Latest / Daily Classic Sci Fi Books / 20 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter twenty, The Turk and the Futurists. Mister Adrian Crook
- 0:07Speaker 1: was a successful chemist whose shop was in the neighborhood
- 0:09Speaker 1: of Victoria. But his face expressed more than is generally
- 0:13Speaker 1: required in a successful chemist. It was a curious face,
- 0:18Speaker 1: prematurely old and like parchment, but acute and decisive, with
- 0:23Speaker 1: real head work in every line of it. Nor was
- 0:26Speaker 1: his conversation when he did converse, out of keeping with this.
- 0:31Speaker 1: He had lived in many countries, and had a rich
- 0:34Speaker 1: store of anecdote about the more quaint, and sometimes the
- 0:37Speaker 1: more sinister side of his work, visions of the vapor
- 0:41Speaker 1: of Eastern drugs, or guesses at the ingredients of Renaissance poisons.
- 0:46Speaker 1: He himself, it need hardly be said, was a most
- 0:50Speaker 1: respectable and reliable apothecary, or he would not have had
- 0:54Speaker 1: the custom of families, especially among the upper classes. But
- 0:57Speaker 1: he enjoyed as a hobby the study of the dark
- 1:00Speaker 1: days and lands where his science had lain, sometimes on
- 1:03Speaker 1: the borders of magic and sometimes upon the borders of murder.
- 1:08Speaker 1: Hence it often happened that persons, who, in their serious
- 1:11Speaker 1: senses were well aware of his harmless and useful habits,
- 1:14Speaker 1: would leave his shop on some murky and foggy night.
- 1:18Speaker 1: With their heads so full of wild tales of the
- 1:20Speaker 1: eating of hemp or the poisoning of roses, they could
- 1:23Speaker 1: hardly help fancying that the shop, with its glowing moon
- 1:27Speaker 1: of crimson or saffron like bowls of blood and sulfur,
- 1:32Speaker 1: was really a house of the black art. It was
- 1:35Speaker 1: doubtless for such conversational pleasures, in part that Hibbs, however,
- 1:39Speaker 1: entered the shop as well as for a small glass
- 1:42Speaker 1: of the same restorative medicine which he had been taking
- 1:46Speaker 1: when Levison found him by the open window. But this
- 1:49Speaker 1: did not prevent Hibbs from expressing considerable surprise and some
- 1:53Speaker 1: embarrassment when Levison entered the same chemists and asked for
- 1:57Speaker 1: the same chemical. Indeed, Levison looked harassed and weary enough
- 2:03Speaker 1: to want it. You've been out of town, haven't you,
- 2:06Speaker 1: said Levison. No luck, they got away again on some quibble.
- 2:09Speaker 1: The police wouldn't make the arrest, and even old Meadows
- 2:12Speaker 1: thought it might be illegal. I'm sick of it. Where
- 2:15Speaker 1: are you going, I thought, said mister Hibbs, of dropping
- 2:19Speaker 1: in at this post futurist exhibition. I believe Lord Iverywood
- 2:23Speaker 1: will be there. He is showing it to the prophet.
