the
fairies must have made me speak as I did.
That was a strange night.  Reform was in the
wine-cups.  We built Quixotic dreams, and
pledged ourselves to abide by them.  Well, I
won't repine.  I am heartily glad I spoke as I
did.  You remind me of the obligations which
fall upon every responsible religious man.  I will
try harder to live up to the ideals.  Never again
will I, by thought or implication, judge or
condemn the honest opinions of others; but will
believe that all in some measure or degree are
pushing forward God's progress.  Our differences,
at their greatest, are trivial; in much of our work
we should unite."

They shook hands, confirming the pledge.

The clock sang six-thirty.

"How the time has flown!" cried the
Archdeacon, glad to be out of a scene.  "Will you
excuse me?  I must hurry and dress.  I dine at
eight with the Duchess of Armingham.  I was
going to say such a great deal to you about
cemeteries.  But another time!  So glad to have seen
you.  Good-bye!"

Oldstein went.  Good-bye to him also, so far
as this historical work is concerned!

June decided to accompany her ecclesiastic to
the Duchess's table.  She had seen the under
side, now for the over side of human life.  Sing
Hey! for the *haut ton!* as a suburban poet
would put it.

She sailed upstairs to the dressing-room and
helped.  Never before had razor shaved so
smoothly, or valet been so perfect a machine.

When the Archdeacon drove westward, he was
in the happiest condition of mind.  He had become
the compleat optimist.  Everything was for the
best in this best of all possible worlds.

The dear fairies!





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.. _`A NIGHT OUT`:

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   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center large bold

   A NIGHT OUT

.. vspace:: 2

Gnomes are notoriously irresponsible; but
town-life and a high purpose had brought changes to
Bim.  He crawled under the dark green gate
which bounded the carriage-drive, and strode into
the world with something of that air of responsibility
which hedges the dignity of a newly-elected
alderman.

Bim had no illusions as to his present capacity.
June's wand made him a power, and he knew it.
He was able to control mortals; and confidently
promised himself happenings.

He wandered through streets and passages,
indifferent and ignorant as to where they should
lead him, indeterminate as to what he should do.
He saw a hansom crawling.  This would help as
well as anything.  Imitating June's action on the
night of the banquet, he waved the wand, and by
elfin will-power compelled the cabman to rein in
his drowsy steed.

Bim clambered up the horse's off hind-leg, and
ran along the dragging reins to the roof.  As
soon as he was comfortably installed there, the
driver, who took things quite as a matter of
course, gave the necessary click with his tongue,
and started the many-times great-grandson of
Bucephalus and Rozinante.

Bim "did" some main streets.  He controlled
the man, and induced him to drive along the more
ambitious ways and where there were shining
shops.  He watched the coming and going of
people, and made up his mind what to do.

He was touched to see the streams of poor
women and children shopping and errand-running.
His sympathy exaggerated their seeming
fatigue.  They looked to him so weary that he
commanded the cabman to invite some of them
to accept lifts along the way.

"Tired, mother?" the driver--good soul!--would
say to an old lady, toiling along with her
evening burden of parcels.  "In yer git!"  Or to
a child, "Jump in, ducky!  I'd like to give *you* a
ride.  Where do you want to go?"

So it went on for an hour.  Cabby felt like
Christmas.

Then the unrewarded horse began to move
wearily, and show other signs of having done
enough.  Bim removed the spell, clambered from
his seat on the roof down the back-way of the
cab, and left the driver fastening the horse's
nose-bag to its business-place.

"The time of my life," said Jehu enthusiastically
to a surly colleague.  "I've had a most
enjoyable time.  Now you 'ave a shot, old chap,"
and explained in detail his actions and happiness.

"Eh?" grunted the other, contempt, incredulity,
and refusal expressed in the interjection.

That was enough for Bim.  He smote the churl
sharply on the boot.  Conversion followed immediately.

"Well, suppose I do," he said, as he wiped
imaginary froth from his lips.  "I 'aven't done so
badly to-day.  I will for an hour--blowed if I
won't!--then I'll pass the job on."

Bim found himself on the Embankment near
Cleopatra's Needle.  He took careful hold of the
wand, and clambered to the head of the sphinx
which gazes eastward.  Seated there, he tried to
think out a programme of activities, and watched
the grey river journeying on slowly, silently;
different, so different, from the flood of traffic, the
lighted tramcars, hooting automobiles, dashing
carriages, with their freights of mortals, which
rushed noisily by.  Oh, the restlessness of man!
The gnome was impressed with the wisdom of
the water.  It bore seaward, silently, the thoughts
of the sphinx, which with wide-opened eyes
watched London.

It was then that June saw him.  She was
driving westward in the Archdeacon's brougham,
and shone, a little being of light, gladdening the
gloom of the carriage.  Bim waved the wand
triumphantly to her.  She threw him smiles.
Happy gnome!  His earnestness took fire
immediately.  Then altruism merged with mischief.
He threw his plans and programme to the eight
winds.  He would paint the town a fairy red.
Why not run amok?

He jumped from the sphinx, plump on to the
peaked cap of a passing police inspector, and
flooded the official with magic.  A sergeant came
up and saluted.

"Good-evening, Baines," said the inspector.
"Tell the men to be extra kind to all poor chaps
to-night.  Tell 'em to have blind eyes for the
homeless and hungry.  The fairies would wish it.
Tell 'em to pass this order on; we must please
the fairies."

The sergeant stared.  This was unprecedented.
What was authority coming to?

"Right, sir," he answered, and saluted again.
"I'll see to it," and did so.

The inspector marched on to Scotland Yard,
more than usually pleased with himself.

Bim happened then to notice a strange creature
sprawling at the end of a seat.  Curiosity
compelled him to spring.  He alighted on a lap.

Everyone in Fairyland is naturally partial to
poetry and in love with love.  One of the
purposes of the elves is to help the affected and
idealize the sentiments of lovers, making them
worthy of their privileges.  They fulfil this
purpose faithfully.  When the courses of Cupid
run smoothly the elves have been helpful.
Unhappy love-affairs are invariably those
unblessed by Oberon's people.  They keep sharp
eyes ready for the hindering of the plans of
worldly-wise parents.

Bim studied a strange-looking beast.  It seemed
to consist of a large, much-ribboned hat, several
arms, and a sprawl.  Lovers!  The nose of Her
was in His neck.  There was an occasional move
and tremor, followed by a sounding kiss, one of
the kisses that hit.  Passers-by were many, but
Love cared not a jot for anything--but Love!
The curious and contemptuous had a hundred
opportunities for cynical judgment; which they
used, only to be entirely ignored.

Throughout the parks and places of London,
similar exhibitions of vulgar bathos, flopping and
unashamed, were to be witnessed; every pair of
some hundred thousand lovers being splendidly
indifferent to all else but their own sufficient
selves.

Meanwhile, the gnome sat on the lap, and
wondered, awed and troubled: listening eagerly,
waiting impatiently, for honeyed words of love.

Silence brooded.  Big Ben struck.

"Eight o'clock!" said Strephon to Phyllis, and
kissed her.

The silence brooded again.

Bim fled in dismay to the next seat, where
another love-bitten couple happened to be sprawling.
He witnessed a similar feast of brazen bathos.

Stupid silence still gloomed over the rapture.
He waited.

The great clock chimed again.

"Quarter-past," said she, and a kiss flew skywards.

From seat to seat Bim went; every move was
marked by the chimes of the Parliamentary clock.
"Half-past."  "Quarter-to."  "Nine."

Such was love's dialogue.  O time!  O manners!
Where are our raptures, our sonnets and rhapsodies?

Bim became furious.  He ran at full speed
along the Embankment, viciously poking with his
wand every love-lorn pair: and on, through
Story's Gate into St. James's Park.  As he went
he passed scores of strolling lovers.  He put his
spell on every pair of them.

Through the Green Park he hurried, and across
Piccadilly into Hyde Park.  Wherever he went
he carried magic, and produced its consequences.
Love's multitudinous tongues were no longer tied.
Thoughts hitherto dumb found glowing speech.

The gnome had run amok with a vengeance.

"Darling, darling, darling, darling!" said one
young man in an ecstasy increasing with every
syllable.

"Darling, darling, darling!" came the feminine
answer, in tones that thrilled.

Then another sweet voice was gently borne
upon the westering wind.

"I know where there's the teeniest duck of a
saucepan set which will just suit our wee little
homey."

The stars twinkled.

"Does-um!" was the masculine answer.

Still the stars twinkled.

"Ted," said Emma, "do you love me, love me?"  She
had been to a series of popular melodramas,
and saw herself languid and rapturous.  She
asked questions emotionally, with the emphasis
that comes with repetition.

"That I do just, old gell!" came the reply.

"And will you, my heart, always love me,
love me?"

"S'welp me! old gell, I will!"

"Then another, Ted."  There was a noise as of
machine guns barking at a blue distance.  Emma
seemed satisfied.

Bim was pleased.  He had not been looking for
words in purple, and so was unable to feel
disappointed.  But as he worked from chair to chair
he could not help accumulating the wish that
more of the minor poet had been born in the
common people.  The prose that came was better
than a mere bald narrative of time; but, surely,
was not worthy of Aphrodite's doves.

Gradually the better came.  It was the work of
unconscious imitation.

Examples were being quickly followed in many
directions.  Several cabmen, having earned their
day's requirements and a little over, were now
using their cabs and still unwearied horses to
convey for short distances fares too poor to pay
for a ride.  Motor-cabs and private cars actually
buzzed with philanthropy.  Policemen, carrying
out and carrying on the inspector's orders,
were urgently helping down-at-heel gentlefolk
to be as comfortable as out-of-door conditions
permitted.

So, too, lovers on that blessed evening,
influenced by Bim, began to be worthy of Juliet, and
their fellows of the Heaven-kissed company to
whom passion has become sanctified, and the
possession of love is a joy crowned, a power
enthroned, making of its votaries queens and
princes----  Ah me, and so on!  The series of
lovers multitudinous gradually became ashamed
of their ungracefulness.  They walked now, or
sat with some better sense of picturesque
propriety.  Sprawling and hugging were postponed
for the armchairs at home.  The parks became
tolerable to the married.

Here and there a joyful swain reclined at his
lady's feet.  The methods of musical comedy
were fittingly applied to the prose of life.  Ernie
Jenkins was one of these recumbent swains.  It
was his weekly evening with Emily, who sat on
a chair under a chestnut-tree steadily absorbing
acid-drops.  His red hair was stubbly, but he
brushed his brow as if it were thick with love-locks.

"Emily!  Emily!" he murmured repeatedly.
Never had his feeling for her been so romantic as
it now seemed.  His narrow chest expanded with
rapture and contracted with sighs.  He knew
himself fortunate.  Bim had nearly prevailed on him
to make the plunge.  Though unable to go that
length, Ernie mentally vowed to reduce his
weekly allowance of bitter beer, the better to
provide a nest-egg for furniture--which sounds
like a mixed metaphor, but isn't; and if it were,
can be put down to the fairies, who may do
anything grammatical they please, even to the extent
of splitting infinitives, which mortal authors may
never do.

Hyde Park grew more and more delightful to
Bim during that evening of bliss.  He flitted
about as if wings were on his feet, and with
June's wand helped flowers, birds, grasses and
winds to become more fairylike.  Those blessed
existences behaved as if they realized and
enjoyed the change; and, to their credit be it said,
no leafy, green space in crowded London had so
much in accord with Falkland as the flowers,
birds, grasses, winds, in Hyde Park then.  Nature
is, after all, a jolly good poet.

A new moon made its appearance.  It peeped
from a cradle of clouds.  Venus and Jupiter
gleamed underneath it.  Other stars in their
places shone.  That was the first night to gladden
London since the Mayday of June's madness;
and as for the long, long time before that--oh
dear! oh dear!

June, peering through a ducal window, realized
the improvement, and was delighted with Bim.
She knew it was largely his doing--his and the
wand's.  Her sympathy grew radiant towards
him.  He was a good gnome, and when they had
returned, victorious and forgiven, to the Land of
Wild Roses--as she had no doubt they would do
eventually--he should be rewarded.  Perhaps she
would kiss him.

Slowly, but all too speedily, the time went by.
The band which for three comfortable hours had
been stirring the hearts of hundreds, played the
Good-night National Anthem, and put out its
lights.  Two by two the lovers turned homewards,
each couple happily emotional, joying in
the enthralment, delightfully subdued.  There
were more marriages determined upon, more
attachments confirmed and made love-affairs
during that evening, than ever before--with the
possible exception of the last of the supralapsarian
days.

The author of this splendid improvement sat,
smiling and tired, on a discarded cigarette-box.
He joyed in the wide silence and the dewy
grass.

The park became more and more still.  On
every side of it there was the eternal hum of the
traffic.  Solitary wayfarers passed silently along
the walks and faded into the darkness.  Now and
then the shadow of laughter was heard, occasional
cab-calls, one distant bugle sounding the last post,
a man's voice giving a hail.  Slowly even such
sounds as these were lost in the all-engulfing
silence; the night was very still.

There was room for fairies here, thought Bim,
but no fairies were there.  There ought to be
rings of them, lightly laughing and dancing;
making merriment for the stars.  Hyde Park in
its loneliness longed for them.  They, only, were
needed to make it the perfect garden.

The places of the elves had been taken by
creatures of a very different clay.  An hour or
so ago, and the park was thronged with youth,
hopeful, happy, confident.  The difference now!

In all directions there slept or grumbled on
the grass the human waste of our social system;
the aged, the ugly, the hopeless, the infirm and
unfit; the thriftless, workless, worthless--worn
remnants of all manner of miserable humanity.
Poor wretches whose days had long been damned!
Their backs are weak with burdens.  They have
not even a hope in their pockets.  They have
sinned and suffered; have learned the many
lessons of bitterness, and been crushed.  They
have hungered and had to continue hungry; have
been wet, cold, and, in their shivering, had no
better shelter than some broken penthouse or
windy archway; their only friendships have been
with members of their own dismal fraternity.
Fortunate was Lear!  They have touched desire
with crime and been compelled to pay the law's
and the world's penalties.  There is short shrift
for such as these, the drift of the cities.  Born
are they to suffer, to endure; to know only
shame; to die.

The gnome resumed his wanderings, and gazed
wonderingly at the many sleeping faces.  It was
the most amazing of all the sights he had seen.
The marks of meanness and want were stamped
on them.  Yes, June was right in her madness.
The fairies ought to have prevented this.  Tragedy
is permissible when it is romantic, but such
tragedy of squalor as was lighted by the starshine
then was ugly, evil, the first and last of the
shames.  The gnome came across Lazy Tim, who
stretched on an open newspaper, fast asleep,
snoring with his mouth wide open.

Tim was a ne'er-do-well.  He had not one
scruple, hope, ambition, or blessing.  His father
and mother had been ne'er-do-wells also.  Beyond
them he had no history.  He had never been
inside a school, or known what discipline--other
than that of the gaol and casual ward--meant.
He had never formed a taste for work, but, thanks
to sharpened half-wits, had here and there earned
many crooked pence.  He had been taken on as
a farm-hand and a factory-hand times out of
counting; but the monotony of the one
employment and the prison-like character of the
other had always driven him into the free-lance
world again.  Tim was unmoral and incorrigible.
He had known no guidance whatever
in his ways.  He had an idea that it was wise
to dodge any man in uniform, and that was
about all.

Experience had, however, taught him many of
the tricks of cheap cunning.  He could, when in
the humour, pitch a yarn about his non-existent
wife and children and the bronchitis, which would
make a stone moist with sympathy.  He had
even on one extraordinary occasion obtained
sixpence from a local secretary of the Charity
Organization Society, and frequently had charmed
the generosity of not a few religious ladies with
his sighs and aspirations.  He would have taken
any religion you liked for a course of square meals.
Once there was, possibly, good material in Tim;
but it had run to seed and been lost.  He had not
enjoyed one fair chance.  He had come into the
world inopportunely.  The fates were sleeping
when he was born.  Ever since infancy he had
starved, stolen, sinned--if such as he can
"sin"--been punished and neglected; and so was
wrecked.

Bim, studying the sleeping face, was stirred
with fairy's pity.  He knew nothing of Tim's
past experience, of the opportunities grudged,
denied, and lost; but could see the man was
inherently unhappy.  That was enough.  Poor
wretch!  Something must be done for him at
once.  He wished June had been there to
prescribe the remedy.  But there was no use in
fruitless wishing.  Such is not Elfland's way.

He marched up Tim's body, and felt the wasted
form under his feet.  Bones and hunger, that was
the story; bones and hunger and rags.  He stood
by the tangled beard, and with the end of the wand
gently stroked the lined and scraggy face.  Tired,
ugly face!  It looked so weak, ay, and so brutal
in the night's dark light.  Scars were cut into the
cheeks and forehead; the nose was debased, and
bore the marks of drink and fighting.  The hair,
in a grey and filthy tangle, streamed from under
a broken hat.  Here was a man in the prime of
life, finally ruined.

Tim would wake presently.  What was the use
of his waking?  Better always to sleep and
dream than to live again for the day's despair and
a life's long misery.

Bim laid the point of the wand on the sleeping
man's forehead, and thought of these things.

Suddenly Tim awoke, stretched, rose, shook
himself, burst out into laughing.  He took off his
hat and looked carefully at it.  "A kingly crown!"
cried he.  He stroked his rags, and was joyful.
"Ermine and purple."  His hunger was forgotten;
his thirst--his only ever-faithful companion--no
longer made pleadings.  "Feasts in plenty!" he
exclaimed, lifting arms delightedly to the stars.
"What a palace I have!  What a kingdom!  Oh,
my royal heritage!  It is good to be alive--to be
king, king, king!"

Tim had found happiness.  Never again could
he know the evils of bitter reality.  Henceforward
he was blessed with the illusions.  He was
"touched."  Bim and the wand had wrought the
marvel.

Blessed are the poor whom the fairies have
touched.  Hats off to them, gentlemen!  They
are far beyond life's miseries.  They are kings
in their own right--happy kings.  We who have
the blue and yellow worries, even though we can
jingle coins in our pockets, are far less happy
than they.

Bim climbed a chestnut-tree, and found slumber
in a throstle's nest.





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.. _`IN SOCIETY`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   IN SOCIETY

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As the Archdeacon's carriage rolled westward,
June watched the people in the crowded streets,
and made some estimate of the task in front of her.

Already she and her squire had done much.
They had speeded the efforts of the good folk
always at work.  They had guided the benevolent
and beneficent along the wise ways.  They had
done much--very much, but it was as nothing in
comparison with the need.  North, south, east
and west, she had flown in her peregrinations,
only to find much the same problems, similar
squalor, selfishness, ugliness and want--unhappy
legacies of past carelessness and misdoings--prevalent
in all parts.  Slums and indifference
abounded wherever she flew.  It was the
indifference which particularly troubled her.  She
rested her head on the Archdeacon's watch-pocket
and wept.

The prospect before herself and Bim seemed
appalling.  Only the gnome and she--two, when
what really was wanted was an organized army
from Elfland of gentle spirits with magic besoms
and enchanted swords.

But it was no use sighing for the unavailable.
She must go on as well as she could, making the
most of her own powers, intentions and Bim.

Armingham House stands in a dull respectable
square.  Two stone armorial beasts keep guard
of its ugly gateway.  They are legendary monsters,
not wyverns, or griffins, or unicorns, or
mock-turtle, but something of a combination of all of
these.  On the arch of the gate is a broken motto,
which means something heroic in very bad French.
It originated from a martial medieval incident;
nobody remembers what.  One of the advantages
of long descent is a convenient haziness as to
certain events and beginnings.

The Duke of Armingham possessed every one
of the characteristics of extreme aristocracy.  His
blue blood, high nose, arched eyebrows and
slender hands could only be improved on by an
idealistic portrait-painter.  They were the sure
marks of class and culture.  He had the gentle
voice, deliberate manner, and a habit of waving
his pince-nez when he was speaking, which mark
authority.  Throughout his life, whenever he had
spoken, others had to be silent; it was therefore
unnecessary for his voice to be raised, or his tones
to become strident.

His fashions were those of the early seventies.
Until that period he had out-dandified the dandies
and been glorious in the forefront of his time.
Then his style stayed still.  Any more recent
order of dress than that which Louis Napoleon
affected was out of date, he declared.  He was,
in these later days, a dear old thing, kind and as
perfectly happy as a duke can be.  He bore the
disadvantages of his wealth and position with
wonderful lightheartedness, and was able by
taking thought to avoid being envious of his
inferiors.  He feared nothing except lightning,
mud in Piccadilly, and his Duchess on a Court day.

His wife was even more assuredly an exalted
being.  Rumour said that in her young days she
had been a nursery governess; but those who
ought to be authoritative on the subject declared
that rumour lied.  Anyhow, the gilt and scarlet
books which tell the tales of the titled, gave her
a colonel for father, so that her blood was likely
to be something blue.  In her gowns and graces
she certainly looked every inch a Duchess, and
there were many inches.

Her influence in the world was worthy of her
station.  She had eyes which commanded, and
could make presumption feel like a doormat on
a rainy day.  She never forgot her coronet and
was not genial; indeed, she looked on mankind
through diminishing lorgnettes, and saw it small.
She was one of the two hundred and twenty-three
ladies, all the world over, who know they
are Supermen.

