Part 20 (1/2)

”George!”

”How d'ye do, Jack? I had to turn out to listen, you see--_ecce quam sempiterna vox juventutis!_ You have improved on your old debating style, having, as I gather, found belief.”

The Inspector flushed. ”Ah, you gathered that?”

”Yes, I haven't lost the knack of understanding those I once understood.

Not that it needed anything of the sort. Man, you were admirably straight--and gentle, too--you that used to be intolerant. You mustn't think, though, that I'm convinced; I can't afford to be.”

”You mean--?”

”I mean that, if you are right, I ought to be a sun wors.h.i.+pper, and sit daily at dawn on top of my tower yonder, warming my hands against the glow of children's faces, trooping to school. Whereas the little beggars run wild and rob my orchards, and I don't remember at this moment my parish schoolmaster's name.”

The Inspector bethought him of the broken bridge in his friend's life--the bridge by which men cross over from self into love of a new generation-- and was silent.

”But look here,” Sir George went on, ”the fun was your preaching the doctrine in that temple. You didn't know the man who built it. He died a week or two ago; a man of character, I tell you, and a big fellow, too, in his way.”

”I have heard of this Rosewarne. All I know of him is that he's to be thanked for the best-fitted school, for its size, in all Cornwall.

I'm not talking of expense merely; he used thought, down to the details.

When you begin to study these things, you recognise thought, down to the raising or lowering of a desk, or the screws in a cupboard. You don't get your fittings right by giving _carte blanche_ to a wholesale firm.”

”Of course you don't. But what, think you, had the man in view? I tell you, Jack, you are a fossil beside him. You talk of making good citizens, quite in the old h.e.l.lenic style. Oh yes, I recognised the incurable Aristotle in your exhortation, though you _did_ address it to two score of rustic British children. But, my dear fellow, you are a philosopher in a barbarian's court, and your barbarian has been reading his Darwin.

Where you see a troop of little angels--”

”_Non Angeli sed Angli_,” the Inspector put in, with a smile.

”Where you behold a vision, then, of little English citizens growing up to serve the State, he saw a horde of little struggle-for-lifers climbing on each other's backs; and these fellows--that son of his, and the parson-- will follow his line by instinct. They don't reason; but Darwin and the rest have flung them on the scent of selfishness, and they have a rare nose for self. Struggle-for-life or struggle-for-creed, the scent is the same, and they're hot upon it.”

”Think of these last fifty years of n.o.ble reform. Is England going back upon herself--upon the spirit, for instance, that raised Italy, freed the slave, and cared for the factory child?”

”To be sure she will. She has found a creed to vindicate the human brute, and the next generation--mark my words--will be predatory. Within twenty years we shall be told that it is inevitable the weak should suffer to enrich the strong; we shall accept the a.s.surance, and our poets will hymn it pa.s.sionately.”

”If that day should ever come, we can still die fighting it. But I trust to Knowledge to do her own work. You remember that sentence in the _Laws_, 'Many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never suicidal'? Nor will you persuade me easily that the new mistress up yonder,”--the Inspector nodded back at the school building--”is going to train her children to be little beasts of prey.”

”The girl with the Madonna face? No; you're right there. But the Managers will find a short way with her; she'll go.”

”She turns out to be the daughter of an old friend of mine, Marvin of Warwick, the second-hand bookseller.”

”Marvin? Jeremiah Marvin? Why, I must have received his catalogues by the score.”

”Jeremy,” his friend corrected him. ”He was christened Jeremiah, to be sure, and told me once it was the handiest name on earth, and could be made to express anything, 'from the lugubrious, sir, to the rollicking.

In my young days, sir,'--for he had been a soldier in his time--'I was Corporal Jerry. Corporal Jerry Marvin! How's that for a name? Jeremiah I hold in reserve against the blows of destiny or promotion to a better world. But Jeremy, sir, as I think you'll allow, is the only wear for a second-hand bookseller.' A whimsical fellow!”

”He is dead, then?”

”Yes, he died a few weeks since; and poorly-off, I'm afraid. He had a habit of reading the books he vended. Look here, George,”--the Inspector halted in the middle of the roadway--”I want you to do me a favour, or rather, to promise one.”

”What is it?”

”I want you to promise that, if these fellows get rid of Miss Marvin, you will see that she suffers no harsh treatment from them. I can find her another post, no doubt; but there may be an interval in which you can help.”

”Very well,” Sir George answered, after a pause. ”I can manage that.