- 2:25Speaker 1: I don't pretend to know much about art, but I
- 2:28Speaker 1: hear it's very fine. There was a long silence, and
- 2:31Speaker 1: mister Levison said, people always prejudiced against new ideas. Then
- 2:36Speaker 1: there was another long silence, and mister Hibbs said, after
- 2:40Speaker 1: all they said the same. A whistler. Refreshed by this ritual,
- 2:44Speaker 1: mister Levison became conscious of the existence of Crook and
- 2:48Speaker 1: said to him cheerfully, that's so in your department, too,
- 2:51Speaker 1: isn't it. I suppose the greatest pioneers in chemistry were
- 2:54Speaker 1: unpopular in their own time. Look at the Borges, said
- 2:57Speaker 1: mister Crook. They got themselves quite as You're very flippant,
- 3:02Speaker 1: you know, said Levison in a fatigued way. Well, so
- 3:05Speaker 1: long are you coming? Hibbs and the two gentlemen, who
- 3:09Speaker 1: were both attired in high hats and afternoon collars coats,
- 3:12Speaker 1: betook themselves down the street. It was a fine sunny day,
- 3:17Speaker 1: the twin of the day before that had shone so
- 3:20Speaker 1: brightly on the white town of Peace Ways, and their
- 3:23Speaker 1: walk was a pleasant one along a handsome street with
- 3:26Speaker 1: high houses and small trees that overlooked the river. All
- 3:30Speaker 1: the way. For the pictures were exhibited in a small
- 3:33Speaker 1: but famous gallery, a rather rococo building of which the
- 3:37Speaker 1: entrance steps almost descended upon the Thames. The building was
- 3:41Speaker 1: girt on both sides and behind with gaudy flower beds,
- 3:44Speaker 1: and on the top of the steps, in front of
- 3:46Speaker 1: the byzantine doorway stood their old friend, missizrah Ammon, smiling
- 3:51Speaker 1: broadly and in an unusually sumptuous costume. But even the
- 3:56Speaker 1: sight of that fragrant Eastern flower did not seem to
- 3:58Speaker 1: revive altogether the spirits of the drooping secretary. You have
- 4:03Speaker 1: coom said the beaming prophet, to see the declaration. It
- 4:07Speaker 1: is approved. I have approved it. We came to see
- 4:12Speaker 1: the post future's pictures began hibbs, but Levison was silent.
- 4:16Speaker 1: There are no pictures, said the Turk. Simply if there
- 4:20Speaker 1: had been, I could not have approved. For those of
- 4:22Speaker 1: our religion. Pictures are not good. They are idols, my friends.
- 4:27Speaker 1: Luvokin there, and he turned and darted a solemn forefinger
- 4:31Speaker 1: just under his nose toward the gates of the gallery.
- 4:34Speaker 1: Lu Vuk in there, and you will find no idols,
- 4:38Speaker 1: no idols at all. I have most carefully looked into
- 4:41Speaker 1: every one of the frames, every one I have approved,
- 4:46Speaker 1: no trace of the man form, no trace of the
- 4:49Speaker 1: animal form. All declaration as good as the goodest of carpets.
- 4:54Speaker 1: It harms not Lord Ivywood's smile of happiness, for I
- 4:58Speaker 1: tell him Islam in indeed progresses the old Muslims allowed
- 5:03Speaker 1: to draw the picture of the vegetable. Here I hunt
- 5:06Speaker 1: even for the vegetable, and there is no vegetable. Hibbs,
- 5:11Speaker 1: whose trade was tact naturally, did not think it wise
- 5:15Speaker 1: that the eminent Missior should go on lecturing from a
- 5:18Speaker 1: tall flight of steps to the whole street and river.
- 5:21Speaker 1: So he had slipped past with a general proposal to
- 5:24Speaker 1: go in and see the prophet. And the secretary followed,
- 5:28Speaker 1: and all entered the outer hall, where Lord Ivywood stood
- 5:32Speaker 1: with the white face of a statue. He was the
- 5:35Speaker 1: only statue the new Muslims were allowed to worship. On
- 5:39Speaker 1: a sofa like a purple island. In the middle of
- 5:41Speaker 1: the sea of floor. Sat Enid Wimpole, talking eagerly to
- 5:45Speaker 1: her cousin Dorian, doing in fact her best to prevent
- 5:50Speaker 1: the family quarrel which threatened to follow hard on the
- 5:53Speaker 1: incident at Westminster in the deeper perspective of the rooms.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Lady Joan Brett was floating about, and if her attitude
- 6:02Speaker 1: before the post Futurist pictures could not be called humble
- 6:05Speaker 1: or even inquiring, it is but just to that school
- 6:09Speaker 1: to say that she seemed to be quite as bored
- 6:11Speaker 1: with the floor that she walked on and the parasol
- 6:14Speaker 1: she held. Bit by bit, other figures or groups of
- 6:18Speaker 1: that world drifted through the exhibition of the post futurists.