When June and the Archdeacon arrived at
Armingham House, the fairy had not quite
recovered from the dumps.  She had for a little
while lost confidence in herself, and felt no longer
militant.  She clung to the Archdeacon, and was
borne by him up the white and blue stairway
between footmen with heads of silver.  The scene
where the guests were welcomed was magnificent.
The servants in their yellow livery, the ladies
with their jewels, the sparkle, the laughter, and
the flowers, made splendid circumstance.

The picture, beautiful though it might be to
mortal eyes, could not win June from her state
of weary self-consciousness.  She listened to the
talk, and watched the movement listlessly.  It
was all the matter of dream.  In comparison with
the wealth and royalty of Fairyland, it was mere
shadow, noise, nonsense and tinsel!

She was certainly feeling unappreciative and
depressed.

The Archdeacon passed through the business
of greetings, and fell into talk with Lord Geoffrey
Season, the Duke of Armingham's third and
youngest son.

Lord Geoffrey was a golden youth of
twenty-seven.  Since his sixth birthday he had been
destined for Parliament.  There was a county
constituency waiting for him to accept its
suffrages at the next General Election; while family
influence and the way he wore his clothes made
it certain he would be entrusted with office early.
Up to the present he had done little more than
always the proper thing.  He had the statesman-like
quality of never being original, could express
the obvious with an air of profundity, and gave
promise of not making any mistakes, which, after
all, is somewhat less than the heaven-sent destiny.
He was moreover--at present--something of a prig.

June awakened from her lethargy to take an
interest in him.  She liked his wavy hair and
china blue eyes, but still her energy was sleeping.
She would keep her eyes on Geoffrey.  She
saw in him possibilities.

Watching the guests, idly studying their brightness
of mind, and evident bodily content, noting
the luxury of the surroundings, she, perforce,
must come to the building of comparisons and
contrasts.  Different this from the squalid misery
she had witnessed and endured since her entry into
London!  It was not Paradise Court alone which
formed the great contrast, but slums innumerable
in all parts of the Metropolis; and, linked with
them, those dun habitations of struggling
respectability, the hundred thousand ugly houses in dull
inglorious streets, occupied by drudges, who, day
after day, through the years, toil in shops and
offices, selling their God-given lives for a little
dross, a little patronage, and some spells of
conventional happiness.

(This is the Fairies' judgment.)

After those years of little-profitable labour--away
from Nature, away from the large reality--and
after the faithful practising of ritual, according
to the gospel of Mrs. Grundy, the poor things
become brothers and sisters to the vegetables
and die.  So drift their lives away!

And here--at the very other extreme--was this
great ducal casket of luxury and laughter, giving
welcome to a limited select circle of people who
need, if so they willed, do nothing but be happy
and enjoy themselves.  Heigho! paradoxes a
hundredfold abide in the shadows by every street
corner.

June remembered the phantoms of Paradise
Court, and, in a different manner from the
Pharaoh whom Moses chided, hardened her
heart.  Oberon, or no Oberon, the fairies should
come back to London town!  For the sake of
the so-called rich, as well as for the sake of the
very poor, they must re-create Elfdom within the
seven square miles, and carry their blessed
influence through Suburbia.  If this could not be
before she must yield up the crown, then it must
be after.  In any case, it must be.  That was
certain, flat, absolute.  London should be reclaimed.

The Archdeacon's table-partner was Mrs. Billie
Thyme, a small pink, flaxen lady, whose
over-rich elderly husband financed her fads, and in
consequence gave her ample opportunity to shine
in the personal paragraphs of evening newspapers.
Mrs. Billie was not the least bit *blasée*,
although even she was sighing for new
excitements to conquer.

She was always in an infinite vein of flutter
and chatter.  Most exalted personages were glad
to talk nonsense with her; at bazaars and
garden-parties her skirt-dancing drew the crowd.  She
was a prime favourite of the Duchess, and kept
the dinner-circle well entertained with tinkling
talk.

It was she who began on the fairies.  They
were seldom left out of the conversation of these
times.  June was still dreamily inert, throned on
a large silver salt-cellar, watching and indifferently
wondering, not yet vividly interested enough to
use these puppets for the march-forward of her
ideas.

"And what are we to think of this fairy craze?"
Mrs. Thyme asked of the company generally.

There was no immediate response.  The Archdeacon
left the question for someone else to
answer.  In Society he tried habitually to sit
on the fence.

"A nine-day' wonder!" said Lord Geoffrey.
"Mere nonsense, as ping-pong and diabolo were."

"A folly to-day; forgotten to-morrow; and
afterwards a sad reflection"--this from a novelist
of the moment--"democracy is a baby which
quickly breaks its toys."

"It has already lasted nearby nine weeks,"
answered the Duke quietly.  "It is strange; I
don't understand it.  That Mansion-House fellow,
the Lord Mayor, began it.  The movement seems
spreading.  Most movements do spread nowadays.
We didn't do that sort of thing in the seventies."

"Indeed, no," agreed the Duchess, in her best
commanding-officer voice.  "When I was a
'gairl,' belief in the fairies lingered amongst the
Irish and nowhere else.  Those Board Schools
and Trade Unions have caused this nonsense,
I'm sure."

"There is one encouraging fact, Duchess!"
cried the novelist, of course an egoist, who called
himself Douglas le Dare, though his patronymic
was Barlow, and his father had christened him
William.  "It is that in our literature--the test
of our minds--we keep to sane life and the plain
truth.  Fairy tales are not written nowadays;
such originality is futility.  We weave our
romances round every-day life, we adorn dull
truth, and what's the result?  I sold fifty thousand
copies of my last book."

"Did you really?" said Mrs. Thyme, opening
her blue eyes to their widest.  "I think I will
write!"

"Ha!" he said, as he shook back his iron-grey
locks--his hair was an advertisement--"you
should write, but deal with facts--facts--the
fairies--pah!--they are merely a sort of mental
fungi.  The public wants prose.  Always please
the public!  That is the root of literary success."

June was alive now.  Her wings quivered with
indignation.  The crown on her head blazed with
elf-light.  She was angry, angry.  But she made
no movement, only sat upright on the salt-box,
keenly attentive to what those clay creatures
would say.

"If you do start author, Katie," said the Duke
to Mrs. Thyme, "you must cultivate an
eccentricity or two, mustn't she, Mr. le Dare?"

"Oh, I don't know, Duke!"

"Oh, must I?" she exclaimed, eagerness alight
in her eyes.  "Do tell me an eccentricity or
two!"

"Sorry I can't, Mrs. Thyme.  All my spare
time is occupied with thinking out my own
eccentricities, what few I indulge in.  No; what you
really require is to be earnestly business-like,
and to see well after the advertisement of your
books."

Then a bearded Baronet, who wore a sparkling
monocle, and thought it humorous to be
interfering, joined in.

"Talkin' of fairies and the Lord Mayor," he
said, "weren't you mixed up in that little business
at the Mansion House, Mr. Archdeacon?  Eh?
What?"

Eyes turned to the person addressed, who,
finding his theories not promising to be popular in
that company, was willing to remain silent while
the tide of depreciation flowed.  All his life he
had been on the side of the cheers.  June looked
at him.  She was eager to see how he endured
the test.  If he failed and proved faithless, the
power of Fairyland would be lessened thereby,
for faith is the strength-giver.  She did nothing
to influence him.  Though, in her indignation,
magic emanated from her personality, it was not
to affect him.

He sipped his sherry, and answered with
deliberation, while the others hearkened with all
their ears.

"I was there, Sir Claude.  It was a wonderful
occasion.  The place seemed charmed, enchanted.
Everyone of the company--City magnates, practical
men, merchants, and so on--made resolutions
for the good of our fellows.  Under that influence
of enchantment I made resolutions also.  I believe
we have all of us kept them."

There was a little while of silence only interrupted
by the slithering of the knives and forks.

"Archdeacon, do you really believe in the
fairies?" asked Mrs. Thyme, in her tingle-tangle
voice.

June, piqued by the doubt in the question,
wondered whether the colour of Mrs. Billie's hair
was born or made.

"I do, absolutely.  I am proud to be positive
that they exist."

"Tush!" said Douglas le Dare.

"They exist," the Archdeacon re-affirmed.

Victory!  June slid from the salt-cellar and
began a dance of rejoicing, of triumph--a *pas-de-seul*
among the wine-cups.  None of the company
could see her; it was loveliness lost to mortal
eyes.  Only the Archdeacon, who possessed
some store of fairy faith, had a glimmering of the
gaiety and beauty of the motion-poem then being
made.  It nerved him to do battle for what he
would have called Oberon's cause.

The room became filled with magic.  Spells of
pure joy were woven from the tracery of June's
feet, and governed all but one.  The butler and
his men, waiting with the imperturbability of
grenadiers on parade, were inclined to dance in
chorus; but discipline and the knowledge that
the Duchess's eyes were upon them kept them prim.

Still the fairy danced.  Here and there she
tripped over the damask, flitting airily round the
epergnes with their young summer flowers;
then up and about the heads of the guests,
stimulating their ideas, giving them delightful
poetical fancies, poising now and then, with
dainty foot and wings outspread, on the brims
of the glasses, making all of them glad, all of
them glad but--the Duchess.

She alone, during that period of enchantment,
remained unimpressed and obdurate.  Fashion is
a petrifying influence.  Her Grace, who regarded
it as her duty always with stiff lips to overlook
the unfashionable, was at present beyond even
the softening powers of June.  She remained as
stone, unsympathetic, uncomprehending.
Conversation was dumb during that terpsichorean
spell.

June rested at length, and flew, well-pleased,
to couch among the flowers.

"Bravo!" cried Lord Geoffrey.

"Eh?" inquired the Duke, putting on his
pince-nez, and peering through them at his son.
The word of applause seemed to fit in with his
mood exactly, but he did not understand its
applicability.

"I said 'Bravo!' bravo to the Archdeacon,
who, with characteristic courage, is going to
justify his faith in those essences, the fairies."

"Ah yes, of course, of course!  Please instruct
us; we are attentive, Mr. Archdeacon."

It is not easy to make any detailed expression
of opinion or justification of faith over well-cooked
food.  That is an occasion for wit and brevity--epigram
was born at a dinner-table.  The Archdeacon
felt his disadvantage, especially as the
eyes of the Duchess, like the orbs of a mild
Medusa, were expressing disapprobation.

"I cannot pretend, your Grace, to be able,
under the circumstances, to justify my faith in
the fairies," he declared, while thoughtfully
cutting his *poussin*.  "I can only assert that faith,
and prove its truth as I live by acting up to its
principles and helping to make the world more
beautiful and happy."

"Ruskin and soda-water!  Eh?  What?"
murmured Sir Claude, glancing round for the
laughter which did not come.

The Archdeacon, to whom flippancy was more
than a venial sin, felt inclined to crush the
Baronet; but succeeded in effectually ignoring
him, which was worse.

"Imagination is, without doubt, required to
realize the existence of the fairies.  They are
not tangible, as are, say, bricks.  But is that a
difficulty?  Imagination is requisite before we
can appreciate the existence of ether, and several
other essences--to use Lord Geoffrey's word--which
we know well are about us, and affect us,
though we cannot see, smell, taste, handle, or
otherwise comprehend them."

"But surely, Mr. Archdeacon," the Duke intervened,
for no other reason than to give his guest
opportunity to continue his meal.  "Surely you
would not in any way put together the results of
scientific inquiry, the fruits of the research of
physicists, with--bogies and other dreams?"

A murmur of agreement ran round the table.
A ducal host is certain of support in any
argument he undertakes.

"I don't see why not, Duke.  They are obviously
different in kind as you broadly state them; but
I believe they are really linked closer than we
yet know.  The fact is that every certainty is
merely a drop in an ocean of uncertainty, an
ocean of unplumbable depths.  Science is always
on the edge of new discoveries, which can only
be bridged at first by the imagination.  Without
imagination Newton would have seen nothing
more than an apple falling, when that simple
fact--as common as raindrops--brought to him
revelation of the all-compelling law of gravitation.
Without imagination Watt could not have built
his 'Rocket' out of a kettle and a puff of steam.
Imagination is a necessity in all
departments"--Le Dare sighed audibly--"except perhaps in
some modern books."

"A kettle! a kettle!" said the Duchess to
herself--*sotto voce*--yet very well heard.  "What
may a kettle be?"

A judge who sat next to her hastened to instruct
her, while the ensuing course was served.

"Even the law of gravitation," the Archdeacon
continued, after a period of general conversation,
of mixed comments and further challenges,
"cannot be absolutely proved, though we all accept
it.  Nor can the dogma that three times seven
are twenty-one be proved, or the assertion that
a line is length without breadth, or--to come to a
different kind of example--the statements of
historians that William of Normandy lived, conquered
and died.  Nothing can be proved to some people.
It is a matter of faith.  Why do we believe that
William fought with Harold at Senlac?  Because
we are told so, and our imagination appreciates
the details of the narrative.  We accept the
Saxon Chronicle as essentially a true story, and
Matilda's Bayeux tapestry as representing real
people and actual scenes.  But they wouldn't
convince a determined sceptic, or a school-boy
faced with the authority of the text-books, if he
were sufficiently original, obstinate, incredulous,
and without the imaginative gift.  They may be
regarded by some people as fraudulent tales, or
forged representations of the truth, and to any
extent as partial and prejudiced stories--(No
more wine, thank you)--and who could convince
them otherwise?  So all these accepted
assertions--scientific, historical, personal--may be
refused by one who has no imagination.  Just in
the same way the existence of the fairies may be
believed in or disbelieved.  I admit it is beyond
my capacity for demonstration to prove that they
exist.  I have never seen a fairy.  If you asked
me whether it was the size of a needle, a horse,
or a haystack, I could not say; and it would not
matter.  Enough that, though invisible, they are
lovely and beneficent, and that their influence--be
it illusory or not--tends towards the betterment
of human life.  I am content to assert that
I believe in these essences by results.  The facts
of the Lord Mayor's feast were beyond ordinary
comprehension, yet they actually occurred, and
caused some hundreds of prosaic business men--as
staid and reliable as any human beings can be--to
make resolutions to be less selfish and more
socially useful; and actually to keep those
resolutions.  I am sorry to bore you with such a long
discourse, but it was necessary as the subject is
so important.  I believe in the fairies, and wish
their governance was potent to-day."

"So do I," said the enthusiastic Mrs. Thyme.
June instantly forgave her past offences.

"Bravo!" cried Lord Geoffrey again.

"But do you know--I'm not referring to
yourself, Mr. Archdeacon--do you know for a fact
that they did keep them?  Is that fruits of the
imagination too?  Eh?  What?"

The doubter was, as usual, the annoying
Baronet.  June looked at him, a tiny glint of
anger in her eyes, and gave him twinges--the
promise of gout.

"Sir Claude, I do!  Only to-day I had a visit
from a Jew, a City tradesman, who had, throughout
his long business life, sweated his people.  This
man--I need not mention his name--was a guest
at the Lord Mayor's banquet.  He is now a model
employer; tender-hearted, generous and scrupulous.
He ascribes his wonderful change entirely
to the influence of the fairies."

The pause which followed these words was
testimony to their effect.  June began to dance
again.  She was as pleased as Punch with her
protégé.  The Archdeacon had turned up trumps.

But the Duchess was not pleased.  Her old
friend Archdeacon Pryde was becoming
dreadfully plebeian.  To talk at her table about a
kettle, and then about a Jew tradesman, was very
like exceeding the social limit, so she gave the
hostess's signal, and the ladies withdrew; while
June flew to the window and gained strength,
inspiration and hope from the brightness of the
skies and the young summer moon.





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.. _`CONVERTING A DUCHESS`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   CONVERTING A DUCHESS

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The fairy found the cigar-smoke abominable;
and as the conversation of the men, possibly
because of the tobacco, lapsed towards dulness--it
was mostly about guns and turnips--she flew
out of the dining-room to the salon upstairs, to
sit on the great piano and watch the Duchess and
her feminine friends enjoying coffee and Chopin,
while the more ardently idle of them babbled of
nothings.

June seemed transported to a languid, lazy
world, peopled by disillusioned descendants of
the lotus-eaters.  Except for the Duchess, who
always sat bolt upright--Mrs. Pipchin was, in
that respect, her democratic parallel--the ladies
lounged in the luxurious chairs, slowly waved
fans, and drivelled.  During that period of
supineness nothing vertebrate was said, with the
exception of one pious wish expressed by Mrs. Billie
Thyme.

"I wish those fairies would bring the men along!"

At that remark three ladies feebly smiled.  The
others--with the exception of the Duchess, who
never forgot her dignity--lounged lazily, thought
sleepily, and, when they spoke, drawled.

June yawned.  For the first and last time in
the history of Fairydom she did so, and knew
herself bored utterly.

That yawn roused her: it annoyed her.  She
would endure no more of that overpowering
influence of laziness.  She flew straight to the
Duchess, circled thrice about her chair, and
then, standing on the grey coiffure, wantonly
disarranged the tiara, dragging it back to
put in its place the crown.  She dumped the
symbol of sovereignty down with a shadowy thump.

Her Grace of Armingham blinked.  Something
had happened.  What?  Strange thoughts began
to bubble.  Her brain was a maze of
topsy-turvydom.  She wanted to laugh aloud and laud
the fairies.  She fixed her mind on her present
amazing irresponsibleness, and tried to banish
the demon of discord that prevailed.  It was no
good.  The more she endeavoured to fashion her
ideas according to their customary crystallized
pattern, the more they resisted.  She possessed
a burning desire to make a pun.  She wrestled
stubbornly with the horrid inclination.  Setting
her brows in a frown, her lips in a thin red line,
she determinately withstood the mocking influence
that held her.

June settled on the top of a large ottoman,
whence she could comfortably watch the battle.
It was magnificent, and it was war.  She determined
to bring an expression of light-heartedness
to that handsome stubborn face.  She bent her
powers of mind and magic to the proper subduing
of the stately dame, and had by no means
the best of it.  The crown was potent.  It held
the best magic of Elfland; but against that
particular example of pride, coldness and contempt,
it was ineffectual as yet.  It was like melting a
glacier with lucifer matches.

Meanwhile the mind of the Duchess was in a
buzz of contradictory humours.  She was uncertain
of herself.  She wanted to express ideas
the very opposite of her age-worn convictions.
For the first time she saw herself as not quite
the most important creature amongst the stars.
Beyond all else, above all else, at that phase of
the conflict, the insatiable desire to make a pun
beset her.  Horrible!  Horrible!  The better
half of her mind, the predominant partner of her
will, bravely and silently exclaimed against its
dreadfulness.  But imps seemed playing pranks
with her, giving her a thousand opportunities for
some infamous punning.  The propensity had
hold of her like neuralgia; it needed all her
firmness and stolid prejudice to counteract the
tendency, and prevent the commission of that
lowest form of verbal play.  During the whole of
the battle Strauss and Chopin were supplying
their melodies; and June was feeling fiercely
unmerciful.

Then the men came drifting in.  The ladies
woke from their languors.  Bridge was mentioned.

Geoffrey, seeing the frowns and energy in his
mother's face, wondered who had offended.  He
looked sharply at Mrs. Thyme; she was evidently
not the culprit.  He found her smiling at Sir
Claude, and making room for him by her side on
a settee.  The Baronet had always some entertaining
ill-natured tattle at the end of his tongue.
He was the Autolycus of tinted gossip.  June, in
sheer puckishness of spirit, touched the Baronet
with a spell.  His stories became Sunday tales.
They were dilatory and improving.  Mrs. Billie
frankly told him he bored.

It was the Duke who noticed the tiara out of
place.  He sauntered over to his wife, wondering
how this could have happened.  He saw new
wrinkles about her eyes.  Her face had an
east-wind expression.

"Edith," he murmured, "look in the mirror.
Your tiara."

The pained look went.  Her fashionable callousness
for a moment melted.  She raised her hands
to the tiara to mend the mischief.  A pun--the
only pun possible under the circumstances--was
on her lips.  It came to the edge of expression;
she to the brink of defeat.

She rallied her forces desperately.  She would
not be beaten.  But the magic was potent.  She
had to say it, and did--to herself.  Her lips moved
mutely.  That was the beginning of the fairies'
victory.

Suddenly June felt pity for the *grande dame*,
who, in her solitude of station, knew no better.
Already with her keen susceptibilities she could
see the real aspect of sadness in that golden
scene.  Paradise Court had its hopelessness, its
waste and poverty; so had Armingham
House--hopelessness, waste, poverty, as actual, if not
worse, though different, very different, from what
the poorest know.

Nothing in all London had struck her as more
pitiable than the barrenness of interests and
fetters of wealth which starved and prisoned
those unawakened rich.  The more she saw of
them, the more she felt for them.  Their selfishness
was mainly the selfishness of ignorance.
They needed to know; they needed to do.  It
was the fairy's function to give them opportunities
for knowledge and for helpful deeds.  To quicken
their atrophied usefulness must be her work.
Then Fairyland would have flown closer to the
fireplace.

