Those who saw Lord Ivywood at such moments understood why he stood out so strongly in the history of his time, in spite of his frozen face and his fanciful dogmas. He had all the negative nobility that is possible to man. Unlike Nelson and most of the great heroes, he knew not fear. Thus he was never conquered by a surprise, but was cold and collected when other men had lost their heads even if they had not lost their nerve.

“I will not conceal from you, gentlemen,” said Lord Ivywood, “that I have been expecting this. I will not even conceal from you that I have been occupying Mr. Crooke’s time until it occurred. So far from excluding the crowd, I suggest it would be an excellent thing if Mr. Crooke could accommodate them all in this shop. I want to tell, as soon as possible, as large a crowd as possible that the law is altered and this folly about the Flying Inn has ceased. Come in, all of you! Come in and listen!”

“Thank yer,” said a man connected in some way with motor buses, who lurched in behind the plasterer.

“Thanky, sir,” said a bright little clock-mender from Croydon, who immediately followed him.

“Thanks,” said a rather bewildered clerk from Camberwell, who came next in the rather bewildered procession.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Dorian Wimpole, who entered, carrying a large round cheese.

“Thank you,” said Captain Dalroy, who entered carrying a large cask of rum.

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Humphrey Pump, who entered the shop carrying the sign of “The Old Ship.”

I fear it must be recorded that the crowd which followed them dispensed with all expressions of gratitude. But though the crowd filled the shop so that there was no standing room to spare, Leveson still lifted his gloomy eyes and beheld his gloomy omen. For, though there were very many more people standing in the shop, there seemed to be no less people looking in at the window.

“Gentlemen,” said Ivywood, “all jokes come to an end. This one has gone so far as to be serious; and it might have become impossible to correct public opinion, and expound to law-abiding citizens the true state of the law, had I not been able to meet so representative an assembly in so central a place. It is not pertinent to my purpose to indicate what I think of the jest which Captain Dalroy and his friends have been playing upon you for the last few weeks. But I think Captain Dalroy will himself concede that I am not jesting.”

“With all my heart,” said Dalroy, in a manner that was unusually serious and even sad. Then he added with a sigh, “And as you truly say, my jest has come to an end.”

“That wooden sign,” said Ivywood, pointing at the queer blue ship, “can be cut up for firewood. It shall lead decent citizens a devil’s dance no more. Understand it once and for all, before you learn it from policemen or prison warders. You are under a new law. That sign is the sign of nothing. You can no more buy and sell alcohol by having that outside your house, than if it were a lamp-post.”

“D’you meanter say, guv’ner,” said the plasterer, with a dawn of intelligence on his large face which was almost awful to watch, “that I ain’t to ’ave a glass o’ bitter?”

“Try a glass of rum,” said Patrick.

“Captain Dalroy,” said Lord Ivywood, “if you give one drop from that cask to that man, you are breaking the law and you shall sleep in jail.”

“Are you quite sure?” asked Dalroy, with a strange sort of anxiety. “I might escape.”

“I am quite sure,” said Ivywood. “I have posted the police with full powers for the purpose, as you will find. I mean that this business shall end here tonight.”

“If I find that pleeceman what told me I could ’ave a drink just now, I’ll knock ’is ’elmet into a fancy necktie, I will,” said the plasterer. “Why ain’t people allowed to know the law?”

“They ain’t got no right to alter the law in the dark like that,” said the clock-mender. “Damn the new law.”

“What is the new law?” asked the clerk.

“The words inserted by the recent Act,” said Lord Ivywood, with the cold courtesy of the Conqueror, “are to the effect that alcohol cannot be sold, even under a lawful sign, unless alcoholic liquors have been kept for three days on the premises. Captain Dalroy, that cask of yours has not, I think, been three days on these premises. I command you to seal it up and take it away.”

“Surely,” said Patrick, with an innocent air, “the best remedy would be to wait till it has been three days on the premises. We might all get to know each other better.” And he looked round at the ever-increasing multitude with hazy benevolence.

“You shall do nothing of the kind,” said his lordship, with sudden fierceness.

“Well,” answered Patrick, wearily, “now I come to think of it, perhaps I won’t. I’ll have one drink here and go home to bed like a good little boy.”

“And the constables shall arrest you,” thundered Ivywood.

“Why, nothing seems to suit you,” said the surprised Dalroy. “Thank you, however, for explaining the new law so clearly–‘unless alcoholic liquors have been three days on the premises’ I shall remember it now. You always explain such things so clearly. You only made one legal slip. The constables will not arrest me.”

“And why not?” demanded the nobleman, white with passion.

“Because,” cried Patrick Dalroy; and his voice lifted itself like a lonely trumpet before the charge, “because I shall not have broken the law. Because alcoholic liquors have been three days on these premises. Three months more likely. Because this is a common grog-shop, Philip Ivywood. Because that man behind the counter lives by selling spirits to all the cowards and hypocrites who are rich enough to bribe a bad doctor.”

And he pointed suddenly at the small medicine glass on the counter by Hibbs and Leveson.

“What is that man drinking?” he demanded.

Hibbs put out his hand hastily for his glass, but the indignant clock-mender had snatched it first and drained it at a gulp.

“Scortch,” he said, and dashed the glass to atoms on the floor. “Right you are too,” roared the plasterer, seizing a big medicine bottle in each hand. “We’re goin’ to ’ave a little of the fun now, we are. What’s in that big red bowl up there–I reckon it’s port. Fetch it down, Bill.”

Ivywood turned to Crooke and said, scarcely moving his lips of marble, “This is a lie.”

“It is the truth,” answered Crooke, looking back at him with equal steadiness. “Do you think you made the world, that you should make it over again so easily?”

“The world was made badly,” said Philip, with a terrible note in his voice, “and I will make it over again.”

Almost as he spoke the glass front of the shop fell inward, shattered, and there was wreckage among the moonlike, coloured bowls; almost as if spheres of celestial crystal cracked at his blasphemy. Through the broken windows came the roar of that confused tongue that is more terrible than the elements; the cry that the deaf kings have heard at last; the terrible voice of mankind. All the way down the long, fashionable street, lined with the Crooke plate-glass, that glass was crashing amid the cries of a crowd. Rivers of gold and purple wines sprawled about the pavement.

“Out in the open!” shouted Dalroy, rushing out of the shop, sign-board in hand, the dog Quoodle barking furiously at his heels, while Dorian with the cheese and Humphrey with the keg followed as rapidly as they could. “Goodnight, my lord.

“Come along, friends, and form up. Don’t waste time destroying property. We’re all to start now.”

“Where are we all going to?” asked the plasterer.

“We’re all going into Parliament,” answered the Captain, as he went to the head of the crowd.