- 6:23Speaker 1: It is a very small world, but it is just
- 6:25Speaker 1: big enough and just small enough to govern a country
- 6:28Speaker 1: that is a country with no religion, and it has
- 6:32Speaker 1: all the vanity of a mob and all the reticence
- 6:35Speaker 1: of a secret society. Levison instantly went up to Lord Ivywood,
- 6:40Speaker 1: pulled papers from his pocket, and was plainly telling him
- 6:43Speaker 1: of the escape from peaceways. Ivywood's face hardly changed. He
- 6:49Speaker 1: was or felt above some things, and one of them
- 6:53Speaker 1: was blaming a servant before the servant's social superiors. But
- 6:58Speaker 1: no one could say he looked less like cold marble
- 7:00Speaker 1: than before. I made all possible inquiries about their subsequent route.
- 7:05Speaker 1: The Secretary was heard saying, and the most serious features
- 7:08Speaker 1: that they seemed to have taken the road for London
- 7:12Speaker 1: quite so replied the statue, They will be easier to
- 7:15Speaker 1: capture here. Lady Enid, by a series of assurances, most
- 7:21Speaker 1: of which were I regret to say lies, had succeeded
- 7:25Speaker 1: in preventing the scandal of her cousin Dorian actually cutting
- 7:29Speaker 1: her cousin Philip, But she knew very little of the
- 7:32Speaker 1: masculine temper. If she really thought she had prevented the
- 7:36Speaker 1: profound intellectual revolt of the poet against the politician. Ever
- 7:42Speaker 1: since he heard mister Hips say yours yrs and order
- 7:46Speaker 1: his arrest by a common policeman, the feelings of Dorian
- 7:50Speaker 1: Whimple had flowed for some four days and nights in
- 7:53Speaker 1: a direction highly contrary to the ideals of mister Hibbs,
- 7:57Speaker 1: and the sudden appearance of that blameless diplomatists quickened the
- 8:01Speaker 1: mental current to a cataract. But as he could not
- 8:05Speaker 1: insult Hibbs, whom socially he did not even know, and
- 8:09Speaker 1: could not insult Ivywood, with whom he had just had
- 8:13Speaker 1: a formal reconciliation, it was absolutely necessary that he should
- 8:18Speaker 1: insult something else instead. All watchers for the Dawn will
- 8:22Speaker 1: be deeply distressed to know that the post futurist school
- 8:25Speaker 1: of painting received the full effects of this perverted wrath.
- 8:30Speaker 1: In vain did mister Levison affirm, from time to time
- 8:34Speaker 1: people always prejudiced against new ideas. Vainly did mister Hibbs say,
- 8:38Speaker 1: at the proper intervals, after all, they said the same
- 8:41Speaker 1: of Whistler. Not by such decent formalities was the frenzy
- 8:46Speaker 1: of Dorian to be appeased. That little Turk has more
- 8:50Speaker 1: sense than you have, he said, He passes it as
- 8:53Speaker 1: a good wallpaper. I should say it was a bad wallpaper,
- 8:56Speaker 1: the sort of wallpaper that gives a sick man fever
- 9:00Speaker 1: when he hasn't got it. But to call it pictures,
- 9:04Speaker 1: you might as well call it seats for the Lord
- 9:06Speaker 1: Mayor's show. A seat isn't a seat if you can't
- 9:09Speaker 1: see the Lord mayor's show. A picture isn't a picture
- 9:12Speaker 1: if you can't see any picture. You can sit down
- 9:16Speaker 1: at home more comfortably than you can at a procession,
- 9:19Speaker 1: and you can walk about at home more comfortably than
- 9:21Speaker 1: you can at a picture gallery. There's only one thing
- 9:25Speaker 1: to be said for a street show or a picture show,
- 9:28Speaker 1: and that is whether there is anything to be shown. Now,
- 9:31Speaker 1: then show me something, well, said Lord Ivywood, good humoredly,
- 9:37Speaker 1: motioning toward the wall in front of him. Let me
- 9:40Speaker 1: show you the portrait of an old lady, Well, said