June released the Duchess and recrowned herself.
Weary of lotus-eaters and emptiness, she
crept out through the opened window into the
garden to recreate her purposes among the
shadows under the stars, but some of her influence
lingered behind and was effectual.

It was not quite the same Duchess who governed
her guests that evening and guided the party along
its dull, appointed way.  Again and again the
Duke, Lord Geoffrey, the Archdeacon, noticed in
her touches of unusual geniality.  They were
only occasional gleams; but those who knew her
best saw the difference.  The inconsequent pun
had shifted a load of stratified self-conceit.  Out
of irresponsibility sympathy had come.

The fairy, when her wearied strength was
renewed, for the strain and the atmosphere of
London still weighed heavily upon her, revelled
in that garden.  She sang as she flitted here and
there, helping the helpable.  The moonlight
glimmered on her rapid wings.  The stars became still
brighter for joy of her eagerness.  The flowers,
parched and starving for fairy-love, turned towards
her, listening to her songs, inviting the gifts of
her hands.  She lighted their jaded lamps and
gave them happiness.

Then she felt sad because of the waste and
the need.  Where were the elves for this garden?

She looked towards Fairyland, and wished with
all her powers.  Was it a waking dream, or was
she really aware of mimic voices, far, far away, in
the glades of Elfland answering her--promising
to break the indifference of Fairyland and to
come?--or was the wish foster-mother to the fancy?
Had she merely imagined the desired reply?

When, returning, from her own world, she
re-entered Armingham House, the party was over.
Its livelier members had gone to other staircases.
The Archdeacon, as became his office, went straight
home to bed.  Lord Geoffrey, caped and hatted,
strolled quietly to "Liberty Hall," the town-house
of an Anglicized American, Mr. Barnett Q. Moss,
who had fifteen millions and dyspepsia.

The very last ball of a lively season was there
in full swing.  Geoffrey enjoyed watching the
plutocracy at play, and sharing their wildness.
It was tonic to his well-bred nerves.  After three
hours of a perfect mother, it meant a bracing
change.

June went too.

Meanwhile Bim had tucked himself up in the
throstle's nest and slept like a top--however that
may be.  He did not stir till the morning was
white.  Then he rose--a mite refreshed--and
came down from his fastness with a run.

He found Tim, and listened to him talking in
his sleep.  The royal tramp in his dreams was
addressing legions.  Bim awoke him.  Tim
continued his oratory to the trees.  He was Cæsar
and Buonaparte--two gentlemen in one.  He
seemed from his description to be wearing a
laurel wreath round his neck, and trousers of
imperial purple, ermine-lined.  Every woe which
wandering mankind suffers from was instantly
and absolutely abolished--so far as mere words
could abolish them--by autocratic decree.  His
Majesty Tim!

He stood up, wiped his feet on the grass, and
looked about at the park.  The pride of ownership
shone in his eyes.  All this belonged to him.
His face had a new expression containing something
of noble gentleness, a very pale reflex of
the divinity that doth hedge a king.  He wiped
his lips with his sleeve and smiled.  He settled
his battered hat--his diamonded golden crown--daintily
on the forefront of his head, and shambled
towards Oxford Street for the tramp-man's
breakfast, which, thanks to Bim of Fairyland, would
taste henceforth as some delicious repast on a
golden dish.  His future tasks--poor casual ward
businesses--would be noble services performed
to aid mankind.

Being a king incognito, Tim did not advertise
his estate.  He and the fairies--they alone--knew
of his royalty.  There are more such monarchs
amongst us than we wot of.

Bim was contemplating the tramp's retreating
figure when happiness came to him.  June would
enjoy the delights of victory yet.

Her appeal to Elfdom had been answered.  Here
was one to help.  Down from the skies and over
the grass a fairy was hurrying.  It was Auna of
the Violet Valley; her purple wings fluttered
wearily.  There was no happiness in her mien.
The oppressiveness of London was upon her.

"Gnome!" she asked weakly, "where in this
horrid world is June?"

So saying, she drooped her limp figure on the
wet grass and waited awhile, mute with disillusionment
and weariness, stricken with the sorry
prospect before her.  Auna had no more dignity,
then, than a broken butterfly.  She had come to
the wilderness, sharing the madness of June; and
now, knowing its dreariness, remembered the
deserted happiness.  She was the first recruit
to the glorious company of the disobedient.

Bim had not time to frame an answer to her
question before his delight received another
delicious shock.  Here actually was one more
fairy from Elfland--Laurel of the Golden
Uplands--where the broom is in its glory and the brave
gorse glows.  She, too, had flown thither in
obedience to June's appeal, and brought smiles
with her.  There was bravery in her eyes, but
the influence of the elfless Metropolis affected her
as it had affected June and Auna.  She, also,
drooped on the grass.

There followed others.  Bim's eyes and mouth
opened wider and wider as the numbers grew.
It was a wonderful morning.  One by one the
fairies came, until seventeen of all degrees--knights
and sweet presences--studded the grass
beside him.  He was flabbergasted.  His wits,
through this feast of joyous surprises, were
stunned and groping, until, with a long, long
pull, he got himself together again.

For a full half-hour the fairies rested.  Bim felt
the flattery of fine company.  He forced himself
to sit severely upright, as if he were one with
them, as indeed he deserved to be, and kept the
wand prominently forward.  He felt towards
them somewhat as a longshoreman does to the
week-end tripper.  He could speak with
uncontradictable authority.  He knew London; these,
his masters, were novices.

The sun rose, swathing every dew-burdened
grass-blade with light.  An elderly starling and
several sparrows gathered about the fairy circle,
curious of these new-comers.  Bim, seeing the
gaping wonder of the drab creatures, "shoo-ed"
them; but back they came, and always came, to
chatter with many twitterings about these mimic
immortals, whose existence in that jerry-built
world they had learnt to be ignorant of.  More
and more sparrows arrived, with a few larger
birds--draggled thrushes and shabby blackbirds,
but no smaller birds of beauty.  The sparrows
had taken care of that.

It was the chattering of this inquiring
concourse which roused the fairies from stupor.
One of the knights--Felcine of the Silver
Wings--addressed himself to Bim.

"You are the gnome who accompanied June?"

"I am," he replied proudly.  "I am her servant
and companion.  What London was before we
came--ah!"  Bim drew a sweeping line with the
wand, in gesture expressive.

"Then tell us what you have done," Felcine
commanded.

Bim in his best voice told his tale to the
hearers.  It was, doubtless, a lame epitome of
recent history, but it served to quicken their
interest in the new departure, and to intensify
their shame for having been so long in coming.
He spoke of Paradise Court and Sally, of the
want and the sweating; then of the improvements
wrought in that colony of the very poor.
He enlightened them about the world of
commerce, the Lord Mayor's banquet, the Oldsteins'
emporium; told of the Archdeacon's efforts; of
the visit to Armingham House; of innumerable
other episodes and experiences, many of which
have necessarily been excluded, even from this
chronicle and history.  Not a word did he say of
the coming of the fairy host to Paradise Court,
or of its going again.  Bim--tactful fellow!--knew
how to dodge the disagreeable.

The gnome was not an orator at this period of
his career; but his tale, to those hearers, was
highly interesting.  It brought home to them--as
possibly the perorations of a Member of Parliament
would not have done--the need for fairy-work,
for elf-reform, in the city of cities.

They, too, had not forgotten the coming and
going of the fairy host.

"And where is June now?" asked Auna, when
his story was ended.

Bim turned to point vaguely to westward;
and, doing so, saw June herself on the brim of
Geoffrey's hat.  His lordship was walking
homeward through the Park.  He was tired and very
thoughtful.  Fairy influence and the excitements
and scenes of the party at Liberty Hall had set
him thinking.

Of a sudden June saw Felcine and his companions,
and gave a glad cry.

Bim then knew the meaning of absolute
happiness.  He turned turtle with a whoop, and
balanced himself on his head.  That was how he
found expression for his feelings.





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.. _`LIBERTY HALL`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   LIBERTY HALL

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As Geoffrey Season wended his way from
Armingham House to Liberty Hall, June kept
his thoughts busy.  That was an opportunity for
profitable self-examination, which she took care
should be well employed.

Geoffrey was habitually frank with himself and
others.  It had never been necessary for him to
suffer the least degree of self-deception, or to
imagine certain human beings were angels, when
they were only themselves.

So, with June on his hat-brim, and the
Archdeacon's homily fresh in his memory, he began
to measure established facts with new purposes,
and found that in several directions the two did
not fit.

He felt as he sauntered through the silent
streets to his noisy destination something like a
pioneer landed on a virgin shore.  New
possibilities--vague and unformed as yet--loomed
before him.  These new possibilities at once
attracted and repelled him.  It was not to be easy
for him to get out of the comfortable ruck in
which circumstances had placed him.

Ordinarily, the way for him to take would be
through sober squares--oases of iron-railed
respectability--given up at that dull hour to cats,
drowsy cabs, and constables.  Now the splendid
dulness and shuttered dinginess of the great
houses under which he walked oppressed him,
and the impulse came to wander by more devious
ways, through that network of slums which all
but touched the back-doors of the rich.

Never before in his easy-ordered life had such
an impulse come to him.  He had--as became his
mother's son--instinctively refrained from
looking on the unpleasant.  Squalor and want existed
to be avoided; they were so hopeless and--oh,
so ugly!  Unconsciously he had cultivated the
happy, blind eye, and habitually overlooked the
obvious.  There was no callousness in his case,
but merely ignorance.  There are many like him.
He was one of a multitude unawake.

At last he was ripe to shed his priggishness.
June vigorously spurred his purposes.  His
latent power for real social service was suddenly
quickened into life.

Marching into an area of meanness, which
hitherto had been the Forbidden Land, he was at
once face to face with heavy problems.

He passed a public-house, as a drunken woman,
a baby in her arms, was put out from the portal.
A whiff of hot air went with her.  The potman
who had turned her out--"chucked" is the word--talked
to her in dingy scarlet, and then returned
to his damp altar of a decadent Bacchus.

Geoffrey gazed at the woman curiously.

The horror of it!  She was undivine, bestial,
bloated; the victim--a greedy victim--to gin.
She stopped and turned clumsily to stare stupidly
at the lighted windows; then angrily, with
hoarse voice, returned the potman's compliments.
All the while the fragment of humanity was
wailing, cradled within her shawl.

The threats of this demoralized Venus merged
gradually into a pitiful whine--ah, the woes and
wrongs she suffered from!--as she staggered
hurriedly along the causeway, came to the door
of her dwelling, and lurched over the step.  There
was the home of that English child!

June flew after the infant in service bound,
leaving Geoffrey weak and numb with indignant
horror and helplessness.  Here were problems
indeed!

He awoke of a sudden to a sense of his
responsibilities.  What had he been living for?
A shock of icy coldness swept through him.
That was the beginning of burdens.  He looked
with new eyes at himself.

He was wealthy, leisured, destined for a
prominent career in Parliament.  Till now he had
contemplated a life of enjoyment, tempered with a
variety of pleasant experiences--sociability,
applause and public activities.  He had seen
himself on platforms, happily eloquent; standing
before a green ministerial bench, banging a
treasury box, while men of note listened and
cheered.

That had been the game as expected.  Now
things were to be different.  Realities had
challenged him.  The drunken mother and the
doomed child represented thousands.  He was to
work for them and for such as they.

June rejoined him.  The mother and the infant
were both asleep.  One drop of elixir of
fern-seed, a thousand and three years old, made
from Merlin's ancient recipe; and the deed was
done.

Fairy and lordling passed through human
rookeries.  Geoffrey, eagerly observant of facts
on this shady side of life, was indifferent to
danger.  He was reckless.  Again and again
a policeman sternly warned him, and frequently
accompanied him through the darkest, least
savoury parts.  He laughed scornfully at the
need for caution, turned up his coat-collar,
covered his shirt-front, and went on, feeling
more and more reckless and angry as he went.
This was revelation!  He clenched his fists, and
writhed at the manifold evidences of past
indifference and neglect.  But the anger went after
a time, or was tempered with wisdom.

Children, children everywhere!  Always there
were children.  Wherever he wandered, late as
it was, during that westward pilgrimage, he saw
them--the innocent, chief sufferers--bearers of
the heaviest burdens.  They were born to woe;
nearly always were to die of it.  Where was the
justice, where the justification of their pain?
Let comfortable sociologists prate; but why had
they those hours and days of want and suffering
merely to die?  They had not offended.  They
had not broken laws of thrift, duty, love; yet
they must endure evil and reap great harvests
of the sins their forebears had sowed.  It was
pitiful, shameful, appalling.

He saw little ones weary to death, forgotten,
learning iniquities.  The infinite waste of young
humanity appalled him!  Something of the
nation's life was decaying there, and so few
seemed to care.

He came abruptly to the square which had
Liberty Hall at its corner.  Before proceeding to
the enjoyments awaiting him, he must calm and
recover himself.  He walked slowly along the
three sides of the square.  He was still agitated
by the disclosures that slum-experience had
brought him, so he walked again right round
the inner circle of railings, and forced himself
into the guest-man's mood.

He came, at last, to the crowded portal, begged
and pushed his way through triple lines of
packed spectators--for the most part women who
had forgotten the lateness of the hour and their
weariness in wonder and curiosity at the
costumes of the guests--and joined the procession
of the invited up red-carpeted steps.

June was troubled.  Liberty Hall gave her
dismay.  Armingham House had been stately,
though somewhat oppressive; the loudness and
glaring brilliance of this assembly--this
over-painted caricature of what is
splendid--bewildered her.  It reminded her--unjustly--of
prosperous public-houses.

Geoffrey surrendered his hat and cape to a
footman--the livery of the Mosses was
moss-green and gold--and passed on to be received.
He was welcome.  Scions of the aristocracy had
master-keys to that house, as also had the
over-rich.

The lady of Liberty Hall greeted him with
heartiness.

"Very glad to see you, Lord Geoffrey; come
right in!"

She was tall, thin and bony; framework *décolletée*.
Her face was not happy.  It was heavily
lined, and bore the marks of ambition and strain.
Head, neck, arms, and corsage were ablaze with
diamonds.  Three fortunes gleamed and sparkled
upon her.  A picture of the woman of the slums
and the neglected infant flashed through Geoffrey's
mind.  June, to whom always human beings were
merely as shadows burlesquing reality, became
actually afraid.  Her wings were constantly
quivering.

There was a surging mob beyond this lady of
jewels and angles--no less a mob because its
members were prosperous and expensively
dressed.  Already the fairy had a foretaste of
the vulgarity within, and feared and trembled
with hate of it.

Geoffrey said some small smiling nothing, and
passed on to a second effusive welcome--from
his host, a man of restless eyes and heavy mouth.

"Barnett Q."--as his cronies called him--had
made the best part of his millions out of biscuits,
the balance from high finance.  In his home-place
Barnett Q. was genial and hospitable; but put a
deal in his way, and he became on the instant
keen, unscrupulous, inexorable, flint-hearted.

"It's a real good pleasure to see you, Lord
Geoffrey.  If you don't jolly some, you mustn't
blame the wife and me.  This house is named
Liberty Hall, and I guess it's got to live up to
its cognomen."

The dancing had started.  It was already very
like a whirlwind.  Young folk, hot and flushed,
were romping round like mad to the rhythm of
a two-step.  Geoffrey was caught in the riot.  A
demoiselle who giggled and called him Herbert
seized his hand and began the gay canter.  He
threw himself into the spirit of the revel, neither
pausing nor thinking till the band with a crashing
finale stopped, and his partner had hurried
him off to a refreshment-buffet.

There was perpetual laughter, peals of it now
and then.  Humour was cheap; mirth was easily
aroused at that party.  A man with a false nose
was a great favourite, and when he suddenly
startled a dowager and caused her wig to shift
there were shrieks of delight.  The catchwords
of the streets were popular and appreciated in
Liberty Hall.  Champagne and cocktails shed
a genial influence over everything.  There was
no lack of liquid wealth in that bountiful
establishment.

June, while the dancing lasted, escaped to the
gallery where the band was playing, and sat on
the matted hair of a flautist, who forthwith went
flat.  Her thoughts for a while were far away in
a night-world of green shadows.

"Hello, Season!" cried a puffy, sleek young
man, clapping Geoffrey familiarly on the shoulder.
"See my new mo. yesterday?  I'm Harris, you
know!  Met you at Monty Dizzler's."

"No, Mr. Harris, I fear I didn't see the machine."

"Don't call me Mister, Season!  There's no
side between gentlemen, hey?  She's a beauty!
Light, and as for power and speed--well, I'm no
orator!  Passed you in Sloane Street by Cadogan
Square.  You were with a specially nice little
piece of frilling--girl with a hat all over her.
Gave four-fifty for her--the mo. I mean.  Don't
laugh.  T'other side of Hounslow sent her along
like blazes.  The bobbies couldn't get ready for
me.  Rushed past three of them--traps and all--like
a greased eel, before they could doctor their
watches.  Nearly knocked over one cop.  Ha!
And not more than a mile further on went over
a boy's foot.  No business playing in the roads,
those kids!  You should have heard him squeal.
Talk of Wagner, and that rot!  This is private
between you and me, y' know.  Fortunately, the
mo. made such a dust they couldn't see my number.
I--oh, if you don't want to hear any more, you
needn't!  Shirty dog!  Just because he's a duke's
son, gives himself airs.  What's a duke nowadays?
Pauper rats!  Hullo, Gertie; come and have some
sup.  Liberty Hall's a rotter, but his cham's worth
drinking!  Then I'll take you home, little gell.
You must see my new mo.----"

Geoffrey did not dance again.  The pause had
given him an opportunity for recollection.  He
had since entering Mrs. Moss's hospitable abode
somewhat forgotten his better purposes; but was
already ashamed of his recent excitement.  Though
he started from Armingham House with the full
intention of getting as much enjoyment at Liberty
Hall as possible, he felt he ought to have
remembered better the contrast of conditions between
this revel and the sordid misery and nakedness
of the slums.

He stood underneath the gallery watching and
beginning to wonder.  More than one of his
companion-guests chaffed him for his grave face
and preoccupied airs.  He answered their badinage
with repartee good enough.

The dancing became still more violent.  Certain
ladies, flaxen-haired and well-complexioned--footlight
favourites--punctuated the step phrases
of a barn-dance with high, high kicks.

Barnett Q. laughed with happy tolerance at the
lace display, winked archly at some elderly cronies,
babbled that things were somewhat slower in his
young days, and went about murmuring to all and
sundry, "Liberty Hall!  Liberty Hall!"

Geoffrey felt the beginning of an angry shame--of
himself first and foremost.  Everything jarred
on him now.  The fairies had hold of him; but
June, just then, was doing nothing.  She was far
away among the happy shadows.

The excitement had come to seem feverish,
unreal; the laughter rang untrue--a mockery of
gaiety.  But still they laughed, as if they were fey.
Geoffrey had been at such gatherings four or
five times before, and had found them, with their
colour, movement and irresponsibleness extremely
amusing.  They had sent him back to his world
of ennui refreshed, a restored superior gentleman.
But to-night he was restless, tired of the glamour;
its gaiety was repulsive.

He put it down to the scenes of the slums and
the sight of weary children; of course, having no
idea that a fairy was perched but a little above
him--that his state of dissatisfaction was mainly
due to her.

He could not help overhearing occasional
snatches of conversation from old and young;
it was always loud-voiced, and invariably told
one of these tales--the pleasures of extravagance,
the rounding of idleness, the smart acquisition
and showy expenditure of wealth.  Braggarts
were many.  Vanity Fair!  Vanity Fair!

June, awaking from her dreams and seeing his
restlessness, sailed down and throned herself on
the silken lappel of his coat--a fairy as a
button-hole is a pretty sight, when we can see it.  He
felt a sudden increase of impatience: he must go.
He wandered through the rooms, hunting for the
way of escape.

He met his hostess.  The poor lady looked
thinner than ever.  Her face had become white
with excitement.  Her diamonds accentuated the
ghastliness.

"What is the matter?" she asked, with the
drawl she sometimes affected.  "I hope you're
finding enjoyment in this country-cottage, but if
your face is telling the truth, your thoughts are
pretty near the tombstones.  Now that won't do!
I reckon I must find some sweet young thing to
bring you back to Mother Earth.  You're looking
just too angelic for anything."

Geoffrey, realizing the discourtesy of poor
appreciation in a house so overabundant with
hospitality, hastened to set her social fears at
rest, and returned to the corridor leading back
to the dancing room.

Suddenly there was tumult beside him.  A girl
had been imbibing cocktails carelessly.  She
slipped, and to regain her balance, grabbed at
the arm of a man who was conspicuous in kilts.
He, too, had been enjoying the flowing tide of
champagne, and being a proud MacCoolicky, the
chief of that ilk, was apt to be angry in his cups.

He steadied himself by clutching at some
tapestry, and then, hearing some laughter and
seeing a man broadly grinning at him, viciously
jabbed him a blow on the arm.  There was at
once the prospect of a scuffle.  The veneer of
good manners on some of the guests was generally
exceedingly thin.  Geoffrey sprang between the
scowling combatants; so did two other men.
They seized the MacCoolicky's arms, and forced
him against the wall.  He began to sob, while the
girl, the cause of his mishap, restored by the
excitement to her true self, amused the crowd
by describing his possible ancestors with their tails.

