THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

vindictive as ever. There were two vigorous paragraphs upon the

utter damnableness of the Rev. R. J. Campbell, a contagious

damnableness I gathered, one wasn't safe within a mile of Holborn

Viaduct, and a foul-mouthed attack on poor little Wilkins the

novelist-who was being baited by the moralists at that time for

making one of his big women characters, not being in holy wedlock,

desire a baby and say so…

The broadening of human thought is a slow and complex process. We

do go on, we do get on. But when one thinks that people are living

and dying now, quarrelling and sulking, misled and misunderstanding,

vaguely fearful, condemning and thwarting one another in the close

darknesses of these narrow cults-Oh, God! one wants a gale out of

Heaven, one wants a great wind from the sea!

3

While I lived at Penge two little things happened to me, trivial in

themselves and yet in their quality profoundly significant. They

had this in common, that they pierced the texture of the life I was

quietly taking for granted and let me see through it into realities-

realities I had indeed known about before but never realised. Each

of these experiences left me with a sense of shock, with all the

values in my life perplexingly altered, attempting readjustment.

One of these disturbing and illuminating events was that I was

robbed of a new pocket-knife and the other that I fell in love. It

was altogether surprising to me to be robbed. You see, as an only

child I had always been fairly well looked after and protected, and

the result was an amazing confidence in the practical goodness of

the people one met in the world. I knew there were robbers in the

world, just as I knew there were tigers; that I was ever likely to

meet robber or tiger face to face seemed equally impossible.

The knife as I remember it was a particularly jolly one with all

sorts of instruments in it, tweezers and a thing for getting a stone

out of the hoof of a horse, and a corkscrew; it had cost me a

carefuly accumulated half-crown, and amounted indeed to a new

experience in knives. I had had it for two or three days, and then

one afternoon I dropped it through a hole in my pocket on a footpath

crossing a field between Penge and Anerley. I heard it fall in the

way one does without at the time appreciating what had happened,

then, later, before I got home, when my hand wandered into my pocket

to embrace the still dear new possession I found it gone, and

instantly that memory of something hitting the ground sprang up into

consciousness. I went back and commenced a search. Almost

immediately I was accosted by the leader of a little gang of four or

five extremely dirty and ragged boys of assorted sizes and slouching

carriage who were coming from the Anerley direction.

"Lost anythink, Matey?" said he.

I explained.

"'E's dropped 'is knife," said my interlocutor, and joined in the

search.

"What sort of 'andle was it, Matey?" said a small white-faced

sniffing boy in a big bowler hat.

I supplied the information. His sharp little face scrutinised the

ground about us.

"GOT it," he said, and pounced.

"Give it 'ere," said the big boy hoarsely, and secured it.

I walked towards him serenely confident that he would hand it over

to me, and that all was for the best in the best of all possible

worlds.

"No bloomin' fear!" he said, regarding me obliquely. "Oo said it

was your knife?"

Remarkable doubts assailed me. "Of course it's my knife," I said.

The other boys gathered round me.

"This ain't your knife," said the big boy, and spat casually.

"I dropped it just now."

"Findin's keepin's, I believe," said the big boy.

"Nonsense," I said. "Give me my knife."

"'Ow many blades it got?"

"Three."

"And what sort of 'andle?"

"Bone."

"Got a corkscrew like?"

"Yes."

"Ah! This ain't your knife no'ow. See?"

He made no offer to show it to me. My breath went.

"Look here!" I said. "I saw that kid pick it up. It IS my knife."

"Rot!" said the big boy, and slowly, deliberately put my knife into

his trouser pocket.

I braced my soul for battle. All civilisation was behind me, but I

doubt if it kept the colour in my face. I buttoned my jacket and

clenched my fists and advanced on my antagonist-he had, I suppose,

the advantage of two years of age and three inches of height. "Hand

over that knife," I said.

Then one of the smallest of the band assailed me with extraordinary

vigour and swiftness from behind, had an arm round my neck and a

knee in my back before I had the slightest intimation of attack, and

so got me down. "I got 'im, Bill," squeaked this amazing little

ruffian. My nose was flattened by a dirty hand, and as I struck out

and hit something like sacking, some one kicked my elbow. Two or

three seemed to be at me at the same time. Then I rolled over and

sat up to discover them all making off, a ragged flight, footballing

my cap, my City Merchants' cap, amongst them. I leapt to my feet in

a passion of indignation and pursued them.

But I did not overtake them. We are beings of mixed composition,

and I doubt if mine was a single-minded pursuit. I knew that honour