- 9:43Speaker 1: Dorian stolidly, which is it? Mister Hibbs made a hasty
- 9:48Speaker 1: gesture of identification, but was so unfortunate as to point
- 9:53Speaker 1: to the picture of Rain in the Apenines instead of
- 9:56Speaker 1: the portrait of an old lady, and his interventioning increased
- 10:00Speaker 1: the irritation of Dora and Wimpole. Most probably, as mister
- 10:05Speaker 1: Hibbs afterward explained, it was because of a vivacious movement
- 10:09Speaker 1: of the elbow of mister Wimpole interfered with the exact
- 10:12Speaker 1: pointing of the forefinger of mister Hibbs. In any case,
- 10:17Speaker 1: mister Hibbs was sharply and horridly fixed by embarrassment, so
- 10:21Speaker 1: that he had to go away to the refreshment bar
- 10:24Speaker 1: and eat three lobster patties and even drink a glass
- 10:27Speaker 1: of that champagne that had once been his ruin. But
- 10:31Speaker 1: on this occasion he stopped at one glass and returned
- 10:34Speaker 1: with a full diplomatic responsibility. He returned to find that
- 10:39Speaker 1: Doray Wimpole had forgotten all the facts of time, place,
- 10:43Speaker 1: and personal pride in an argument with Lord Ivywood, exactly
- 10:47Speaker 1: as he had forgotten such facts in an argument with
- 10:49Speaker 1: Patrick Dolroy in a dark wood with a donkey cart.
- 10:53Speaker 1: And Philip Ivywood was interested also, his cold eyes even
- 10:57Speaker 1: shone for though his pleasure was almost purely intellectual, it
- 11:02Speaker 1: was utterly sincere. And I do trust the untried, I
- 11:07Speaker 1: do follow the inexperienced, he was saying, quietly, with his
- 11:10Speaker 1: fine inflections of voice. You say this is changing the
- 11:14Speaker 1: very nature of art. I want to change the very
- 11:17Speaker 1: nature of art. Everything lives by turning into something else.
- 11:22Speaker 1: Exaggeration is growth, but exaggeration of what demanded Dorian. I
- 11:28Speaker 1: cannot see a trace of exaggeration in these pictures, because
- 11:32Speaker 1: I cannot find a hint of what it is they
- 11:34Speaker 1: want to exaggerate. You can't exaggerate the feathers of a
- 11:38Speaker 1: cow or the legs of a whil You can draw
- 11:41Speaker 1: a cow with feathers or a whale with legs for
- 11:44Speaker 1: a joke, though I hardly think such jokes are in
- 11:47Speaker 1: your line. But don't you see, my good Philip, that
- 11:50Speaker 1: even then the joke depends on its looking like a cow,
- 11:53Speaker 1: and not only like a thing with feathers. Even then
- 11:56Speaker 1: the joke depends on the whale as well as the legs.
- 12:00Speaker 1: You can combine up to a certain point, you can
- 12:02Speaker 1: distort up to a certain point. After that you lose
- 12:06Speaker 1: the identity, and with that you lose everything. A centaur
- 12:11Speaker 1: is so much of a man, with so much of
- 12:13Speaker 1: a horse. The centaur must not be hastily identified with
- 12:17Speaker 1: the horsey man, and the mermaid must be maidenly, even
- 12:21Speaker 1: if there is something fishy about her social conduct. No,
- 12:26Speaker 1: said Lord Ivywood, in the same quiet way. I understand
- 12:30Speaker 1: what you mean, and I don't agree. I should like
- 12:33Speaker 1: the centaur to turn into something else that is neither
- 12:36Speaker 1: man nor horse, But not something that has nothing of either,
- 12:41Speaker 1: asked the poet. Yes, answered Ivywood, with the same queer,
- 12:47Speaker 1: quiet gleam in his colorless eyes. Something that has nothing
- 12:51Speaker 1: of either. But what's the good, argued Dorian. A thing
- 12:56Speaker 1: that is changed entirely has not changed at all. It
- 12:59Speaker 1: has no bridge of crisis, It can remember no change.