The MacCoolicky, for his part sobered too,
writhed under the ridicule, and went away
furiously muttering elementary Gaelic.

Barnett Q. came hurrying up, pushing his way
through the crowd like a police-inspector.  His
little grey eyes glittered, his thin lips were pressed
together in a very decided line.  The millionaire
was a man of flame and granite.

"You can do every blamed thing you like in
this establishment," he said to them generally;
"but I'm darned if I'll have any fraycars, and
that's plain truth!"

"It's all right, Barney; only a little high spirits.
Boys will be boys!" said a tiny old man from the
edge of the crowd.  And so the trouble ended.

The tumult took place near the door of a large
room, which throughout the evening had been a
haven of great interest.  Geoffrey, parting from
his host, entered the room.

June flew ahead, curious to see what was doing
at the green tables.  She noted the faces which
fringed the games, and was shocked by their
expressions.  Greed, cupidity, selfishness,
weakness, brutal excitement, sordid delight, mean
disappointment were pictured there.  Horrible!
It was the card-room.  The place was packed
to stifling.  Roulette, baccarat, and bridge were
hard a-swing.  Gambling was no new sight to
Geoffrey Season, but never before had he seen
such greedy rabble as that, or such extravagant,
reckless stakes.

It was an occasion of unscrupulous business.
Old and young, men and maidens, crowded round
the tables primed with the one desire--to make.
Mammon was their king.  There was no refinement
or enjoyment about that business; it was
mere greediness on a very large scale.  Eyes,
fascinated, followed the running of the ball, the
placing of the money, the turn and manipulation
of the cards, the sweeps and pushes of bankers
croups.  The excitement was tense.  Now and
again hurried murmurs, excited comments, soft
hysterical laughter, contradictions and brief
disputes, broke the general silence.

Heigho!  It was a sight for the cynical.  If the
devil has no humour, he misses a lot of fun.

Young girls, hardly old enough for their education
to be "finished," were fingering piles of gold,
and placing coins with calculation, according to
some "system."  They had completed their
education at Monte Carlo.  An elderly man was the
lucky one--if luck is really the word.  He neither
smiled nor frowned, whatever his fortune might
be; but calmly paid his losses and as calmly took
his gains--his calmness, either way, was absolute.

Footmen came and went, carrying trays and
glasses, but were not especially welcomed.

A young man with waved hair and a pose--a
forgotten ballad-writer, his fame had flickered
and gone out--happened to be standing beside
Geoffrey.  His eyes were alight with monetary
desire.

"A sight well worth sinning for, Season," he
said, with a nod at the piles of gold and paper
scattered about the board.

Geoffrey nodded in idle agreement.  The wealth
displayed represented thousands of pounds.  June
kissed his cheek.

"Yet with all that wealth there is actual starvation
not an eighth of a mile from here," he said in
obedience to her kiss, her command.

The poseur turned and stared.  He gaped with
surprise.

"Good Lord, Season!  You ought to be a curate."

"It is, unfortunately, only the truth."

"Perhaps so.  Why not?  Anyhow, it's no
good talkin' about it.  People who starve have
only themselves to blame.  Haven't they hands
to work?  Show me a poor man, and you'll point
to a fool.  That's truth, too, if it isn't an epigram!
Everyone with wits can get a good living if he
likes.  And if not--well, let those who can't get
take; that's my motto.  I'm no high-priest of
ordinary morality, I can tell you.  But--look, Sir
Gussie's won again!  George! the luck of that
fellow!  Let me come; I must put a yellow boy
on *impair*."

The yellow boy was not at once put on, for a
climax had come.  A charge of cheating was
shrieked out by an excited woman playing bridge.
Chaos came again.  Men and women sprang to
their feet to look, and crowded to the centre of
trouble.  There were words of eager accusation,
of fierce denial, of hot anger.  A table was
overturned.  Gold tinkled to the floor.  Two
women--those chiefly concerned--had almost passed
beyond words.  It seemed, so agitated were they,
and so fierce their looks as they glared at each
other, as if they would actually be fighting; but
cooler counsels urgently intervened, and the
disputants were led away, each grasping her stakes
or winnings, each still making angry assertions.
For a little while the inherent vulgarity of the
company had violently broken out; it had set at
defiance the thin varnish of conventional
politeness most of them wore.

Geoffrey turned, and pushed his way out of the
room, out of the house.

A cold breeze blew on his forehead.  The stars
were shining.

"Never again!" was his resolution.  "Never,
never again!"

At that moment the prig in him finally went.
He was humble now and burningly sincere.

He realized his personal responsibility.  In
the future it must be his duty, in and out of
Parliament, to modify the hideous inequality that
had been exemplified that night.  To have this
waste, idleness, and vulgarity--this undisturbed
triumph of Moloch and Mammon--by the side of
extreme want and its manifold iniquities, was
preposterous, humiliating, intolerable.  The matter
must be mended, if that could be.  He would
devote his years to the business.

But how to touch those extravagant idlers, the
mischievous human butterflies, the Smart Set?
Ah, how?

Dawn had succeeded night.  Its greyness was
shrinking under the promise of the sun.  The
Park gates were being opened as he came to
them.  He passed in to walk over the grass,
preferring to return that way to Armingham House
while his brain strove and wrestled with teeming
problems.

Sudden inexplicable happiness seized him.  He
felt momentary lightness of heart.  His mood of
depression went.  He felt surprisingly hopeful.
There must be a fine ending to all these
quandaries.  But why was he so hopeful?  He could
not tell.

The reason was sufficiently simple.  June, in
her hour of deepest gloom, was encouraged by
the sight of the fairies; and her joy at seeing
them there had permeated--had glorified--him.





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   CHAPTER XVI


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   PROGRESS

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Fairyland had begun to return to London.

The meeting of those elves with June was
historic--an occasion for joyance, and they
rejoiced.  With songs, dances, and laughter they
expressed their happiness.  They ran gentle
riot for a time.

Hyde Park took to them at once.  Birds
congregated; park-keepers, wondering why, came
too.  But none so blind as park-keepers.  The
bewildered creatures scratched heads, tugged at
moustaches, and tried to reason it out; but of
course they could not, so they weakly went away
and forgot the wonder.

The fairies, after their excusable interval of
rings and roundelays, winged to their
headquarters in Paradise Court.  Bim, unblessed
with powers of flight, had to follow at the
leisurely pace of a dray-horse, which was
contentedly dragging barrels of beer eastwards.
He slept and dreamed peacefully in a nosebag
for most of the way.

June speedily decided how to use these her
recruits.

There were the pillar-boxes.  Their scarlet
bravery, punctuating the drab shabbiness of the
streets, had been to her something like
inspiration, glad breaks from London's wide-flung
monotony.  She would rather their hue had been
less crude, and not always red; but never mind
that!  They carried colour, that was virtue in
such environment.

She decided to use every pillar-box as the
centre for one fairy's activities.  On its smooth
convexity a magic dwelling should be built, round
which fairy flowers would flourish.  No men
would know of the wonder; but that was their
fault; they should use their minds and see.
From every such oasis of light and sweetness
the power of Elfdom would radiate, spread in
larger and wider circles till Oberon's reign in
London re-existed.  June enjoyed brave visions
as she led her pioneers eastward to the beginning
of triumph.

Weeks went by.

The summer grew sultry.  The Clerk of the
Weather, ensconced in cool cloudland, harried
old England with heat-waves.  Streets, courts,
and alleys became almost intolerable.  John Bull,
with bovine heartiness, grumbled, swallowed iced
drinks, gasped and sweltered.  Children whose
playgrounds were the narrow courts and streets
endured as best they could.

The new-come fairies, during those weeks,
went through a severe ordeal.  It was a bad
business, that dull grind amongst ugly ways and
dead ideals, when the birds and the flowers out
in Fairyland were calling.  June watched them,
fearful lest they--on whom so much depended--should
falter and return to joys that would welcome
them; but they were true; they did not fail.

What a work they did!  To describe it were to
write volumes!  The Lord Mayor's new
organization--Titania's Bodyguard--was rapidly getting
into being, testing its cog-wheels, preparing to
buzz.  The fairies helped it with wands and will.

There was everywhere infinite need for elf-work,
therefore the effects of that little company
seemed by comparison but limited.  It was,
however, great and real; so great and real and
gracious that mayors, aldermen, and councillors,
responsible for the welfare of the districts blessed,
found their heads swelling.  They thought this
state of betterment was due to them--the blockheads!
June, for reasons, was content they
should enjoy what they could of the credit.  She
was nothing if not politic.

The fairies, giving the lead to the Bodyguard,
which went to work with the zeal of idealist
youthfulness, made a dead set against unhealthy
houses.  Jerry the builder began to feel uneasy,
and serve him right!

Leaky roofs, sinking walls, warped woodwork,
and other results of the jobbery of Jerry, the
fairies touched with destructive wands and
hastened the decay.  The scamping engineer
was hoist with his own petard.  Ill-built houses,
good only at the best for a few uncomfortable
years, became at once so outrageously bad, and
obviously so dangerous, that Studge, Snodge,
Hopkins, and the rest of the gowned brethren on
the Borough Council, were compelled for a time
to forget prospects of pickings and the interested
grinding of axes, in order to insure that Jerry's
offensive structures were demolished to be
reconstructed promptly with conscience and
workman-like bricks and mortar.

"If these shadows must have shells," said June,
"let them be worthy and pretty shells!"

That is the spirit in which the fairies approached
contracts and quantities.  They carried their
influence abroad.

Jerry had the grey time of his life.  His pocket
was suffering so conspicuously that his
conscience became pricked and tender.  He lay
awake o' nights thinking copy-book mottoes.
He was haunted by goody-goody ghosts.  He
wriggled, struggled--surrendered, coming
reluctantly to the conclusion that honesty was, after
all, the best policy.  He acted accordingly.
Hopkins, Snodge and Studge, now becoming
passionately possessed of civic righteousness,
kept eyes upon him, and realized for themselves
the blessed compensations of disinterested public
service.

The fairies made war on ugliness.  They
made a dead set against hideousness in all its
aspects.  Whatever was bad and depressing in
public and private buildings went rapidly to
decay.  Practical men were puzzled.  They
attempted to solve the mystery by rule of thumb,
as usual, and were always at fault.  There was
more scratching of contractors' heads during
those summer and autumn months than had been
since the building of Babel.

Men whose whole lives were an experience in
joists and concrete, whose favourite field of talk
was estimates and specifications, were utterly
perplexed at the seemingly unreasonable circumstances
which suddenly beset their trade.  They
asked each other desperate questions, and spread
bewilderment.  Why was rottenness so soon
exposed?  Why did that cornice which pleased
them, though its adorned ugliness would have
infuriated Ruskin, begin to fall away in slabs?
They could not answer; but--it was!

A paradox lurked beside every doorway.  The
curious thing was that whatever was simple and
beautiful lasted longer than usual, while the
ill-adorned, ugly and drab went speedily to bits.

The fairies' policy was fruitful.  Mean streets
slowly ceased to deserve their adjective.  Slums
disappeared--were transformed with wonderful
rapidity.  With lighter rooms and prettier houses
laughter came!  Jerry called himself Joseph, wore
fancy waistcoats, and felt a patriot.  The business
of artists boomed.

The extraordinary transformation which splendidly
uprose was, in truth, an abiding, complete
mystery to purblind practical men--they who
measure facts with foot-rules, and look at life
through theodolites.  They could not understand
the true reason why they had to build better.
But the fairies knew; aha! the fairies knew.

June's company went about brightening what
they approved with invisible paint, and gave
cramp and spasms to folk with wilfully low
ideals.  They enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
Bim was indefatigable in his efforts.

It was not only in the building-world that
the fairies did so well.  Active as they were in
arranging for the demolition and reconstruction
of certain districts of London, they also looked
after humanity in many other ways.

Here are a few instances of their manifold
activities culled from Blue-books on the subject.

Workhouses were made worthier, less frightening,
more homely; they became honourable retreats
for the aged and unfortunate.  Workhouse
masters wore coloured shirts, encouraged the old
men to play senile games of cricket, called every
old woman "Ma'am." ...

School-teachers had the happiest faculty for
periodically ignoring the time-table and telling
the children unexpected fairy tales at hours
officially dedicated to sums.  The children came
to school eagerly, charmed there by this delightful
uncertainty; and then in their homes retold the
tales to brothers, sisters, and parents.  The
school-songs and games became most joyous; elves helped
the children to sing and play....

Street-corner speakers grew wondrous gentle
to each other.  The old uncharity disappeared.
Temperance orators tried the effects of geniality,
and began to make progress against the enemy.
Time-worn political opponents invited each other
to share the top of a common tub; and there,
while differing, praised each other's tolerance and
sincerity....

The front-door to Utopia was opening.

At a bye-election, politicians found themselves
scrupulous; canvassers stuck to the truth, took
no unfair advantages, left personalities coldly
alone.  The Buffs, always well-provided, lent
their enemy, the Blues, whatever carriages and
motor-cars they could spare.  Partisans of either
side went to chair the rival candidate, and in
the friendliest manner possible wished him to
lose....

The causes which you, O reader, are opposed
to fizzled out.

Roofs of city houses were covered with green
plants, and turned into gardens, enabling employés
to do their business better because work was
punctuated with restful visits to the flowers....

Soap was vigorously used.  Cleanliness became
a creed and a passion.  Morning faces, floors and
doorsteps shone.  (Five fortunes would not induce
me to divulge the name of the favourite soap.)

All British birds in cages were taken into the
country and released.  Gourmets started a league
to prohibit the eating of larks.  The woodlands,
therefore, rang with happier songs, and Fairyland
advanced with seven-league boots....

Bean-feasters devoted evenings to the practising
of glees, reviving folk-songs, so that country roads
were no longer rendered wretched with the crude
strains of music-hall choruses.  Delightful concerts
were organized for Londoners among the green
fields.  England once more began to be merry
with song....

Vulgarity lost its flavour.  Rudeness was
cold-shouldered.  Jokes which were not nice were not
laughed at.  They fell flat as recumbent
tomb-stones.  Humour--the real article--lived again.
It was pleasant to hear the persiflage of office-boys,
which began to be original.  Omnibus
drivers and cabmen were sometimes really funny.
As for judges, they always joked in the right
places....

The elves and the Bodyguard looked to the
hoardings, which became more pleasant and
effective as the artistic charm of advertisements
increased.  Colours were chosen which combined
harmoniously.  Passers-by no longer suffered
toothache and heart-spasm because of some
militant eyesore.  Those pestilent bobbly lights,
that reiterate a trade-name at night-time, were
torn down by righteous raging mobs, hammered
and drowned....

What else the fairies did I need not detail here,
for the reader who has come to this page has
proved perfectly capable of adding to the series
of their good effects.  It was all just splendid.

London surely and rapidly recovered itself;
and as its appearance and manners progressed
towards perfection, more fairies, encouraged by
the brightness, came; more pillar-boxes were
settled upon; the circle of influence was still
wider spread; the march of amelioration went on.

When a hundred fairies had arrived, and
forty-three gnomes had followed them--which was not
until October, the sere of the year, had
arrived--June decided to give a garden-party on the roofs
of Paradise Court.

Bim was appointed major-domo, lord high-butler,
and general factotum, something like
fifteen officials in one.  He swelled visibly with
proper pride.  His energy in making the preparations
was so intense--he managed so successfully
to be in two places at once--that not a few of his
fellow-gnomes thought him blessed with invisible
wings.  His dignity and importance were
unquestionable.  He wore the superiority, won
through being the first gnome to brave the
rigours of London, so openly that his brethren
of the democracy became more than a wee bit
envious.  Perhaps Bim's head had become very
slightly swelled.

Meanwhile June was wondering what Oberon
was doing.

That October night was an occasion to be
well-remembered by fairy and by man, though man
remained blind to its doings, albeit benefiting by
its effects.  The moon, which since the affair of
the Violet Valley had disguised her interest in
the rebellion of June, shone openly, and looked
with all her seas.  That London night was alive
with vivid beauty, every angle and chimney-pot
of those decaying hideous houses being
beneficently illumined by her beams.

The roof-world was no longer a black and grey
wilderness.  Elfin wands, gnome labours, and
many ingenuities had covered it with tiny lights
and fairy flowers, making it a piece with the
dream-world.

June--hostess and heroine--wore her lustrous
crown.  There were songs, dances, and much
great joy.  Gnomes, sitting in rows on chimney
rims and along the edges of stacks, sang and
applauded.  Only one well-known song in the
anthology of Elfdom was not heard during that
night of revel--the triumph song, the chant
reserved for the May-day crowning.

Mankind was still blind to these celebrations.
It really seemed as if men must be trying to see
with their noses.  Such wonderful things were
happening just under their very eyes which they
could not see, and in their purblindness would
not imagine.  It is a heart-breaking business, the
open-eyed blindness of men.

Later on, of course, they had better than
glimmerings--but sufficient for this chapter is what
we have said.

One old woman, and one old woman alone, had
glimpses of that revel.  She was Irish.

Bridget Malone had oftentimes, in her young
days, seen fairies round an empty hearth in
Connaught; but when she came to London, forty
years before, she had forgotten the precious
faculty, and lost the power of seeing the
unseen.  This sight of triumphant elves restored
the gift.

Bridget woke out of sleep.  Her bed was on
the floor, but her bones were accustomed to
hardness, so that not want of warmth or any Sybarite
troubles caused her to wake.

She saw a strange light reflected on the tattered
wall opposite the window.  She breathed a prayer
to Mary, and looked for the supernatural, for this
was not moon-rays or sunshine, but something
of both blended and idealized; something of the
light which never was on sea or land.

Bridget, in her half-asleep wisdom, guessed it
was the little people.  Her thoughts flew back
in a flash to the days of childhood.  She thoughtfully
thanked her stars, and felt religious.

She had it in mind to wake her daughter and
three grandchildren, all sleeping in the same
room, that they might share her good fortune,
but refrained.  If it were the fairies, they might
not be pleased.  She remembered the jealous
secrecy reputed of the little people in the old
country, who could not bear their meetings to
be overlooked.  So Irish!

Bridget, therefore, saw those revels alone.  She
crept on her knees to the window and watched,
resting her chin on the sill.  It was so good a
sight that she did not know she had cramp, and
quite forgot the rheumatism from which she had
made her family suffer for the last five years.
She was lost in a rapture.

"'Twas a soight to make ould eyes shparkle,"
she related afterwards.  "On the tip-top of that
chimney-pot was a little rhound man for all the
worruld like a shwollen dumplin', but as rid as
holly-berries.  That was a turr'ble important little
gintleman.  He looked like the settin' sun full
o' twinkles; and the way he would come down
and bless the others, rhound lumps like hisself,
as if he was cock o' the dancin', was a wonder!
And there, on a t'rone, made out of all sorts of
fer-rns and flowers, was a leddy-queen fairy.
She had a cr-rown on her head that would buy
Ireland's ransom; it shparkled and it shone, like
the sun, moon and shtars all togither, whan
glancin' on a lake in Connaught.  Her face was
a pictur' of kindness.  Her eyes and her mouf
were smilin' like blessin's.  I'd have made her
a cake for luck if I'd known how to get it to her,
and I didn't want to frighten them away, the
darlin's, a-leppin' and a-rompin' so prettily.  So
I put my daughter's petticoat round me and kept
on lookin'.  There were hunderds and hunderds
of fairies.  They danced like anyt'ing; and waved
about and looked so beautiful--it was a pictur'!
Hev ye iver heard nightingales in an Irish wood?
Hev ye iver seen moonbeams on an Irish river?
No!  Dear, what can I say to ye?  Well, you've
seen mother's love in a woman's face, so you'll
get some ghost of a notion of the music and the
poethry, and the ma'nifishence of that dancin'.
The light which came from the little people--it
all came from them, with a little moonlight t'rown
in--was br-right as fire on Tara....  And ye
don't belave it? ... Ah, ye makes a mishtake,
young gintleman!  If they weren't fairies that I
saw, and if I didn't see them, there's no hope for
you nor for me nayther, for as thrue as Cuchulain
killed his son they were there--as thrue as thruth
they were there.  I saw thim with these ould
eyes....  See them?  Of course I did!  'Twas
plain as ugliness, only 'twas beautiful as light
could make it.  They kept on, they kept on, I
tell ye, till afther the sun was up, and the lasht
I saw of thim was the fairy with the cr-rown on
shmilin' and shmilin'!"

So much for the testimony of Bridget Malone.
Strangely enough--although the newspapers,
thanks chiefly to the Venerable Archdeacon Pryde
and Sir Titus Dods, now in the last month of his
mayoralty, had made Oberon popular, and it was
a beautiful commonplace to have faith in the
fairies--no one treated Bridget's story with proper
respect or even with simple common sense.
Paradise Court--her own country--was packed with
disbelievers, and--is it not always so?

Indirectly, however, her story had one good
effect.  It set others telling and inventing
fairy-tales--spreading a fine fashion.  So June, seeing
that result, forgave the incredulity.  The imagination
of the people was awake.

