The Devil's Garden

's dance

e all, the callous immensity of London oppressed his mind. His case, that had been so important down there in the village,

of it, to see a thronged corner of any of its yards, to hear even at a distance the stone thunder made by the smallest stampede of its red carts, irresi

the dimly-lit staircase he knew that he was toiling upward toward a fit of depression. The house was almost empty o

reet-lamps; at the astounding yellow haze that extended across the horizon, illuminating the sky nearly to the zenith, and seemingly like the onset of a terrific conflagration which only he of all the thousands who were threatened had as yet observed. Even this bit of London, the comparatively small part of the overwhelming whole now visible to his eyes, must be a

life or freshness, no movement of the air; it was as if the warm breath of the crowd rose upward and nothing less than a balloon would allow one to escape from its taint. But he noticed that even at this slight elevation he had got free from the noi

above the sashes; and again thinking of remoteness, immensity, infinity, he experienced a curious physical sensation of contracting bulk, as though all his body had grown and was steadily growing smaller. Ve

me. He was one of a weary regiment of people waiting for interviews. Clerks behind counters of inquiry offices hunted him up in pigeon-holes, looked for him in files and on skewers. "Oh, yes, let's see. You say yo

f postponement feeling exhausted, dazed, stupefied. The sunlight

s were clean and bright; and there was plenty of gayness and joy-for them as could grab a share of it. He noticed fine private carriages drawn up round corners, waiting for prosperous tradesmen; young men with tennis-bats in their hands, taking prodigiously long strides, eager to get a game

ul music of a soldiers' band close upon one. It was the Bank Guard-Coldstreams-marching proudly. The officer in charge seemed very proud

ion. Places served by this District Company had pleasant-sounding suburban names-such as Kew Gardens, Richmond, Wimbledon. Reading the names, he felt a sic

nation. He admired the Temple, watched some shadows on a lawn, and wondered if the pigeons by the cab-rank ever went to bed, or if, changing their natural habits to suit their town-life, they had become night

hallowed spot; here had been thrown down those cruel barriers by which the rich and powerful penned and confined the poor and humble as cattle or slaves; by this and because of this, the people's meeting-place, men like himself had been enabled to aspire and to achieve. He was aware of a moisture in his eyes and a lump in his throat

of Time itself, telling the tardy sunlight and the encroaching dusk that it was nine

ed itself. Would his clerk have the sense to see to it, that the clocks down there were duly wo

of entertainment had arrested his slow progress. One of the music-halls in the Square appeared to him as iniquitously gorgeous, and he gazed through the wide entrance at the vestibule hall, and staircase. The whole thing was as fine as one might have expected inside Buckingham Palace or the Mansion House-crimson curtains, marble

cked him. It began with the slightly bitter thought of being "out of it." He looked disapprovingly at pallid and puffed young swells gliding past in cabs; at the humbler folk who hurried by w

hat's going on under their noses? Or don't they wish to see it? Or have they been paid not to see it?

udence of one woman and called her a rude name. She did not seem to mind. While he was still

istance to a purely nervous irritation, together with a disagreeably p

ady she looked when bidding him farewell at the station. He had watched her till the train carried him out of sight-a slender graceful figure

d him from the ugly imaginations of his youth. How marvelously she had purified and elevated him! He used to be

dread and desire combining-a wish that, when he pushed the branches apart, he might see a lass bathing; and a fear that he would not be able to resist an impulse to plunge into the water and carry her off. As he walked through the shade cast by summer foliage, with a hot whisper of nascent virility tormenting his senses, the fancy was almost strong enough to be a hallucination. He could imagine that he saw female garments on the bank, petticoats fallen in a circle, boots and stockings hard by; he could hear the splashing of water

uence of Mavis, attained to states of mind that rendered such suggestions powerless to stir his pulses or warm his blood; and now, as he recognized with proud satisfaction, he had reached a stage of development wherein the improper advances of a

e ought always let hi

sing in the social scale he should learn to govern that also. Although the nobs themselves do it when pushed to it, scrapping is not respectabl

g, could always control themselves. They could fight, but they could wait for the appropriate moment. If you stung them with an insult, they resolved to avenge themselves-but not necessarily

lity; how difficult it still is for the humbly-born, in spite of Magna Chartas, habeas corpuses, and Houses of Commons! Finishing his long ramble, he remembered the bigg

artin's-le-Grand had learnt to know him by sight. Every morning

et's see. What name did yo

ransferred to other hands, in another part of the building. Dale gathered that something had happened to his case; it was as though, after lying dormant so long, i

unday must be endured-and then he would s

, the want of fresh air, the want of Mavis, had been steadily weakening him

stmaster-General, and he was sure of the correct mode of address. "Your Grace, I desire to respectfully state my position."... That was the s

e liberty under this head of speaking as man to man, I ask: If you had been situated as I was, wouldn't you have done as I done?" That was to be the wind-up, and it had rung in his mind like a trumpet call

s up! Strong as his case was, it might be spoiled by ineffective