- 13:04Speaker 1: If you wake up tomorrow and you simply are Missus Dope,
- 13:07Speaker 1: an old woman who lets lodgings at broad Stairs, well,
- 13:10Speaker 1: I don't doubt missus Dope is a saner and happier
- 13:13Speaker 1: person than you are. But in what way have you progressed?
- 13:18Speaker 1: What part of you is better? Don't you see this
- 13:22Speaker 1: prime fact of identity is the limit set on all
- 13:26Speaker 1: living things? No, said Philip, with suppressed but sudden violence.
- 13:31Speaker 1: I deny that any limit is set upon living things. Why, then,
- 13:36Speaker 1: I understand, said Dorian, Why though you make such good speeches,
- 13:41Speaker 1: you have never written any poetry. Lady Joan, who was
- 13:45Speaker 1: looking with tedium at a rich pattern of purple and
- 13:48Speaker 1: green in which Messizar attempted to interest her, imploring her
- 13:52Speaker 1: to disregard the mere title, which idolatrously stated it as
- 13:56Speaker 1: first Communion in the snow, abruptly turned full face to Dorian.
- 14:02Speaker 1: It was a face to which few men could feel indifferent,
- 14:05Speaker 1: especially when thus suddenly shown them. Why can't he write poetry?
- 14:10Speaker 1: She asked, Do you mean he would resent the limits
- 14:13Speaker 1: of meter and rhyme and so on? The poet reflected
- 14:16Speaker 1: for a moment, and then said, well, partly, but I
- 14:19Speaker 1: mean more than that too. As one can be candid
- 14:22Speaker 1: in the family, I may say that what everyone says
- 14:25Speaker 1: about him is that he has no humor. But that's
- 14:29Speaker 1: not my complaint at all. I think my complaint is
- 14:32Speaker 1: that he has no pathos, that is, he does not
- 14:36Speaker 1: feel human limitations, that is, he will not write poetry.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood was looking with his cold, unconscious profile into
- 14:46Speaker 1: a little black and yellow picture called Enthusiasm, but Joan
- 14:50Speaker 1: Brett leaned across to him with swarthy eagerness and cried
- 14:54Speaker 1: quite provocatively. Dorian says, you've no pathos. Have you any pathos?
- 15:00Speaker 1: He says, it's a sense of human limitations. Ivy Wouold
- 15:04Speaker 1: did not remove his gaze from the picture of Enthusiasm,
- 15:07Speaker 1: but simply said, no, I have no sense of human limitations.
- 15:12Speaker 1: Then he put up his elderly eyeglass to examine the
- 15:15Speaker 1: picture better. Then he dropped it again and confronted Joan
- 15:19Speaker 1: with a face paler than usual. Joan, he said, I
- 15:23Speaker 1: would walk where no man has walked and find something
- 15:27Speaker 1: beyond tears and laughter. My road shall be my road, indeed,
- 15:31Speaker 1: for I will make it like the Romans, and my
- 15:35Speaker 1: adventures shall not be in the hedges and the gutters,
- 15:38Speaker 1: but in the borders of the ever advancing brain. I
- 15:42Speaker 1: will think what was unthinkable until I thought it. I
- 15:44Speaker 1: will love what never lived until I loved it. I
- 15:47Speaker 1: will be as lonely as the first man. They say,
- 15:52Speaker 1: she said, after a silence, that the first man fell.
- 15:56Speaker 1: You mean the priests, He answered, yes, But even they
- 16:00Speaker 1: admit that he discovered good and evil. So are these
- 16:03Speaker 1: artists trying to discover some distinction that is still dark
- 16:06Speaker 1: to us, oh, said Joan, looking at him with the
- 16:10Speaker 1: real and unusual interest. Then you don't see anything in
- 16:14Speaker 1: the pictures yourself. I see the breaking of barriers, he answered.