Yes, Bridget had told the truth.  The fairy with
the crown was "shmilin' and shmilin'."  The last
moment of the revel brought June its crowning
happiness, a great unexpected cause for joy.

As Bridget has told us, daylight was abroad,
and the sun had risen, before the fairy dancing
ended.

A white cloud--or it may have been a gulp
of white smoke from an awakening workshop
chimney--came sailing in the direction of the
roof-garden.  June watched it, wondering; it
seemed charged with mystery.

As it passed overhead, she realized its burden.
The magic of the crown gave her power to pierce
its secret.

Hidden in the little white cloud was Oberon
flying.  He had come in disguise to spy out the
land; had seen, had passed on his way.

Thus there was a fine full-stop to the revels.

Some notes of interrogation were added by
June--"Would Oberon come to resume his reign?
Where might Titania be?  Was Fairyland at last
on the way?"

Not yet.  Not just yet!





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.. _`THE ARISTOCRACY MOVES`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center large bold

   THE ARISTOCRACY MOVES

.. vspace:: 2

As soon as the campaign of the pillar-boxes had
well begun, and fairy progress was rapidly
marching, June settled down to the siege and taming
of her Grace of Armingham.  That was a difficult
fortress to reduce!  For weeks the fairy was
baffled.

The Duchess, as we know, had many great
qualities, which need no advertisement here.
Her main defect, which does matter, was a
sublime indifference to certain most important
sub-lunar things.  She had at this time no sympathy,
imagination, or gift of genial make-believe; there
was nothing for the fairy to fasten to.  It was
much like trying to grow orchids in a vacuum.

June did not repeat her prankish experiment
of the night of the party.  Now and then the
Duchess of her own accord thought a pun--habit
had begun to pale the lurid hideousness of the
thing--and actually came to regard herself as
possessing some sense of humour--in this case a
hopeful sign.  June was merciful and not unwise.
Never again was the Duchess urged by any
invisible spirit of mischief to the brink of a breach
of decorum.

The fairy was tactfully careful to do nothing to
lessen her Grace's self-respect.  The prize must
be won with all flags flying.  A discredited victim
would mean no worthy--and possibly no
permanent--victory.  So the best order of diplomacy
was required.  June wove her spells, and brought
magic to bear.  These influences had some effect
from the beginning; but it was to be a very
lethargic conversion.  For a time the Duchess
gave no signs of submission.

The Duke was more malleable.  June found it
easy to influence him.  He became quite a
champion of fairydom over the dinner-table; and,
when the men were left to their cigars, toasted
Titania daily, in the good old-fashioned manner,
with an apt quotation from the classics.

Nor did his enthusiasm and efforts finish there.
Twice before the session ended he drove down to
the House of Lords to move a resolution which
would lead England elfwards; but, alas! on
both occasions the warmth of the Gilded Chamber
and the influence of ministerial explanations sent
him to sleep.  He awoke each time to find the
Woolsack untenanted; the House adjourned;
the opportunity gone.

The fairies took the will for the deed; and,
after all, in those still unregenerate days, it came
to much the same thing.

It was Geoffrey from whom Elfland came to
hope most.  He was young, capable of enthusiasm,
and was already, though only in a shadowy way,
on the side of the fairies.

He had thoroughly awakened to facts, and
begun to take life very seriously.  He went at
his problems with a will.  He immersed himself
in Political Economy and the study of social
problems, and sat at the feet of the Professors.
He went for miles tramping through mean streets,
studying conditions and people.  He marched
along country roads and noticed the empty and
wasted fields, weed-choked streams, and infinite
other opportunities for national well-being lost.

Frequently Bim went with him.  For his own
rest and comfort the gnome furnished Geoffrey's
Homburg hat with a fairy hammock and gossamer
sleeping-suit.  His lordship became a walking
bedroom, entertaining for hours, just over his
brainpan, a distant cousin of Puck.

Geoffrey became eager to do something, to
create something, to make life richer for his
having lived.  He thought of many possible
occupations, chiefly mechanical; he felt he
ought in his circumstance to do something quite
contrary to his rule, something grimy and
disagreeable.  It ended--after some loose-ends of
effort--by his remaining satisfied to prepare for
Parliament.  So he continued to absorb
fustily-immortal works on the sciences of wealth and
government, and practised the writing of pithy
pamphlets and the delivery of orations--addressing
"Mr. Speaker" and mighty demonstrations
in the solitude of his bedroom.

In November the seat he was destined to,
became vacant.  The writ for an election could
not be issued till after Parliament had
reassembled in February; so, meanwhile, he must
wait, and woo the suffrages of his future
constituents.

He went to Armingham Castle, canvassed and
took tea with several and sundry, kissed babies,
opened bazaars, delivered a series of addresses
of a pleasant Buff colour.  The fairies were not
with him then; they left that particular
campaign alone.  The burgesses he was to represent
liked him well enough.  They regarded him as
a nice, handsome, earnest youth, whose speeches
might well have contained more personalities and
fewer figures, but who was safe and his cheques
generous.  He would do, was the burden of
general opinion.

The fairies knew well that he would--when he
was wanted.

Life drifted on, till signs of the approach of
Christmas began to appear.  June saw, in the
window of the public-house by Paradise Court,
a bill which advertised Peace, Goodwill, and a
Goose-club.  That set her thinking.  She put on
her crown and considered.

She sent out a trumpeter and called a
fairy-conference.  Every elf came from his pillar-box
to sit on her roof and consult.

Three more recruits from Fairyland appeared
at the assembly.  The stars heard the ring of
their welcome.

A plan of campaign was decided upon.  The
elves became still busier.  They spent more time
perched on human heads, stimulating good
thoughts during those Advent weeks, than ever
before.  Men and women began to think of Christmas
as Dickens did--but without the hot brandy.

The great occasion was approaching.  The
Clerk of the Weather took it into his official head
to send something seasonable.  It became cold
and bracing; roofs, walls, and the roads--so long
as the traffic would let them--were elegantly
robed with snow.  Ordinarily that snap of cold
would have roused a wail and a grumble; but
not this year--thanks to June and Company.  The
seasonable weather was taken as a further excuse
for human kindness.  The wail was not heard
because the want, its cause, was removed.  As
for the grumble, there was so much good-nature
in the improved world that to grumble was
impossible, except for old soldiers who had made
a habit of it.

There was to be no hunger in England during
that Christmastide; and for the poor who tramp,
none but actual marchers in the wooden-leg
brigade were to be without a pair of comfortable
sound boots.

Such facts as these prove better than any mere
words of pen with what reality the purposes and
ideals of the fairies had been accepted.  And--this
to satisfy rigid economists and the mighty
individualist--it was all done by voluntary
subscriptions.  There!

Houses and streets were decorated as they
should be.  There were archways of flags; but
paper flowers were properly tabooed.  No fairy
could tolerate that kind of drivel.  Lamp-posts
were wreathed with holly; bunches of mistletoe
hung at street-corners.  Kissing became popular
again.  Old maids, whose hearts had been starved
for years and years, grew gracious and watched
for bearded policemen.

Every window and window-sill was decked
with laurel and moss.  Chinese lanterns were
hung over gates and under porches.  Lighted
lamps with coloured shades shone through
uncurtained windows, so that when night fell every
street and roadway became an illuminated avenue.
Next-door neighbours, who for years had taken
obvious pains to be mutually indifferent,
exchanged greetings of good cheer, and admired
each other's decorations.

June, who had felt some awe for the high-collar
pride of little Londoners, seeing this triumph of
geniality, this evidence of the lessening of
two-penny vanity, sang joy-songs, and encouraged
her comrades.  They followed her lead with
whoo-whooping!  What a time!

Then the newspapers and the pulpits began to
speak.  A great project was evolved and set in
being.  There must be in every district--the press
panjandrums declared with elf-induced unanimity
a Christmas supper, after the good old jolly
style.  Funds were started to save any call upon
the rates.  Gifts of edibles, drinkables, and current
coin rolled in.

Mayors and councillors, workers in churches,
chapels, conventicles of all sorts, and of no sort;
political women and plodding housewives; dukes'
sons, cooks' sons, sons of belted earls with their
sisters and their cousins and their aunts; my
Lady Bountiful and my lady who scrubs--these
with all and sundry came together in a spirit of
splendid camaraderie to consider ways and means
of establishing the Christmas joy-feasts.

Town-halls, village rooms, and other suitable
places in all parts of England, Scotland, Ireland,
and Wales were made ready for the great celebration.
Mountains of food and rivers of delectable
liquid were prepared.  Chefs, professional,
amateur and very amateur, went to work with a will.
Localities bragged of their poultry and puddings.
Small boys walked about with glistening eyes;
small girls, telling their evening toll of fairy
stories, got into the habit of ending their "happy
ever afterwards" with the assurance that not a
year passed without the wedded prince and
princess having a Christmas supper with their
people.

'Twas bliss to be alive.  Scrooges a thousand-fold
were converted wholesale.  The fairies, all
were working during the entire twenty-four
hours of the day; and somehow--somehow they
actually managed to squeeze into that ordered
period of time an additional twenty minutes.
How it was done they only know.  Really, they
are wonderful--those fairies!

Nevertheless, despite this general agreement
of feeling, and unprecedented flow of goodwill,
a few exalted persons and their imitators had
managed to keep apart from it.  They were but
a few here and there, but the fact of their silent
opposition was painful.  There were blots on
the jollity.

The Duke of Armingham was not one of them.
His Grace, during that period of preparation,
seemed to return to youth.  His energy was
wonderful.  He became adept at hammering
tacks, and probably nailed up more Goodwill
mottoes than anyone else of his years.  It was
he who devised the plan of plastering dead
walls with red and green cartoons, representing
prominent men and women of all parties, sects,
and classes united in the goodwill of Christmas.

His posters added considerably to the brightness
and humour of the streets.  But the Duke
went just a little too far; though, in the Pepysian
phrase, it did one's heart good to see him scuttle
round a corner, after having pasted a picture to
the front-door of a leading militant suffragist.

He used to come home after the midnight hour,
as trembling and wide-eyed as the triumphant
Brer Rabbit; his hands and clothing a-muck
with bill-stickery.  No mischievous bad boy could
have been more happily guilty than he; and the
way he put on his pince-nez to brazen it out
before the Duchess, would have been a picture
for Keene.

Certainly the Duke was not of the ungracious
elect; but, alas, just as assuredly his Duchess
was!  Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss and her glistering
circle of human dross also remained significantly
apart from the general rejoicing and good-fellowship.

June determined to concentrate her attentions
on the Duchess.

It was the week before Christmas.  The fairy
preened herself carefully, for who would conquer
must wear nice clothes.  Bim placed the crown
upon her head and then clambered to the tip-top
chimney-pot above Paradise Court to watch her,
as a flash of flower-light, journeying towards the
vanquishing of that opponent.

As June flew, she rejoiced at the sights beneath
her.  London was now rich with areas of sweetness
and light--the reward of her influence.  Old
blemishes and ugliness were for ever removed;
colour and beauty reigned.  It was a sight for
tired fairy eyes.  The great metropolis was
positively handsome.

One by one, fairies who felt they deserved a
holiday flew up and followed her, so that by the
time she arrived at Armingham House a train
of twenty attended her.  The more the merrier!
They were a jovial company.

The fairies settled on the steps by the great
closed door.  June opened it.  One touch of wand
and it swung back obediently.  The Armingham
butler, then coming down the inside stairs,
gaped with amazement.

"My gracious!" he exclaimed.  "Them fastenings
are done for."

He shut the door with a slam, reopened it and
examined the lock.  All seemed in trim.  He
tugged at his left whisker--sign of wine-cellar
perplexity.  "The world nowadays is getting
that rummy," he soliloquized.  "I dunno!  Those
bloomin' fairies, I suppose."

So it was.  Many a true word is spoken in
bewilderment.  The elves--delighted to hear this
tribute, however involuntary, to their
effectiveness--joined hands, raced and sang in a ring
about him.  They were mad with happiness,
jollier far than legendary grigs and sandboys.

The butler stood in the centre of the marble
hall in a maze of indecision, yet at the same time
strangely pleased, till their romp was ended.  Then
with a shriek of joy, which his clay ears were
incapable of hearing, the fairies clambered about
him.  From his waist upwards they clung to him;
made him their vehicle.  June sat enthroned on
his baldness.  He was an honoured man.

As he went upstairs, Sparks, the Duchess's
maid, happened to pass down them.  She saw
his smiling face, and crowsfeet of kindliness, not
often visible, about his eyes.

"La!  Mr. Gootle, what's this?" she asked.

"Company for her Grace, Sparks," he answered,
pompously.

The lady's-maid stared, then ran on giggling.
"Gootle's got 'em!" she murmured, not untruthfully.
She saw possibility for sniggering gossip
when she reached the housekeeper's room.

The Duchess was in the library going through
her visitors' list, deciding on the guests to be
invited to her next dinner-party, writing the
names of the selected on a large half-sheet.

The butler entered the library.  At once the
fairies descended from him and clustered about
the Duchess and the writing-table.

Gootle was suddenly aware of the fact that his
entrance was purposeless.  The object that had
taken him there had departed.  He struggled
with his brains to think of a reasonable excuse
for the intrusion.

"Yes, Gootle?" the Duchess inquired.

"Ahem, your Grace, the--front-door flew open."

The Duchess laid down her pen and--looked.

"Really, Gootle!  Should I have been troubled
with that?"  Her glance was ominous.

"Very sorry, your Grace, very sorry," he
mumbled, fluttering his hands like flappers, and
withdrew.  He felt slapped.  He wanted to kick
himself.  "Mass! hass! hass!" he soliloquized.
"What did I do that for?"  He paused on the
stairs.  "Them bloomin' fairies!" he said again.

June and her companions were ripe for their
form of usefulness.  They did nothing for the
time, but sat silently, perched picturesquely on
the table, mantelpiece, chandeliers and bookcases,
while the Duchess continued the selection
and completed her list.

She drew a line to indicate that it was ended.

June touched the pen.  The Duchess scrawled
through the line, in effect deleting it, and wrote
an additional name.

"Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss."  Then she drew a
second line.

She frowned and wondered at herself.  She
ran her pen along the intrusive name to cancel
it, but made no mark; the ink was dry.  Her
frown was repeated.

The Duchess jabbed her pen into the inkpot,
dipping viciously; and then, instead of using it
to complete the cancelling of the offending name,
wrote a letter.  She did not even use the form of
the third person.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent

"DEAR MRS. MOSS,

.. vspace:: 1

"I have not exactly the pleasure of your
acquaintance, but my son Geoffrey has on more
than one occasion enjoyed your hospitality, and
has spoken to me about your kindness to him.
Will you give me the pleasure of knowing you?
If you could spare the time to take tea with me
here to-morrow at four o'clock, I should be very
glad.

.. vspace:: 1

"I shall look forward to seeing you then, unless
I receive a note or telephone-message to the
contrary.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Yours sincerely,
       "EDITH ARMINGHAM."

.. vspace:: 2

She found the address in the Red Book, sealed
the envelope, rang for Gootle, and despatched
the invitation.

Then she rustled to the fireplace and looked at
the flames.

"Now why--why did I do that?"

There was no answer.  The fairies looked at
each other and laughed.  Then they made slides
on the lid of the piano.

The Duchess was angry.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A COMPACT`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center large bold

   A COMPACT

.. vspace:: 2

The brougham which bore the delighted but
highly nervous Mrs. Barnett Moss to Armingham
House set her down before the door at two
minutes to the hour.  To be two minutes better
than punctual was one of the iron rules of the
millionaire; his wife remembered it when paying
an advantageous call.  As the clock in the boudoir
struck four she entered the presence.

June also was there.  Her companions of
yesterday had returned at dawn to their posts of
duty, the pillar-boxes; but Bim she had fetched,
in measure to supply their places.

The elves had made a night of it, and what
a night!

Every room, corner and cranny in the great
establishment had been visited and explored.
The butler's pantry they exulted in--to this day
Gootle does not know who put the salad-dressing
into his particular whisky.  The conservatory
was for a time transformed.  The flowers within
it lost their lethargy, and knew again gladness of
life.  The fairies played hide-and-seek among the
shelves and statuary of the library.  The dining-table,
whereon June had danced on the night of
her début at Armingham House, was in the evening
used for many series of fairy rounds--the full
score of princely people tracing triumphant dances
around and about their leader and lady.

Only Geoffrey Season and his mother were
dining at home that night, so there was ample
room for the elves to disport in.  The butler and
his footmen four, looking solemnly at the damask
emptiness, were puzzled by--they knew not what!
There seemed to be things there, filling the
emptiness, that never were there.  O dear!  A
strange world!

Geoffrey was the person most strongly
impressed by the atmosphere of enchantment.  His
conversation shone with unusual brightness, it
bubbled with happiest effervescence; but the
Duchess, conscious of the amazing invitation to,
and certain coming on the morrow of, the
millionaire's wife, was far down in the glooms,
weighed down with the dumps.  She could not
bring herself to tell even her son of that
incomprehensible accident; and went to bed early, giving
Sparks an unheavenly time.

The hours of Faerie came.  When the moon
was throwing a silver bar over the blue silk
coverlet; when stars peeped through the windows;
when the night-light's tiny flame was modestly
gleaming; when her Grace's breathing made
music in the room; then fairies, a score and one,
might have been seen flitting about the bed and
before the mirrors, swinging on silver fittings,
clinging to tapestry hangings, sleeping placidly,
sharing the laced pillow with the Duchess of
Armingham.

And so for the night we leave that company of
immortals and their quarry, and come to the
important to-morrow.

The Duchess woke with a light heart; and,
when Sparks brought the morning tasse, was
inclined to carol.

The maid saw the unwonted gleam of geniality,
precisely at the moment when her mistress
remembered Mrs. Moss.  Sparks watched the
glow of kindness fade, die, and the Duchess
become herself again.

The state of high-born sulkiness did not last
long.  June, except for the hour of siesta wherein
she returned to Paradise Court to fetch Bim, was
constantly beside the Duchess.  She spent the
whole of that day in preparing the atmosphere
for a great conversion.  Her magic permeated
every part of and person in the great house--from
boudoir to boot-boy.  Her influence, so
real and sweetly haunting, affected the Duchess
deeply.  She still kept a proud face, but inwardly
was sorely inclined to surrender and give herself
to the fairies.  Her heart was converted already,
but still she steadily resisted the new tendencies.

The Duchess was one of the obstinate company
who insist on dying in the last ditch.

Acute dislike at having to entertain Mrs. Moss
was the obstacle which blocked the fulfilment
of her good intentions.  Yet that involuntary act
of hospitality was an essential step in the
progress of Fairydom.  It was necessary for June to
govern the will of the Duchess in an affair that
mattered, and to conquer a great prejudice; but
at this stage of progress the prospect seemed
retarding the march.  Her Grace fought hard
against the better inclinations.  She was afraid
of vulgarity.  That was the principal fear.  She
had heard so much of Liberty Hall and its
parties--though not in an unkind way--from Geoffrey.

Mrs. Moss, for her part, also was fighting a
battle--against strange nervousness.  Ushered
in by Gootle, she smiled painfully, mournfully
shook her head, and said "How-do!"  The
Duchess received her with icy graciousness.

The tea in the beginning was a commonplace
festival; June knew better than to make her
puppets talk seriously during its earlier stages.
It was necessary for the Duchess to thaw
somewhat; for Mrs. Moss to recover confidence.
They must have pause.

They had it, and discussed nonentities and
silken politics.

At last June felt the opportune time for action
had come.  She popped her crown upon the
Duchess's head, while Bim, armed with the wand,
made himself comfortable in Mrs. Moss's narrow lap.

December was suddenly turned to May.  Awkwardness
went, geniality prevailed.  The Duchess
no longer wondered at having given the invitation,
or spent suspicious thoughts on her visitor.
Everything was natural, kind, and proper.  June
had won at last.

"I am very glad you came, Mrs. Moss," she
said heartily; "there is so much I want to talk to
you about."

"It's very good of you to say so, dear Duchess,"
was the enthusiastic answer.

Bim flourished the wand to stem a current of
gush.  Mrs. Moss pursed lips and waited.

The Duchess in her brain was wondering what
next her tongue would say.

"Have you ever wondered," she asked, "how
strange it is that people should go through life,
and wilfully refuse to become better acquainted?
Why should there be barriers between us or any
people?  Caste, class-distinctions, are merely
artificial.  'The rank is but the guinea stamp,'
said Mr. Burns, the poet--it was quoted by the
*Morning Post* yesterday, in a striking article on
'The Aristocracy of Elfdom.'"

"Was it?" said Mrs. Moss, who was puzzled
at this line of talk.

"Yes, and it is true."

"Oh, Duchess, if--if a Duchess says so; but I
shouldn't have thought----" was the stammering
reply.

