history that refuse to join on to that general scheme of

protestation by which civilisation is maintained. It is a break in

the general flow of experience as disconcerting to statecraft as the

robbery of my knife and the scuffle that followed it had been to me

when I was a boy at Penge. It is like a tear in a curtain revealing

quite unexpected backgrounds. I had never given the business a

thought for years; now this talk brought back a string of pictures

to my mind; how the reliefs arrived and the plundering began, how

section after section of the International Army was drawn into

murder and pillage, how the infection spread upward until the wives

of Ministers were busy looting, and the very sentinels stripped and

crawled like snakes into the Palace they were set to guard. It did

not stop at robbery, men were murdered, women, being plundered, were

outraged, children were butchered, strong men had found themselves

with arms in a lawless, defenceless city, and this had followed.

Now it was all recalled.

"Respectable ladies addicted to district visiting at home were as

bad as any one," said Panmure. "Glazebrook told me of one-flushed

like a woman at a bargain sale, he said-and when he pointed out to

her that the silk she'd got was bloodstained, she just said, 'Oh,

bother!' and threw it aside and went back…"

We became aware that Tarvrille's butler had returned. We tried not

to seem to listen.

"Beg pardon, m'lord," he said. "The house IS on fire, m'lord."

"Upstairs, m'lord."

"Just overhead, m'lord."

"The maids are throwing water, m'lord, and I've telephoned FIRE."

"No, m'lord, no immediate danger."

"It's all right," said Tarvrille to the table generally. Go on!

It's not a general conflagration, and the fire brigade won't be five

minutes. Don't see that it's our affair. The stuff's insured.

They say old Lady Paskershortly was dreadful. Like a harpy. The

Dowager Empress had shown her some little things of hers. Pet

things-hidden away. Susan went straight for them-used to take an

umbrella for the silks. Born shoplifter."

It was evident he didn't want his dinner spoilt, and we played up

loyally.

"This is recorded history," said Wilkins,-" practically. It makes

one wonder about unrecorded history. In India, for example."

But nobody touched that.

"Thompson," said Tarvrille to the imperturbable butler, and

indicating the table generally, "champagne. Champagne. Keep it

going."

"M'lord," and Thompson marshalled his assistants.

Some man I didn't know began to remember things about Mandalay.

"It's queer," he said, "how people break out at times;" and told his

story of an army doctor, brave, public-spirited, and, as it

happened, deeply religious, who was caught one evening by the

excitement of plundering-and stole and hid, twisted the wrist of a

boy until it broke, and was afterwards overcome by wild remorse.

I watched Evesham listening intently. "Strange," he said, "very

strange. We are such stuff as thieves are made of. And in China,

too, they murdered people-for the sake of murdering. Apart, so to

speak, from mercenary considerations. I'm afraid there's no doubt

of it in certain cases. No doubt at all. Young soldiers fresh from

German high schools and English homes!"

"Did OUR people?" asked some patriot.

"Not so much. But I'm afraid there were cases… Some of the

Indian troops were pretty bad."

Gane picked up the tale with confirmations.

It is all printed in the vividest way as a picture upon my memory,

so that were I a painter I think I could give the deep rich browns

and warm greys beyond the brightly lit table, the various

distinguished faces, strongly illuminated, interested and keen,

above the black and white of evening dress, the alert menservants

with their heavier, clean-shaved faces indistinctly seen in the

dimness behind. Then this was coloured emotionally for me by my

aching sense of loss and sacrifice, and by the chance trend of our

talk to the breaches and unrealities of the civilised scheme. We

seemed a little transitory circle of light in a universe of darkness

and violence; an effect to which the diminishing smell of burning

rubber, the trampling of feet overhead, the swish of water, added

enormously. Everybody-unless, perhaps, it was Evesham-drank

rather carelessly because of the suppressed excitement of our

situation, and talked the louder and more freely.

"But what a flimsy thing our civilisation is!" said Evesham; "a mere

thin net of habits and associations!"

"I suppose those men came back," said Wilkins.

"Lady Paskershortly did!" chuckled Evesham.

"How do they fit it in with the rest of their lives?" Wilkins

speculated. "I suppose there's Pekin-stained police officers,

Pekin-stained J. P.'s-trying petty pilferers in the severest

manner."…

Then for a time things became preposterous. There was a sudden

cascade of water by the fireplace, and then absurdly the ceiling

began to rain upon us, first at this point and then that. "My new

suit!" cried some one. "Perrrrrr-up pe-rr"-a new vertical line of

blackened water would establish itself and form a spreading pool

upon the gleaming cloth. The men nearest would arrange catchment

areas of plates and flower bowls. "Draw up!" said Tarvrille, "draw

up. That's the bad end of the table!" He turned to the

imperturbable butler. "Take round bath towels," he said; and

presently the men behind us were offering-with inflexible dignity-

"Port wine, Sir. Bath towel, Sir!" Waulsort, with streaks of

blackened water on his forehead, was suddenly reminded of a wet year

when he had followed the French army manoeuvres. An animated

dispute sprang up between him and Neal about the relative efficiency