- 16:19Speaker 1: Beyond that, I see nothing. She looked at the floor
- 16:23Speaker 1: for a little time and traced patterns with a parasol,
- 16:26Speaker 1: like one who has really received food for thought. Then
- 16:29Speaker 1: she said, suddenly, but perhaps the breaking of barriers might
- 16:33Speaker 1: be the breaking of everything. The clear and colorless eyes
- 16:37Speaker 1: looked at her quite steadily, Perhaps, said Lord Ivywood. Dorr
- 16:44Speaker 1: and Wimple made a sudden movement a few yards off
- 16:46Speaker 1: where he was looking at a picture, and said, hullo,
- 16:49Speaker 1: what's this? Mister Hibbs was literally gaping in the direction
- 16:54Speaker 1: of the entrance. Framed in that fine Byzantine archway stood
- 16:59Speaker 1: a great, big, bony man in threadbare but careful clothes.
- 17:04Speaker 1: With a harsh, high featured, intelligent face, to which a
- 17:08Speaker 1: dark beard under the chin gave something of the puritanic cast. Somehow,
- 17:14Speaker 1: his whole personality seemed to be pulled together and explained
- 17:19Speaker 1: when he spoke with a North Country accent. Well, lads,
- 17:23Speaker 1: he said genially to whose be main great on to pictures,
- 17:27Speaker 1: but I coomb for something in a moog ho ho.
- 17:31Speaker 1: Levison and Hibbs looked at each other. Then Levison rushed
- 17:35Speaker 1: from the room. Lord Ivywood did not move a finger,
- 17:38Speaker 1: but mister Wimpole, with a sort of poetic curiosity, drew
- 17:42Speaker 1: nearer to the stranger and studied him. It's perfectly awful,
- 17:46Speaker 1: cried Enid Wimpole in a loud whisper. The man must
- 17:50Speaker 1: be drunk, na alas, said the man with gallantry. I've
- 17:54Speaker 1: not been drunk nubited hairly fur these years and all
- 17:59Speaker 1: I'm a decent lad and work em my way back
- 18:01Speaker 1: to Wharfedale. No harm in a moog of a alas.
- 18:05Speaker 1: Are you quite sure, asked Dorian Wimple, with a singular
- 18:09Speaker 1: sort of delicate curiosity. Are you quite sure you're not drunk? Um?
- 18:15Speaker 1: Not drunk, said the man jovially, even if these were
- 18:20Speaker 1: licensed premises, began Dorian in the same diplomatic manner. Dere's
- 18:24Speaker 1: to sign unt, whose said the stranger. The black, bewildered
- 18:29Speaker 1: look on the face of Joan Brett suddenly altered. She
- 18:32Speaker 1: took four steps toward the doorway, and then went back
- 18:36Speaker 1: and sat on the purple ottoman. But Dorian seemed fascinated
- 18:40Speaker 1: with his inquiry into the alleged decency of the lad
- 18:43Speaker 1: who was working his way to Wharfdale. Even if these
- 18:46Speaker 1: were licensed premises, he repeated, drink could be refused you
- 18:51Speaker 1: if you were drunk. Now, are you really sure you're
- 18:55Speaker 1: not drunk? Would you know if it was raining? Say? Ay,
- 19:00Speaker 1: said the man with conviction. Would you know any common
- 19:04Speaker 1: object of your countryside? Inquired Dorian scientifically? A woman, let
- 19:10Speaker 1: us say, an old woman, aye, said the man with
- 19:15Speaker 1: good humor. What on earth are you doing with the creature?
- 19:18Speaker 1: Whispered Enid feverishly. I am trying, answered the poet, to
- 19:23Speaker 1: prevent a very sensible man from smashing a very silly shop.