The poor lady was bewildered.  Armingham's
Duchess had been in good report and ill,
especially ill, the proudest of the proud; fair game
and a favourite target for the derision and
admiring envy of the merely smart.  A thousand
stories, increasing with piquancy as they aged,
had been set afloat in illustration of her arrogance.
Thousand-leaved fictions had blossomed about
her.  Her origin and upbringing were the kernels
of many pretty tales.  If rancour wished--as
rancour frequently did wish--to hurl epithets at
the coroneted caste, five to one the Duchess of
Armingham was its pet Aunt Sally.  No one in
Society had been more pilloried, abused, and
envied.  The spite and verisimilitude of the
attacks were quickened and strengthened by the
supreme, unaffected indifference with which her
Grace had disregarded them.

Mrs. Moss, although she made social use of
Geoffrey, had taken her share in throwing the
garbage of scandal.  She had often seen the
Duchess on her drives through the Parks, and
would have given much for a bowing acquaintance
with her; but as that was not to be, she,
in sheer chagrin, helped to increase the yellow
stream of disparagement.

And now the longed-for impossible was
happening--this great lady, this enviable aristocrat,
this butt for the diatribes of the little, this
queen of the exclusive few, was seated familiarly
with her, entertaining her, talking easily of
democracy, aristocracy, equality.

No wonder Mrs. Moss was bewildered.  She
pinched herself to be sure it was not one of her
dazzling dreams.  Bim, to fortify the reality,
pinched her too.  Yes, there could be no doubt.
She could feel it was true.

"A Duchess, you say?" and the hostess smiled
sadly.  "The world is mistaken when it thinks a
woman of rank is to be envied."

"But the privileges!"

"The privileges, Mrs. Moss?  The responsibilities
of station, I assure you, outweigh them
far.  Familiarity is apt to render them mere
nuisances.  What privileges do you particularly
refer to?"

The guest in her turn smiled.  It was something
of a pitying smile--ah, the wisdom of the
worldlings!  How much the dear Duchess must
have been misunderstood!

"Why, the entry everywhere.  I guess the folk
who shut their doors on a Duchess would soon
be inmates of Bedlam.  You can talk as a partner
with any of the people at the top, can't you?
The wealthiest, proudest houses welcome you."

"Is that a great privilege?" she was answered.
"I confess I find the social round dull--unutterably
dull, with its receptions and dinners, when
you must attend them."

"I wish you and the Duke would honour my
house one evening," Mrs. Moss ventured to say.
"I warrant you wouldn't find our parties dull."

"Ah, my son Geoffrey"--she remembered only
the milder stories about Liberty Hall--"has told
me of some pleasant little parties at your house."

A pang went through the lady of Liberty Hall.

"So that is how he described them!" thought
she.  Praise so comparative stabbed her.  She
was aggrieved and nearly brought to angry tears.
Only a few days earlier a weekly paper without
a circulation had--for a consideration--filled two
columns with an illustrated description of her
latest affair, giving a long list of invited guests
with swollen names, and now--now--now! to
have it referred to as a "pleasant little party"!  It
was galling!

Bim, thinking she needed it, pinched her again.

Meanwhile, the Duchess was calmly talking
pure democratics, to the much amusement of June.
The crown was working with a vengeance.  Its
impotence in that particular case was ended.  Six
months of incomplete success, commencing with
absolute failure, had ended with this result.  No
wonder the fairy and the gnome were feeling
cock-a-whoop!  Victory--absolute Victory--was
advancing.

The Duchess became serious.  She arrived at
the fairy's purpose, and believed it to be her own.

"Are you a democrat, Mrs. Moss?" she asked,
and put her lorgnette to her eyes in order to see,
as well as to hear, the answer.

Every nerve and atom of the vain and selfish
lady quivered in protest at such a question.

"No, madam, that I am not," was the decided
answer.

"Dear, dear!" sighed the Duchess.

"I left all pretty fancies over yonder.  Mr. Barnett
Q. Moss and I are emphatically not anything
so silly!"

"You left them over yonder?"

"Yes, we did!"

"In the United States?"

"In the U-nited States of America!"

"Dear, dear!" said her Grace again.

June was now on the Duchess's shoulder, nestling
in soft folds of Irish lace.  She sat up eagerly,
the better to hear the discourse.

"I am a democrat, Mrs. Moss!" the remark
came sharply, like a shot.

"No, no, Duchess!  Impossible!"  The poor
lady, in sheer amazement, nearly shrieked the
protest.  Her appeal made the teacups shiver.
In her mind's eye she saw the Duchess waving
a red flag, and bawling for rights for somebody.

"Yes, a democrat!"

Mrs. Moss shuddered, and squeezed her mimic
handkerchief into a ball.  She pressed her lips
tightly together, and listened with horror.

"Yes, a democrat--one who believes that all
human beings should endeavour to give each
other equal opportunities.  I did not always think
this.  Dear me, let me confess, I did not think it
even yesterday.  Something has happened,
something is always happening.  The world seems
getting topsy-turvy; no, not that; but certainly
nearer the stars, without being farther from the
flowers.  Mrs. Moss, I was a proud and unkind
woman until yesterday.  But from the instant I
penned my invitation to you, my old pride, my
old--yes, I must say it--arrogance, obstinacy,
emptiness of heart, gradually went from me.  It
is like a conversion.  I am changed, and--a
humbler woman.  I recognize now, as I have not
done hitherto, my personal limitations, and the
wrong I do my fellow-creatures when I enjoy
great good fortune without making any return to
mankind for it."

The Duchess was dreamily silent for a little
while.  A mist was before her eyes.  It seemed
as if a cold mist had been removed from about
her heart.  She was no less the great lady for
having discovered her older isolation to have
been a condition poorer far than this realization
of sisterhood with the rest of mankind.

Mrs. Moss did not venture on any answer.
She was in a curious condition of mixed emotions.
Now and then, while her hostess had been talking
she had wondered whether some of the words
used were intentionally barbed and edged.  Why
had the Duchess's old pride begun to diminish
when she penned the invitation to her?  Was
that Miching Malecho?  Did it mean mischief?

Mrs. Moss fell into a brown study pondering
this littleness.  She was no fool; her personality
was not quite all vanity, joy in wealth, and greed
for pleasure.  She had a methodical brain, and
possibly a heart somewhere under her corsets.
The words addressed to her were effectual.

"You have not been negligent," at last she
remarked gently.  "Your name and the Duke's
are on all charity lists.  You help good objects
with what they ask for--money."

The Duchess shook her head.

"It was always a proud giving.  That charity
did not come from kindness, it came from pride."

"No, Duchess; you are taking an unfair advantage
of yourself."

"I think not, Mrs. Moss.  But I need not talk
penitence now.  If this--this tendency holds me
to-morrow, as I can truly say I hope it will, I
shall do better by expressing it in deeds.  I
want now, if you please, to speak with you on a
more serious question, and to invite your
co-operation."

Mrs. Moss wriggled.  "It is coming!" she told
herself.  This sounded so like the familiar prelude
to a begging appeal.

She was agreeably disappointed.  The Duchess
did not even look the word purse-strings, but
still required something that involved sacrifice.

"You have, of course, heard of these municipal
Christmas festivities?" she asked.

"Only vaguely!" was the airy answer.

"But the papers have been full of them!"

"I only read certain pages of certain papers--in
Society one must be careful; but, yes, I have
heard something about them--sufficient to know
that they are amusements for the many, not for
the few.  I belong to the few."

"They are for all," murmured the Duchess.

"Then I fear I can take but little interest in them."

Bim raised the wand vindictively; June motioned
him to wait.  He obeyed.

"I am sorry to hear you say so!"  The Duchess
was shocked at this amazing indifference, being
herself possessed of the convert's earnestness.

"Oh!"

There was a weight of meaning in the interjection.
Not for the eighth of an instant had
Mrs. Moss dreamed that the supremely exclusive
Duchess of Armingham could truly sympathize
or co-operate in those corporate efforts.  She
knew, only too well, that the "certain pages" she
condescended to read had mentioned the Duchess
as one of the dissentient minority, and because of
that very abstention had herself refrained from
joining the movement, and had infected her
followers with a similar intention.

Now had come a new change.  Her keen,
shrewd wits were absolutely bewildered.  What
should she do?  She answered her question by
doing nothing, by listening.

"I am sorry to hear you say so," the Duchess
repeated, "because it is a unique effort on the
part of all.  Never before have we had such a
union of people of all degrees and classes, as are
joined in making this effort."

"But--but--forgive me, Duchess--surely you?"
The question was not verbally completed, but it
shone in the lady's eye.

"Were recently not in sympathy with the movement?"

"Yes, Duchess, that is my inquiry put into
plain English."

"I confess that is so.  It was wrong of me to
decide as I did, but it is never too late to mend.
I am going to help now with all my powers, as
my husband has done.  Will you join and help
too?  My request to you to come and meet me
to-day was directly due to my zeal for the
movement.  ('Dear me!' thought the Duchess.  'Was
that so?')  It seemed such a pity that so noble
and practically unanimous an effort should be
ignored by anyone who could help it--especially
by people of standing."  The flattery, though
unintended, was not without effect.  "I knew
you did not purpose to participate in it;
neither did I.  I have changed my mind, and
given up my unsocial intention.  Will you,
Mrs. Moss?"

"No, Duchess, I cannot!"

"I am sorry you say so, but why?"

"It would make me the laughing-stock of
my set."

June motioned to the gnome.  He clung to
a hanging watch-chain, and held the wand to
the recalcitrant lady's lips.  She resisted its
power.  Her mouth was obstinate.

"Surely not, Mrs. Moss.  I have heard you
are the social queen of an influential following.
Those people, whoever they are, would surely
come with you, and so render our festivity
representative and complete."

More flattery, insidious and unintentional--such
tactics being as foreign to the Duchess
as grease-paint.  Oh, those fairies, the
diplomatists!

"It seems so unreasonable.  So like--so like
a scene in a pantomime or fairy-play."

"Exactly, that--that is the joy of it!"

June, delighted, kissed the Duchess.

"It is against reason and common-sense!"

"Oh no, Mrs. Moss.  It is the best kind of
reason, and is absolute common-sense!"

"But, please tell me; it's beyond me--what
good can the meeting, in such manner, of all
sorts of people--noble and shady folk--do?"

"Every kind of good.  It will teach the
reality of human brotherhood, and tend to
make the shady folk--and the noble folk--nobler."

"To be utterly forgotten on the morrow!"

"I think not.  I hope not.  Once get
representatives of all classes and conditions to meet
in considerate fraternal intercourse, dining
together fifty at one table, and gulfs of mutual
suspicion, indifference, dislike, will be crossed
never, I hope, to be completely divided again.
It is a great idea, hazardous at first, daring
always, but now reasonable and most promising.
A real step forward in human progress.  A large
fact of hope."

Her Grace was eloquent.  The fairy crown
had certainly worked wonders.

Mrs. Moss hesitated still, and Bim lowered the
wand with despair.  A thick crust of vanity and
pride in material things had to be dissolved.  She
pursed her lips obstinately, and looked at the
fire.  June thereupon flew across and dumped
the crown on her head.

It worked.

"Yes, on consideration, I agree," was the
declaration.  "I shall be delighted to co-operate.
It will mean money--never mind that!  My
husband and I can afford to give.  It will mean
service--devoted service.  That, too, shall be
gladly given by both of us.  It is an object worth
living for!  I will come, and make my friends
come, too; but, Duchess"--June removed the
crown, and herself donned it--"I must make one
condition, please."

"Yes?"

"That you and the Duke come to my New Year's party!"

"If you will invite us--with pleasure!"

"I do invite you--now!"

"Then I accept."

So the compact was made.

When the Duchess and Mrs. Moss were at last
alone, each asked herself this question: "What
is the world coming to?"

June knew.  Bim knew.  Oberon in Fairyland
had an inkling.





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.. _`NEW YEAR'S DAY`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   NEW YEAR'S DAY

.. vspace:: 2

Croakers croaked, of course, but the Christmas
Festival, accomplished, was a great success, and
no one enjoyed it more than the croakers--when
they knew themselves unnoticed.  It was a
roaring win for optimists.  The expectations
were everywhere excelled.  The dinner was
worthy of the intention.  The conversations,
music, songs, and games, went with a ring.  Not
a dissentient note was heard.  High and humble,
rich and poor, met for that occasion as comrades,
and the good effects of their coming together
remained.  The world was, henceforward, better
humoured, gentler, more considerate than ever it
had been.

It was a triumph to fairies and to the less
fortunate folk who are human.  There let us
leave it!

New Year--the Feast of Good Resolutions--arrived
with its loads of customary high intentions.
That day brought an opportunity which
the fairies meant to make the most of.  But the
task was not entirely easy, for old habit would
be potent.

A New Year's resolution in the past had
generally, almost invariably, two necessary
distinct parts--the making and the breaking.  That
was its history.  If New Year's Day was the
Feast of its Creation, Twelfth Night might
certainly be called the funeral day, belated.  The
building and the forgetting of good resolutions
had become such a time-honoured process that
each of the stages was as easy as breathing.
Lightly entered into, the intention could be
even more lightly lost.  That was the fairies'
difficulty.  It would be simple enough to get
people to resolve well; but to prevent their
having a Twelfth Night of forgetfulness would
be a task Titanic in comparison.  Still, they
must try.

June, by means of her myrmidons, hunted up
the ex-Lord Mayor, Sir Titus Dods--now a
baronet in the courts of Edward and Oberon--and
caused him to come from his retirement at
Hampstead to lead in the particular effort.

He induced every newspaper as its special New
Year supplement to give away an attractive card
on which practicable good resolutions could be
written.  The cards, inscribed, would be
preserved until this New Year was old and out.  It
was the Mansion House procedure of last May-time
repeated, spread over a very far wider area,
destined to be similarly successful.

A change came over casual converse.  Instead
of using such old phrases and time-worn tags as
"How d'ye do?" or "Cold day, isn't it?" people
greeting each other asked, "Resolutions going strong?"

It was surprising how much more interesting
meetings became, and how invariably the answer
was "Yes."  Self-respect struggled to attain the
affirmative answer.

So there was progress in all ways, splendid
progress.

June's company was growing so rapidly--every
hour of the night and day bringing at least one
recruit--that her mighty mimic ladyship was able
to concentrate attention on the so-called Smart
Set.  She remembered the New Year's party to
be held at Liberty Hall and went to it, taking
a regiment of elf-folk with her--Bim the only gnome.

The fairies clustered about the door and stairways,
and made fun of the white-headed footmen.

"Why did these voluminous mortals wear
that mess?"  The night was bright with their satire.

Regularly and rapidly the company of guests
arrived.  They came with their usual
boisterousness, and then--and then----

The influence of the elves had a curious effect
on hosts and on guests.  It proved strangely
restraining.  Barnett Q. felt like a Sunday-school
superintendent at a too-French French play, a
humid pink of uncomfortable propriety.  Mrs. Moss
was, as usual, nervously fluttered with a
new anxiety frightening her heart--how would
her guests, destined to bask in ducal radiance,
behave?

Liberty Hall was metamorphosed.  The noise,
display, and wildness which heretofore had made
its functions famous were rapidly replaced by a
superfine straightness--a Bowdlerized bonhomie,
self-conscious and constrained.  The rabble of
Comus was muzzled.

Hoary sinners and flaxen-headed *mondaines*
were prim, simpering, moralizing, painfully on
their goodily-good behaviour.  They were
nerve-fettered, with spirits weighed down.  They knew
it, they felt it, and could not comprehend or
complain.  The fairies held them in thrall.  From
the elves' point of view it was supremely funny.
Those spirit-masters of the revels laughed till
many of them became bright scarlet.

The Duke and Duchess of Armingham, accompanied
by Geoffrey--who had done his best to
induce his mother not to go--arrived at ten.
Mrs. Moss breathed a sigh of relief.  Now, come
what might, her party was justified.  Whatever
the ultimate verdict might be, Vanity Fair must
approve something.  She had got the Duchess!

The new guests, followed by the fairies, trooped
into the ballroom.  The band struck up a
barn-dance, which was footed with decorum.
Everybody was surprised, the Duchess agreeably so.

The Duke put on pince-nez, and went in search
of the prettiest possible partner he could find.
He had come to his second youth, and meant to
enjoy it.  He found himself murmuring complimentary
epigrams to Lalage and Chloe, written
by himself during college days when under the
glamour of Horace.  He wondered if they would do.

Geoffrey talked of New-Year reforms to
Barnett Q. with the seriousness of a budding
legislator, and remembered his previous experience
at Liberty Hall.  What a difference!  Then had
been riot; this was the other extreme.  Where
was the reason why?

The company consisted--he saw--mostly of the
same people who previously had wrought vulgar
tumult there; every face was more or less familiar
to him; but their manners, hitherto blatant, were
now positively mealy-mouthed.  Roaring lions
expressed themselves with the modesty of penny
whistles.  What did it mean?  Bounders, ninnies,
minxes had left off their meannesses and become
decently human.

Any attempt at vulgarity was instantly hushed
and checked.  Lame efforts at ostentation were
remorselessly snubbed.  Geoffrey had learned
several things during the last few days; his eyes
had been better opened.  He put this condition
of strained propriety down to its right source, the
fairies; but her Grace, his mother, had also
something to do with it.  Mrs. Moss was positive it
was mainly due to the dear Duchess.

The coming of the Arminghams was certainly
an event in the social history of Liberty Hall.  If
it had not been for the strange sense of constraint
which held her, Mrs. Moss would have exulted,
pleased as a young redskin with his first scalp.
As it was, she fluttered like a nervous hen round
an ostrich-egg, knowing she had not lived in vain.

It was the Duke who, the fairies willing, broke
down the barriers of undue restraint.  The
elf-atmosphere, which subdued the loud rich, roused
and awakened him.  He was inclined to rollick.
Breaking through the established order of things,
he induced Barnett Q. to start an old country
dance.  The experiment took.  Feet which earlier
in the evening had been lamely waltzing or
half-heartedly two-stepping became lively with Sir
Roger de Coverley.  It was a revolution,
transformation complete.

Clean simplicity came to people who had always
deemed it folly to be simple.  Whole-heartedly
the guests joined in the dance--they hurried to
take places in long laughing rows--the Duchess
herself came down from the proud mountains to
go trotting through a smiling avenue with her
partner, Barnett Q.  The fairies, too, made
shimmering lines, and improved on the movements of
the human-folk.  There were no more unsocial
or ugly dances that night.  The party was for all
the world like one played by happy children.

Girls of blasée eighteen became young for the
first time since they left the nursery; gilded
youths resisted tendencies towards brainless talk
and inelegant posing; oldsters, whose dyed hair
and waxed moustaches whispered grey stories,
forgot affectations and selfishness; ladies of middle
age declined to be wall-flowers longer.  They
asked idlers to partner them in a natural feminine
way.  Hilarity was alive.  The card-room was
abandoned.  Fairies were helping lovers along
the happy pathway.  The clock most musically
clanged twelve in sympathy.

"My love," declared Barnett Q., panting, to his
wife, "this is the best we have ever had."

"The dear Duchess!" said she.  There was
little credit for the fairies from her.

The dance and the party went on, and momentarily
grew brighter with joy.

Supper-time came.  The meal was to have been
a series of snacks, fizz and rushes as usual; but
June ruled otherwise.  She had learned that the
time men are more likely to be serious, and are
certainly most easily influenced, is meal-time; so
she ordained that the whole company of guests
should go to the supper-room together, and although
this necessitated some give-and-take and a great
deal of squeezing--borne by young couples with
a patience beyond their years--it was managed.
Plates and cutlery were soon a-clatter, and the
hum of happy conversation arose.  Meanwhile,
the elves distributed themselves amongst the
company.  Their time had come.

June, with Bim marching behind her, went
along the tables to make sure that her helpers
were in their places.  Wine-glasses were touched
with magic.  The champagne sparkled with extra
enchantment.

June danced back to her place at the head of the
chief table, and rapped the knuckles of Mr. Moss.
He rose, raised a glass, and proposed a loyal toast.
It was drunk with cordiality.  The company,
sipping their wine, absorbed magic.

"Now," he said, as June put the compelling
crown upon him, "I'm going to ask you to drink
another toast, what I will call the toast of the
evening, 'The Fairies'!"

The outburst of enthusiasm that followed reminded
June of the banquet at the Mansion House.
New wine, enchanted, was poured into glasses
wand-touched.  The liquor carried fresh
inspiration to the human lips.

"The Fairies!  The Fairies!  Oberon!  Titania!"
the guests cried.

June and Company--all except wingless Bim,
who perforce must stay squatting on a bunch
of purple grapes--flew above and about, pouring
charms on the mortals; singing a song whilst
flying which the men-things nearly heard.

The flying procession went gaily trailing thrice
round the room; then the fairies dropped back to
their proper places.  The shouting now must wait
a while.  June gave Barnett Q. a peremptory
command.  He was obedient as a marionette.

"May I make a speech?" he asked his guests.

"You must!" was the unanimous answer.

He struck the attitude of oratory, and successfully
overcame his lingering tendency to Yankee
mannerisms.

"As we age," he began sententiously, "not
many of us really grow wiser.  So, if you please,
we will--every one of us--be young again--and
immediately.  That way, and that way only, can
we do what the fairies demand of us.  Those
careless youths, the children, have amazingly good
opportunities, if only they knew it."

"Go right on, Barnett!" counselled his wife,
who, even in this swelter of excitement, was keeping
anxious eyes on the Duchess, hoping she would
not be bored.  There was little fear of that
happening, however bald the new Moss philosophy
might be.

The Duchess was, indeed, a fine picture of genial
benevolence.  She beamed and, practically a
presiding presence there, enjoyed something of the
satisfaction felt by a patron saint.  Her former
enemies would not have known her had they
dreamed of scrutinizing her in the old cruel way.

"Are you in the mood for elf-wisdom?" the
millionaire asked.

"We are!" Geoffrey answered, voicing the
general feeling.

"Are you willing--ladies and gentlemen both--to
be knights-errant, to go on a quest for the sake
of the fairies?"

"We are!  We are!"

Every one of them--men and women, boys and
girls--answered this time.  Would-be Britomarts
and Calidores were plentiful as mushrooms in
October; but the Blatant Beast they were to
pursue was their own vanities, selfishness, vices.
"Very well.  The first requirement is that you
at once write on your dance-programmes some
such resolution as this: 'Not a day in this new
year shall pass without my having made someone
in the world happier by my works.'  Phrase it as
you please, my friends, but don't mistake my
meaning."

"But what kind of works?" asked Sir Gussie,
the calculating and precise, as he screwed in a
heavy-rimmed monocle, to stare at this re-maker
of manners.

"Use your eyes, my boy, and decide for
yourself," was the prompt answer.  "Look at the
every-day sights of London, and then carry comfort
to those who need."

Barnett Moss was in his element.  He was the
born manager.  He ruled that assembly--by
gracious permission of June--as effectually as he
would have dominated a Board meeting.  He
would carry this thing through.

The pencils attached to the programmes were
busily inscribing the fine promise.  The butler and
footmen attending the table supplied cards to those
without them, and themselves surreptitiously
wrote down similar good intentions.  June, gratified
by this pleasant spirit of theirs, made them a
little better-looking--rather a good form of reward.

Enchantment was potent everywhere in the
large excited room.

"Is it down?" Barnett asked.  His little eyes
glittered with excitement, as they always glittered
when he was governing a masterly transaction.

"It is," was after a while the general answer.

"Now how to keep it.  May I ask the Duchess
of Armingham to assist the fairies in this?"

The Duchess bowed assent.  The company
clapped hands delightedly.  Her Grace seemed
changed.  Could that smiling presence be she
who had for so long been their bugbear?  Many
of that company, had they not been caught by
the glamour of the occasion, would have doubted
their senses as to her identity.  The Duke poised
his glasses and pursed his lips, studying her.
He hardly knew his own wife.

"Good!" commented Barnett Q., confirming
her assent; "this is how the Quest you knights
are to follow shall be kept.  Once every month,
by call or by letter, every person here who has
made and signed this promise must report to
the Duchess its fulfilment; and let no one"--his
voice took on accents of tremendous seriousness--"let
no one who, by breaking this exacting
resolution, proves unworthy, presume to darken
the doorsteps of Armingham House!"

There was a great flutter and babble of talk
as the serious words and their full purport sank
into the minds of those addressed.  To these
worldlings, even in this sublimer mood, no more
acceptable bait could be offered than the
opportunity of a visiting friendship with the Duchess.
The front-door of Armingham House was to
them as the entrance to Paradise.  To consort
with such as she--a real leader of high-placed
people--was a passport to supreme society, worth
achieving, worth enjoying, worth retaining--the
thing they most desired.  It was the best effective
means for securing good behaviour and destroying
vulgarity that could be devised.  But the
Duchess, what did she think of this definite
proposal?

The Duke, in his shrewd mind, had a good
deal of doubt about it.  He leaned forward to
study the Duchess's face, to read her intention;
and was amazed.  She rose to her feet to make
pronouncement.

"I shall be willing and glad to do what
Mr. Moss has asked of me.  He is the mouthpiece
of the fairies, I understand that.  I accept
the task from them; and shall be proud to number
amongst my personal friends the kind ones here
who, by inscribing and signing their cards, as
bidden, have taken what may be called a vow of
personal service, following the quest of a social
purpose.  The first Tuesday afternoon in every
month will be my reception day, when in town
or at Armingham Castle.  Will my new friends
remember that?"

She resumed her seat.  The interlude was
ended.  With new zest the assembly returned to
the ball-room, and enjoyed their games and play.
The artificial restraint that had held them earlier
was gone.  They had become gentle.

Some of them began their Quest that very night.

Sir Gussie, to whom gambling had been a
profitable passion, and cards the first of pastimes,
resolved in future to play for counters; and, as
amends for past misgains, went along a dingy
street and dropped a sovereign into five-and-twenty
shabby letter-boxes.

Ladies'-maids, who, yawning and jaded, had
waited till dawn for their mistresses, were greeted
with smiles and thanks--a welcome change from
the wonted shrill-tempered crossness which
almost invariably had been their recompense
hitherto.

One bright youth--with the earnestness of a
beginner, which even when misguided is
something splendid--devoted his powers to helping
a drunken man homeward.  Another sparkling
boy at once totted up a list of his debts and made
plans of economy whereby he might redeem
them.  Another went off post-haste to write an
apology to a family he--through selfishness--had
wronged.  A fourth--Mr. Harris, a motorist,
with whom Geoffrey Season had half an
acquaintance--vowed to walk five miles daily for two
months along a car-infested road, to see for
himself what road-hog tyranny meant.

And so on, and so forth, in all manner of
ways, wise and unwise, but always sincere and
determined, the beginnings of the amelioration
of the Smart Set began.

It worked well, after a little while, as every
movement launched by the fairies is bound to do.
The coming together of the sudden plutocracy
with true aristocrats had good effects--broadening
and strengthening--on both.  It taught
restraint, consideration, responsibility.  Social
organizations increased in numbers, sway and
influence.  No hospital or charitable purpose
was now hampered for lack of funds.  Processions
of the unemployed ceased to be.  There were
fewer children in the streets of poverty: the
childless rich had adopted them.

Humanity was linked closer, with cords of
great kindness.  No one was better affected by
it than the Duchess of Armingham.  She
remained genial, a power persuasive; and grew in
bounty, charm and kindness.  She felt something
of a fairy queen herself.

So June won the stronghold.  The poor and
the rich, the weak, the proud and the great, were
with her now.  She was leading a host, human
and immortal.  Her madness was justified.





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.. _`IN PARLIAMENT`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   IN PARLIAMENT

.. vspace:: 2

February arrived, succeeding a period of immense
elf-activity.  Mankind was rapidly waking up to
the improved condition of things; more and more
recruits were coming from Fairyland to keep
men's purposes kind and bright; the metropolis
was cleaning itself vigorously, and putting on
colour, so that from all parts of the world people
journeyed to its streets, to gather æsthetic
inspiration and delight.

Londoners realized at last that they were
people of a majestic city, that the grime and
sordid ugliness which for ages had shrouded
their buildings veiled a world rich with poetry
and beauty.  With their civic soul requickened,
they studied and were proud of the thousand
years of living history--their heritage.  They
wore their hats with a cock.  Their stride
lengthened.  Their chins showed disdain for the
gutter.  The ancient Romans, the Venetians and
Florentines of medieval Italy, were not more
truly town-patriotic than were the inhabitants
of the rediscovered London.

February had arrived; and midway through
the despised, misunderstood month, the Houses of
Parliament met.  Writs to fill vacant seats were
moved for.  Geoffrey Season was back at Armingham
Castle, strenuously electioneering, pursuing
the last lap of his candidature.

The newspapers describe elections so well that
it is not necessary for this poor pen to tell the
story of that particular battle between the Buffs
and the Blues.  It is enough to state that the
foreseen took place--it is, despite the Disraelian
dictum, nearly always the expected that happens--Lord
Geoffrey Season was put at the top of the
poll, defeating his Blue opponent, Mr. Tutherman,
by a few less than seven hundred votes, which
was rather better than the average in that
constituency.

He arrived at the House of Commons, the
youngest, and, therefore, the most sanguine
member of Parliament, ten days after the session
had commenced.  He purposed determinately to
carry into effect the projects of the fairies.

When he was introduced to the Commons and
took his seat, the Debate on the Address was still
proceeding turgidly.  Progress struggled feebly
against a stream of talk.

June and Bim entered the House with Geoffrey;
and as nowadays she went hardly anywhere in
public without the accompaniment of a
self-appointed bodyguard, full fifty fairies grouped
around her.  Queenly was her state as she
surveyed, from the vantage-ground of the clock,
the languid, sprawling gentlemen who comprised
the House.  For quite a time the elves watched
the proceedings.  They were amused and puzzled
by many things; it would be inappropriate here
to detail precisely what these were.

Then gradually the fairies grew bored; the
infinite stream of talk went on and on.  The
light of their presences faded.  Their glory was
dwindling.  Their strength, which is expressed
in brightness, was gradually diminishing.

This wouldn't do!  June roused herself, and
gave Bim a push which sent him spinning and
then sprawling on the floor of the House below.
He rose indignant at this treatment, strode with
his stiffest dignity to the table, and, with a spring
and some effort, perched himself astride the mace.

From that moment the Commons began to be
transformed.  The fairies resumed their
brightness, and shone with light which would have
dazzled humanity had eyes of clay been able
to realize immortal glories.  The clock stopped--its
mechanism was more atune to elf-influence
than that of the prose-builders below.  Members--for
no particular reason that they knew--came
trooping in; and within ten minutes every green
bench on the floor of the House and in the
galleries was packed.

June spread her wings, and flew over the heads
of the legislators.  Her companions followed her
example.  With wands they tapped the mighty
brows of legislators, and prepared their minds
for obedience.  Members wearing hats were
poked in the nape of the neck.  All--without
exception--were inoculated with magic.  The
Irish party became a little uproarious, and
effectively facetious.

The stream of prose went on.

June gave Bim her wand, and bade him take the
chair.  He gravely clambered along the Treasury
table, came to the trio of clerks, and, after bowing
with due respect thrice, according to usage--his
seat on the mace had touched him with
Parliamentary decorum--the intrepid adventurer
climbed the Speaker's robes and squatted soberly
upon his wig.  The dignity of Parliament was
enhanced.

The gnome knew he was making history, so he
took care to keep awake.

Mr. Speaker began to feel strangely nervous,
to have forebodings--as if an unexpected
precedent was about to be established.

Meanwhile the stream of prose went on.  The
present malefactor was ----, but his name shall
not be immortalized!  This is all I will say,
O reader: he was of the opposite school of
politics to you.  Even members on his own side
of the House began to be impatient.  A few cried
"'Vide!" but only feebly.  His misdoing was
condoned by the general indifference.

He went on lamenting and lamely protesting
that the Government in the King's Speech had
not included a Bill to regulate Charity Bazaars,
and was endeavouring to institute a comparison
with the social system of the ancient Assyrians.
His peroration had been misplaced; he had begun
with it.  He had reached his seventhly.  There
were no signs of the approaching end, no means
whatever of computing when that might be.  He
merely went on.  His speech was like a long and
muddy road on a splashy wet night.

June crowned Geoffrey.  Obediently he rose.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, with the gesture that
practice in the bedroom had made perfect.  "This
intolerable flow of drivel----"

"Order!  Order!" cried a hundred voices.

The interrupted orator turned round to stare at
Geoffrey with eyes of angry surprise.

Intervention came from the proper place.  The
Speaker was on his feet.  Bim clung to the wig
to prevent his displacement.

"The noble lord," said Mr. Speaker, in his most
conciliatory and compelling manner, "is so young
a member of the House that he merits every
indulgence; but I must remind him that to
interrupt an honourable member in any other way
than by rising to a point of order is a serious
breach of the procedure and order of this House."

Geoffrey had, of course, resumed his seat
immediately the Speaker rose; but, authority
having spoken, the crown would no more let him
sit still, acquiescent, than it had allowed any
of its human wearers to remain their normal
selves.  He rose again.

A tornado of cries of "Order!" greeted Geoffrey's
further involuntary breach of obedience.

June flew across to the Speaker.

Old Parliamentary hands turned to look at
their new colleague.  His further breach of order
was done with perfect manner.  There was no
shouting vulgarity about his interruption, but a
definite purpose, pleasantly expressed.  They
rapidly summed him up.  He was well-looking,
well-dressed, good House-of-Commons form, yet
with a refreshing look of determination in his
eyes.  Far within themselves the veterans began
to admire and to wonder.  Geoffrey's début, they
felt, was full of promise; it marked a man of the
future as surely as the Hartington yawn had done.

"He will do," they said; "impudence and
brains."  That was their verdict in the beginning.
Shrewd were those front-benchers, but they did
not quite know Geoffrey.

"May I apologize, Mr. Speaker, and explain----"

"I decline to give way," declared the important
person whose pomposity and portentous drivel
had provoked the elves' interruption.

"'Vide! 'vide!" cried a Labour man, merely in
mischief.

June kissed the Speaker.  Without blushing,
yet with perfect grace and modesty, in the
interests of true progress, she kissed him; while
Bim, lying full length along the top of his wig,
pressed the wand against his forehead, and willed
him to do as the fairies required.  Could any man
successfully resist such powers?  No!  Even the
first of Commoners could not.

The Speaker, as he stood waiting to deliver
judgment, knew he was, though dazed through the
brightness, even clearer-headed than usual.  He
was on the awesome edge of a precedent.  He
wondered how the decision then to be given
would be received; ordinarily it would have filled
the House with amazement, but the earlier
inoculation with magic had already begun to take
effect.  The Speaker was aware of strange powers
and presences about him.

The person of pompous prose, realizing that his
dignity was endangered, again cried a protest;
but he was so far away from the sympathies of
his fellow-members--he had bored them so
severely--that with clamour they shouted him
down.  Thanks to the fairies, every single member
in that House hurled "Order!" at him.

Though technically quite in order, he was forced
to subside.  He felt badly treated; he was badly
treated: and serve him jolly well right!

During the whole of the subsequent scene--a
glorious page in the new English history--the
nonentity sulked.  Bim after a while went to sit
on his knee, endeavouring to charge him with the
elixir of elfdom; but it was difficult, at that stage
of chronic self-esteem, for any good influence to
pierce the crust of prejudice, jealousy, and
indignation which bound him.

But the gnome went on making effort, and
eventually did soften the pride of that creature of
grandiose pomposity.

June's kiss was momentous; it bore with it
power.  The Speaker throughout his being
trembled at her intangible touch; a smile, which
would have been seraphic had it not been for the
wig, brightened and gladdened his face.

The old Parliamentary hands glanced with
swift inquiry at each other; then centred their
gaze on him.  What was coming?

"This is an exceptional occasion," he ruled, in
level, serious tones.  "It is an hour wherein a
precedent may usefully be created.  The noble
lord may make his explanation.  The House will
listen with attention."

To their own surprise, the members cheered.
What they knew full well was utterly wrong
seemed to them then utterly right.  Geoffrey
was encouraged in his fairy courses.  The crown,
pressed on his smooth locks, filled him with
elation of purpose.  He felt as light-hearted and
confident as a skylark--as powerful as a
steam-engine; potent, joyful, energetic, controlling.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, "I must and do
apologize sincerely to the honourable member
for interrupting him in the manner I was
compelled to do; but the protest I was forced to
make was done in obedience to some superior
power.  I feel--we all feel--that in these latter
days new and admirable forces have become
effective in the national life."

"Hear, hear!" said the Leader of the Opposition.

"Ideals, opposed absolutely to many popular
fixed opinions, are prevalent.  The reign of
ugliness, selfishness, materialism, is threatened by
new and admirable influences.  Old forms must
modify themselves to suit younger and nobler
purposes.  It was, and is, as the spokesman of
those powers that I have ventured so soon to
intrude on the attention of the House."

A murmur of approval ran round the benches.
No party was quite silent; the only individual
who regarded Geoffrey with suspicion and
coldness was the victim whom Bim was sitting on,
trying to melt.

"I do protest," Geoffrey went on, "and I shall
continue to protest, on behalf of progress and
humanity, against the waste of public time through
mere talk.  The House has listened for
three-quarters of an hour to the honourable member;
and, I venture to say--with a further apology to
him--was in no way inspired or benefited by
what he was saying.  His speech merely occupied
time which is urgently required by the country
for the fulfilment of practical, national business.
In the name of the fairies, I assert--and the
House will uphold me--that whenever an
honourable member, no matter where his seat may be,
obstructs or even wearies the House with a dull,
dilatory, or unnecessary speech, I shall move
that some Bill which makes for social progress,
whether it appear on the paper or not, be
immediately considered, shelving at once the subject
under discussion at the time.  This will insure
that, in a very little while, what is publicly said
will be worth saying, worth listening to; and that
true legislation will march.  For the purpose of
preparing the House for this new course of
progress--thank the fairies for the idea, Mr. Speaker,
don't thank me!--I respectfully inform you, Sir,
that I shall to-morrow bring in a Bill to abolish
cemeteries, and so to reform our burial customs,
that God's acre may be a pleasant garden, wherein
people may contemplate immortality without
being shocked by pagan stone-ware and
unhealthy tombs."

The House thrilled at the calm words which
expressed such revolution of methods.  It was
like suggesting that the world should be summarily
dissolved and rebuilt.  Yet members heard
it like lambs, though even then one voice of
interruption was raised.

A member who had entered the Chamber but
a few moments before, and therefore was
bewildered by the impropriety of Geoffrey's action,
and astounded at the strained attention of the
House, made formal inquiry.

"Is this in order, Mr. Speaker?"

"No," was the sharp reply, received in ominous
silence.  "The noble lord is quite out of order,
but he may continue!"

Such a volley of cheering rang out that the
lights overhead, behind their glass partition,
shivered.  A united sigh of satisfaction swelled
into sound.  Members were relieved that the
outbreak against convention was not summarily
stopped.

June kissed the Speaker again.  She was proud,
pleased, and grateful.  He who had raised the
point of order--Mr. Wash, the member for
Somewhere--stared, staggered, subsided, squeezed
himself into half a seat, and soon found himself,
too, under the spell of elf-influence and in cordial
sympathy with the reformer.

No more protests were made, then or thereafter,
against Geoffrey's irregular courses.  He
hurried along his fairy way, happily free.  He
felt more like a skylark than ever.  Admiration
marched after him with giant strides.  In those
moments of Parliamentary début he was establishing
a reputation which years of official
perseverance might never have attained.

"Against useless speeches," he thundered,
encouraged--the bedroom manner was effective--"the
fairies wage their war.  They have commissioned
me, also, to declare their absolute
disapproval of mere party politics."

There were murmurs of doubt here.  The Irish
party was even vociferous.  June waved the
wand; the Speaker raised his hand; the sounds
subsided instantly.  Never before had the Chair
been so willingly obeyed.

"I know," said Geoffrey, "that the party system
is a natural development, that without it political
life would lose much of its vitality; but it has
become a mockery, a nuisance, a mischief; it has
gone too far."

"Hear, hear!" said an arch obstructor, the brim
of whose silk hat was gay with five fairies.

A loud burst of laughter echoed his words.
Saul was indeed among the prophets.  That arch
obstructor was notorious for his tactics and skill
at the business.  His moves were dictated solely
by party means for party purposes.  They had
caused more than one good movement, promising
the growth of national well-being, to be frustrated,
injured or killed.

"I mean it!" he said emphatically, removing
his hat to say so, and thereby causing the five
fairies to flutter, sparkling, for some moments
above him.  Their radiance shone on his high
bald brow.  His fellow members saw enough of
the elf-brightness actually to think it the light
of his inspiration.  They cheered a volley.
Encouraged by this amazing tribute, much of it from
men who hitherto had not admired him, he vowed
secretly never, never, never again wantonly to
hinder or harm a possible good cause by
obstructive tactics.  Saul, better than a prophet
now, had become angelic.

"How many a Bill, supported by the most
thoughtful members, in all parts of this House,
has been sacrificed to some supposed partisan
advantage," Geoffrey continued.  "The history
of legislation, Mr. Speaker, is choked with
statesmanlike intentions, spoiled wantonly.  That
possibility must not continue."

"Hear, hear!"

"It must not continue.  The fairies have given
the word.  They must be obeyed."

"Hear, hear!  Hear, hear!"

"The party organizations, of course, must
remain; general business still must be conducted
along party lines, for opposition is practically as
necessary as government; but the tendency to
use party forces as an insensate block must be
checked.  Hereby, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully
give notice that, while loyal to my party, the
Buffs, I shall vote for a good Bill promoted by the
Blues whenever I think it is calculated honestly
to help the people.  Buff or Blue, progress is
much the same.  I stand for true progress.  Will
at least twenty members from every one of the
four parties in this House join with me, look with
impartial eyes, as I shall look, at any and all Bills
presented to it, and make efforts to pass them
when their passage would be for the social good
of the nation?"

Voices from every bench on the floor of the
House, as well as from the parallel galleries
above, cried accord with the intention.  Geoffrey
had his lead.

"Then that is settled.  We--this new National
Party--will be strong enough to help any Government,
Buff or Blue, to carry good measures; and
strong enough to force reasonable amendments
in otherwise desirable Bills.  We shall hold the
balance of power, and progress will be made
along a middle way.  Mr. Speaker, I have done!
I thank the House for its great consideration and
courtesy to a new member.  I have been listened
to with a kindness which proves the patriotism
of this historic House.  I am proud so soon to
have been permitted to suggest remedies for the
congested condition of public business, and,
thanks to the sympathy of honourable members,
to have been enabled to devise means whereby
causes inspired by the fairies will triumph."