- 19:28Speaker 1: I beg your pardon, sir, as I was saying, would
- 19:31Speaker 1: you know these things in a picture? Now? Do you
- 19:34Speaker 1: know what a landscape is? And what a portrait is
- 19:37Speaker 1: forgive my asking. You see, we are responsible while we
- 19:41Speaker 1: keep the place going. They're soared up into the sky
- 19:44Speaker 1: like a cloud of rooks, the eager vanity of the north.
- 19:48Speaker 1: We call your lads, a none so badly educated lad,
- 19:52Speaker 1: he said. In the town I was born in, there
- 19:55Speaker 1: was a gallery of pictures as fine as lunnon ay,
- 19:58Speaker 1: and I knew em too. Thank you, said Wimple, pointing
- 20:03Speaker 1: suddenly at the wall. Would you be so kind, for instance,
- 20:07Speaker 1: as to look at those two pictures. One represents an
- 20:11Speaker 1: old woman and the other rain in the hills. It's
- 20:14Speaker 1: a mere formality. You shall have your drink when you've
- 20:17Speaker 1: said which is which. The northerner bowed his huge body
- 20:23Speaker 1: before the two frames and peered into them patiently. The
- 20:27Speaker 1: long stillness that followed seemed to be something of a
- 20:30Speaker 1: strain on Joan, who rose in a restless manner, first
- 20:33Speaker 1: went to look out of a window, and then went
- 20:35Speaker 1: out of the front door at length. The art critic
- 20:38Speaker 1: lifted a large, puzzled but still philosophical face. Soon, how
- 20:43Speaker 1: or other, he said, a moon be drunk. After all
- 20:48Speaker 1: you have testified, cried Dorian, with animation. You have all
- 20:52Speaker 1: but saved civilization, and by God, you shall have your drink.
- 20:56Speaker 1: And he brought from the refreshment table a huge bumper
- 20:59Speaker 1: of the hibs champagne, and declined payment by the rapid
- 21:03Speaker 1: method of running out of the gallery onto the steps outside.
- 21:07Speaker 1: Joan was already standing there. Out the little side window.
- 21:11Speaker 1: She had seen the incredible things she expected to see,
- 21:14Speaker 1: which explained the ludicrous scene inside. She saw the red
- 21:18Speaker 1: and blue wooden flag of mister Pump standing up in
- 21:21Speaker 1: the flower beds in the sun, as serenely as if
- 21:24Speaker 1: it were a tall and tropical flower. And yet in
- 21:27Speaker 1: the brief interval between the window and the door, it
- 21:30Speaker 1: had vanished, as if to remind her it was a
- 21:32Speaker 1: flying dream. But two men were in a little motor outside,
- 21:37Speaker 1: which was in the very act of starting. They were
- 21:40Speaker 1: in motoring disguise, but she knew who they were. All
- 21:44Speaker 1: that was deep in her, all that was skeptical, all
- 21:47Speaker 1: that was stoical, all that was noble, made her stand
- 21:50Speaker 1: as still as one of the pillars of the porch.
- 21:53Speaker 1: But a dog bearing the name of Koodle sprang up
- 21:57Speaker 1: in the moving car and barked with joy at the
- 21:59Speaker 1: miss sight of her. And though she had borne all else,
- 22:03Speaker 1: Something in that beastial innocence of an animal suddenly blinded
- 22:07Speaker 1: her with tears. Could not, however, blind her to the
- 22:11Speaker 1: extraordinary fact that followed. Mister Dorian Whimple, attired in anything
- 22:17Speaker 1: but motoring costume, dressed in that compromise between fashion and art,
- 22:22Speaker 1: which seems proper to the visiting of picture galleries, did not,
- 22:26Speaker 1: by any means stand as still as one of the
- 22:28Speaker 1: pillars of the porch. He rushed down the steps, ran
- 22:33Speaker 1: after the car, and actually sprang into it without disarranging
- 22:37Speaker 1: his whistlerian silk hat. Good afternoon, he said to Dolroy, pleasantly,
- 22:43Speaker 1: you owe me a motor ride, you know. End of
- 22:47Speaker 1: Chapter twenty