He resumed his seat.  Excited applause broke
out.  Members waved their hats.  Three, at least,
stood on the benches, the better to cheer.  Geoffrey
Season was a made Parliamentary man.

The House hushed to hear its Leader.  Gracefully
leaning on a Treasury box, he smiled a smile
of philosophic doubt.  Seeing this, June waved
command to a bevy of elf-princes, who forthwith
transferred the crown from Geoffrey's head to
his.  At once the smile broadened, its doubt
diminished, its philosophy increased.

"The House," said he, "has listened to the
noble lord with considerable interest and admiration;
and rightly so.  He is, it is true, a child in
these things; but out of unsophisticated mouths
the best wisdom sometimes comes.  I am a House
of Commons man myself, and any proposal
calculated to diminish, or actually to injure, the
machinery of this Chamber would be hotly resisted
by me; but because a system has lasted a great
many years--as the party system has done--is
that any reason for its undisturbed continuance?
My question must be answered in the negative.
I say No; and join with the noble lord in inviting
honourable members to look at all Bills with
impartial eyes.  The Government will do its best
to meet the views of the new National Party.  I
am inclined to wish I could become a member of
that party myself.  I congratulate the noble lord
on being its leader.  If it were not for the Labour
members--a most useful body--I should say that
the old Fourth Party lived again."  He paused.
He sighed, "Ah me!" and then reclined again.

The House at once voted the Address.  Members
hurried to remove from the notice paper
futile resolutions and blocking motions.  A score
of bills, prudently progressive, were at once
formally introduced.  Parties vied with each other
in making constructive suggestions.  Parliament
was full of the spirit which made the Psalmist's
mountains skip like rams.  It went to work with
a will.

In the midst of this whirl of fine happenings
the fairies departed.  They flew to the top of the
Victoria Tower, and revelled; while Bim, unblessed
with powers of flight, went peacefully to
sleep in Geoffrey's breast-pocket.





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.. _`OBERON AT LAST`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center large bold

   OBERON AT LAST

.. vspace:: 2

So far as the conquest of London was concerned,
all was over except the shouting.  June was
triumphant.  There was no question about that.
Victory clung to her as a golden shadow.  More
and more elves came from Fairyland, each one
increasing the area for good, and becoming a
present testimony to the truth of June's victory.

Oberon was silent; as yet he made no sign--he
remained far away, hunting in the valleys of
obstinacy; but no other in the shadow-lands of
Faerie hesitated to acknowledge the glorious truth.
June's madness--as they called it--was justified.

Spring came creeping up.  Nature awoke;
shook off her lethargy, and cried welcome to the
future.  The trees were cautiously putting on
raiment.  Birds found their forgotten voices,
and began practising anthems, preparing for the
nesting season.  June, touched by the hope in
the air, and strengthened with the satisfaction of
seeing a recovered or recovering London, was
modestly confident.

A human person, with such progress behind
him, would have been cocksure; but the fairies
know better!

She showed her strength and content by an
act of courage.  She sent the crown back to
Fairyland; Bim, as a special mark of honour, was
privileged to take it.

The gnome, through this great trust--so responsible,
so ennobling--was rapt up to the seventeenth
realm of happiness.  The privilege filled
him with a fine humility.  He did not presume to
wear the crown; he held it with reverence in his
hands, and when riding his pelican homewards--June
procured one for that mission from
St. James's Park--carried it carefully under
his arm.

He reached the Violet Valley, delivered the
crown to its mystical guardians, and then, eager
to give expression to his wonderful adventures,
told to excited groups of immortals tales of the
doings of June.  His words came forth in torrents.
He had so much to say.  He developed unexpected
powers of expression.  He found himself, while
detailing his epic, shining with the graces of
minor poetry.  Nymphs, gathering about him as
he spoke, sweetened his narrative with chords
struck on harps of gold and starshine.  His tales
were repeated by tellers a hundredfold.  A fairy
"Iliad" was in the making.  Not a flower or frog
in Elfland failed to receive a full, true, and
particular account of what the fairy and gnome had
experienced, and of their ultimate triumph.

The result was better than glorious.  Bim was
acting as a first-rate recruiting officer.  In
consequence of his eloquence, the flow of fairies
townwards grew rapidly in volume.  The more he
talked, the faster they flew.  His ardour and
loquacity were stimulated still further by this
increasing--and vanishing--evidence of his success.
Encouraged, he went on talking--explaining,
appealing.  He stood on a stump, an orator.  His
persuasiveness and powers of speech were
depopulating Fairyland.  They harkened, ruminated,
and fled.

Oberon, made aware of this, was roused at last
to the seriousness of things, and came back to
Elfland in a panic.

"I told you so!" said Titania, with that
inconsequence and gentle insistency her lord so loved.

The king airily murmured a royal "Pooh!" and
hid his thoughts in a mist.

Never before had the real Fairyland been so
silent.  Many of the glades were empty.  The
flowers drooped.  Noxious insects took courage
and prowled.  The murmurs of chained dragons,
subterraneously entombed, were heard in the
stillness for the first time for centuries; but they
were securely prisoned.

The fairy knights, their warders, strong in
their high chivalry and duteous devotion, resisted
all inclination to follow the wings of their fellows.
They remained, abiding and true, at their arduous,
difficult posts, guarding the fiery caverns.
Mankind has no idea of the dangers that threatened
them.  If those living, prehistoric creatures had
escaped--but, no!--no!--no more of that!  Let
the horrors remain in the ghastly depths, to be
remembered only on those rare occasions when,
with their mighty convolutions, they cause earthquake.

The fairies flew crowding into London and
the other cities which they had forsaken; and
did not come alone.  Gnomes, thousandfold, also
came riding in, mounted on all manner of
birds--goldfinches and tits, robins and wrens, and
others of the fine companionage of the feathered
kingdom.  The monopoly of King Sparrow was
over.  He was kept in his proper place, and
became a decent and tolerant Bohemian.

Later in the summer season--when soft is the
sun--bright-coloured butterflies fluttered
carelessly out of the country into the radiant streets.
Several birds went open-mouthed to greet them;
but the fairy power was so potent that the
lingering things of beauty--the living smiles of
Psyche--were not touched.

Fire-flies were seen darting about the Royal
Exchange.  Swallows played over the waters of
the Thames.

London became worthier still of its various
newcomers.  It cleaned and decked itself so
rapidly that far-travelled sailormen, returning to
the Pool after merely a month of absence, saw
the great difference, and, knowing themselves
deficient, earnestly signed the pledge.

Every pillar-box within an area of fifty square
miles now had its fairy.  Gnomes, overcrowding,
had to get lodgment where they could.  The
favourite habitation of these democratic gentry
was a discarded silk hat, of which there were
many--for men had come to realize the ugliness
and discomfort of the chimney monster, and had
flung it out of fashion.  Better ventilated, and
with the nap rubbed the wrong way, they had
become agreeable gnome-dwellings.  There were
long rows of them in Victoria Park, and they
were generously dotted about Lincoln's Inn
Fields and the Embankment Gardens.

The happiest chapter in the progress of June
now began.  It was nothing other than the open
faith of man in the reality and truth of the fairies.
Some of them, old people first, the youthful later,
the children last, saw them; saw fairies flying
along happy streets or proudly enthroned on the
pillar-boxes, ruling with beneficence; saw gnomes
dangling and balancing on the iron arms of
lamp-posts, seated in rows on walls, sprawling
among flower-pots on window-sills.

The discovery of this new vision had colossal
results.  It set the whole world writing
paragraphs.  The newspapers, avid for facts, boomed
the revelation for all it was worth.  German
metaphysicians put on gold-rimmed spectacles
and laboriously laid the foundations of voluminous
tomes dedicated to the scientific analysis and
philosophy of the new great influence which had
come to advance mankind.  It was the X rays
and radium--advanced a long stage further.

Humanity generally woke up with a start to
the better condition of things, and set itself even
more vigorously than before to the remedying of
wrongs and the removal of whatever rottenness
had managed to survive.

Life became as an anthem with a jolly chorus.
Croakers, and the pessimists whose idea of duty
is to hinder and delay, were pleasantly pushed
out of place, so that optimists, with vision and
the will to do, might get to work.

Those months of spring--until the almond was
in blossom, and the daisies began to bud--knew
more eager preparation and the devising of true
artistic plans for the betterment and adornment
of London, its suburbs, and the other like places
of England, than ever before.

What of poet and artist, lives somehow and
somewhere, in every individual, became, in the
sunshine of ideas then warm in the world, strong
enough to emerge from its chrysalis state?  Facts
were examined in the light of informed ideas.
Men went about with dreams in their eyes, and
worked with practical hands.

The smoke fiend was promptly abolished--the
means for doing this had long been waiting to be
used; and at once London became brighter.  A
bottle of November fog was treasured in the
British Museum.  The blue skies, no longer
veiled through the incense of black King Coal,
shone so brightly on streets and buildings, lighting
them up, that the lurking filth and dinginess
despoiling worthy edifices became more than
ever eyesores and an annoyance.

St. Paul's Cathedral was attacked with an
army of brushes.  Before Midsummer-day came,
the great architectural crown of London emerged
in white glory from its setting of roofs--they
were flower-filled now--and soon would be
pointing to the heavens, a burnished dome of
bronze.

Trees were planted along the sides of every
main thoroughfare.  Silent motor-buses glided
through green avenues.  Statues not doomed by
the order of ugliness were cleansed; and, where
their subject allowed it, were adorned with flowers
festooned about their pedestals.

Trafalgar Square was, at last, in process of
becoming worthy of its position and opportunity.
A new story, architecturally handsome, was
superimposed on the National Gallery, removing the
past insignificance.  The Square itself became a
joy in marble and roses.  Whitehall sparkled with
fountains.  The rails of the Parks were removed.

The Thames grew silvern again.  Men fished
from boats alongside the Embankment, and listened
to the choruses of concerts in the gardens which
graced the fine thoroughfare.  It was a favourite
sight in future years to watch the salmon running
down to sea, and, later, making their willing
return to the upper reaches beyond Teddington.

Members of Parliament--there were petticoats
amongst them--in the intervals of beneficent
debate--threw food from the Terrace to fishes
and seagulls.

Cockneys hoped for a hay-harvest on Clerkenwell
Green.

And that is all we need say to show how
splendidly the fairies were causing men to modify
London.

Beauty was living; vulgarity was dying.
Hopefulness, happiness, kindness reigned.

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We must go back to an earlier stage of the
triumph of June, when the happy developments,
aforesaid, were generally but generating in men's
minds, and had not come to actual processes of
materialization.

It was April--the beginning of the last week of
the joyous month; and though on all sides of her
there was bustling evidence of her absolute victory,
June felt sad, for Oberon had given no sign of his
forgiveness.  He and Titania were the only fairies
who had not come to justify her happiness.
Realizing this, she had almost enough sorrow
for tears.  Why did not the king come?  Could
his displeasure still be active?

As she flew here, there, and all about the radiant
Metropolis--from over which the pall of evil had
been finally removed--she sighed and sighed again.
Her comrades, seeing the sadness, her burden,
were grieved.  It was the only dark speck on a
condition of absolute joy.

June visited her human friends--Sally Wilkins,
the Oldsteins, Archdeacon Pryde, the Mosses, the
Duke and Duchess of Armingham, Lord Geoffrey
Season, Sir Titus Dods--and rejoiced to find them
still at work on the right lines, marching the way
of fairy progress, but her yellow depression clung
to her and would not be shaken off.

Strange that even in the hour of fulfilled joy
she should be haunted by the spectre of disappointment;
but so it was.

The last days of April drifted by.  It was the
evening of its thirtieth day.  Soon after midnight,
in the first of the morning darkness, the fairy of
the year was to be crowned.

June hid herself in loneliness on her roof over
Paradise Court, drooped her wings, and was, in
every respect, weary.  The hour of reaction, so
long resisted, at last had come.  She felt then
that the successful fulfilment of her quest, while
lifting a weight from her, had also taken away
something that sustained and inspired her.
With Bim far away--she knew not where--and
her multitude of comrades dispersed in all parts
of the Metropolis, or, she supposed, travelling to
the new crowning, her burden of weakness and
weariness was heavy indeed.

She looked up to the sky, and remembered the
evening of a year ago.  The stars were shining
now as they shone then.  The crescent moon
looked down.  Curious as ever, Diana, that
prudish old maid, the Hellenic Mrs. Grundy, peeped
through the silver cranny, and watched the world,
waiting the crowning.

Memories of the last May-day came forcefully
to June.  She recollected Oberon's appeal to her;
Titania's brief kindness of championship; her own
defiance and flight.  How changed things were
since then!  She longed to be back in the Land of
Wild Roses, now that her task was fulfilled.

Though the stars were shining brightly, life
and the sky seemed to her grey, and grey remained
till the clocks struck eleven.  Roused by their
chorus from her depressing reverie, she flew to
the highest chimney on her roof, to contemplate
in farewell the wonders surrounding her.

Bim's garden was still flourishing.  Its flowers
shone proudly with fairy-light.  They--aha!--were
not faint-hearted.  On many roofs spring-time
petals were looking upward, an elf-flame
breaking from every opening bud.  Fairyland
was effectually translated; London transformed.

Good-bye for a time!  To-morrow she would
leave all this--her particular task was done.  She
would, in the minutes before midnight, hasten to
the new crowning, wherever it might be, to
congratulate the happiest fairy, whoever that
should be, and then, free, she would fly to the
dear home ways, to rest, refresh, rejoice.

But would the gentle King forgive her?  She
remembered his command of a year ago, and felt
sorrow, which the record of a completed purpose
and victory won could not banish or diminish.

The question troubled her, till Oberon brought
the answer.

She was seated brooding on the rim of the
chimney, her deportment and limp wings signs of
extreme dejection, when she was aware of brightness
and happiness approaching.  She looked
hastily about her.

Sorrow went.

Myriads of fairies were on the wing, coming
fleetly towards her, singing the songs that gladden
the night of the crowning.  Their brightness was
such that for a time it paled the stars.  Then
slowly, still chanting, they ranged on the houses
about her, or fluttered in laughing lines under
the sky.

Gnomes, eager to join in what was happening,
came up, climbing rain-pipes, and using other
means of reaching the roof-country.

They reminded June of Bim.  She wished he,
too, was there.  Why had not he returned?  This
procession and display meant honour and happiness
which he deserved to share.  But wherever
he was, it was well with him; that she knew.

She gave the whole of her attention to the
wonders approaching.

On all sides about her fairies were ranged; the
houses were outlined with their radiance; every
flower on window-sills and roof-gardens was
awake and shining.

Slowly now, gladly, majestically, the high
aristocracy of Elfdom came.  They greeted June
with the waving of wands, and then took places
near where she was sitting.

There was a burst of applause in melody.
Oberon and Titania were approaching.  June's
being trembled with rapture.  They had come!
They had come!  She rose to greet them; a great
glad cry of welcome--welcome from multitudinous
elves rang up to the sky.

Their majesties of Fairyland came to Bim's
garden, and there were enthroned, a brilliant
escort of knights grouped behind them.

"June," said the King, so clearly that every elf
could hear him, "a year has passed since your
act of disobedience.  Against our wishes, and
despite our will, you went to fulfil the impossible.
You came to where the cloud of evil--that ominous
pall--hung over London, and proclaimed the
weakness of Fairyland!"

These words sounded so like a rebuke that
June was fearful.  She bowed her head, opened
wings, and knelt mutely before her monarch.
Oberon smiled.

"You have done well, June!  You have accomplished
the impossible.  You have taught us never
to despair.  For the first time in history a fairy
has disobeyed a King's command and done right.
Elves!" he cried to the company, "the hour of
the crowning has nearly come.  Who shall the
honoured fairy be?"

There was a moment's silence.  Then, as a
chord of music, far-flung, unanimous, the answer
came:

"June!"

Magnificent silence again.

The fortunate fairy, chosen, was still kneeling.
Her great happiness humbled her.  Her wings
quivered.  She was enduring an ordeal.  Titania
raised her, kissed her, brought to her confidence.
Then, hand in hand, June linking the King and
Queen, they flew westward.  The host of fairies
followed in a long line of golden light, cheerily
singing.  A comet would be a mere firework
in comparison with their splendour.

As they made progress over the town, Oberon
and Titania saw the fruits of June's efforts.  The
great Metropolis shone beautiful beneath them.
There was no ugliness, want, or unkindness in
London that night.  Streets and houses were full
of inspiring brightness and noble delight.

As they passed, half circling, St. Paul's
Churchyard, a nightingale was singing.

A great army of gnomes hurried along the roads,
following the way of the procession.  They were
not going to miss the crowning--no, not they!
Policemen on duty were only half aware of the
bustlement proceeding.

The crowning was to be celebrated in St. James's
Park.  A choir of birds were already
singing the opening anthem as Oberon and
Titania, still hand in hand with June, descended
to thrones in the greenness.





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.. _`CROWNED`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   CROWNED

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Fairyland!  Fairyland!

Again there was high revel in Fairyland--revel
heartier, happier than ever before.  No
wilderness was now left unlighted by elf-kindness.
Every brick and fragment of London town, as
every grass-blade and flower in the green country,
was under the acknowledged dominion of the fairy
King.  The elves had come to their own again.

Oberon and Titania, with June seated between
them, watched the procession of infinite fairies
arriving; saw the glorious presences range
themselves round the place of the coronation, while
the preparation of the Park's smooth sward for
feasting and dancing went rapidly on.  Gnomes
bustled about pell-mell, as they had done that night
of the year before, and soon made the wide, smooth
lawn ready for melodies of motion and song.

The heroes of old time came marching amid
cheering to their places of honour near the throne.
They were shining with the pride wrought by
arduous duties done.

The cousins of Rumpelstiltzkin, belonging to
the brotherhood which in the far-away mountains
of Knickerbocker had kidnapped happy-go-lucky
Rip, came up from their deep-down workshops--hammers
in their hands--to greet the fairy of the
year.  They stood or sat in groups, wagging
their beards with crony's talk, while gravely
nodding in time with the music.  The hoarded
gossip of months was then in circulation.

June was entranced by the wonders presented
to her.  It was all so happily old, and yet in every
item and particle so freshly, entrancingly new.

Nymphs came from the dim Down-There--an
underground Kingdom with roads, rivers and
mountains, nearly as vast and wonderful as this
over-world, is hidden in Fairyland (its stories
may be told some day)--to flit on gossamer
wings and feet of light over the grass.  Their
motion touched the winds with rapture, and
gave to the night radiance and fragrance.

The daintiest and proudest of the immortals
joined in the delight of the dancing.  No happier
evening in the long, long annals of Elfland has been
or can be recorded.  It was pre-eminently a brief
series of hours of triumph, without a single regret
or fear to spoil or mar the brightness and harmony.

Stars sent down their dearest beams laden with
blessings for elfkind and humanity.  A great
planet crossed the sky, a dazzling miniature of
the moon at its full.

June's only wonder during that period was--Bim!
He could not be far away.  Where was
he?  It was strange he should not be there.

Meanwhile the revel went on, with its laughter,
songs and feasting.

The time for the crowning came.  Oberon rose
and raised his sceptre in command.  A glad
unanimous cry rang out.  Birds atune to the
rapture sang.  A chosen choir of a thousand
nightingales expressed delight.

The time of the fairy year!  The crown, guarded
by a score of sentinels, was reverently borne
towards the King and Titania by a gnome--by
Bim.  He was by royal proclamation appointed,
henceforth and for ever, to be its especial keeper;
and so reaped the reward of his year of devotion
and prowess.  June rose with delight to greet
him.  She forgot all else of that festival then, in
gladness at seeing him.  For his part, in return
he smiled a smile broad enough to be a generous
grin--no mere plain prose words can express the
fulness of his happiness.

June realized at once that he was changed,
improved.  He was less gnome now than fairy
knight.  The nymph of the pool in the Violet
Valley had remembered the promise made on the
early morning of his departure in the wake of
June.  Bim had received the reward she had
predicted.  He was, in that proud hour and for a
while thereafter, unique in Fairyland; having the
distinction of being raised to a class by himself:
less gnome than knight: the rewarded hero; and
no one was envious because of his good fortune.

The gnomes, especially, were proud of their
fellow, who by earning honour for himself had
thrown honour, reflected, on them.

The king took the crown from Bim, and held
it above the happy fairy.

"June, June, June!" again and again that
favourite name was raised.

The nightingales, unanimous, gave the guiding
note, and the triumph song--the anthem of that
supreme hour--rang once again up to the stars.

London in sleep heard the song and dreamed
of the fairies.

Oberon placed the crown on June's head.  Hand
in hand with Bim, she and the comrade who had
done so duteously walked slowly round the inside
of the great circle of elves.

It was the hour of triumph.  Victory, absolute
and supreme, was expressed in the music of that
night.  Oberon ruled everywhere!

Fairyland!  Fairyland!

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