Latest / Daily Classic Science Fiction Books / 12 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

12 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Daily Classic Science Fiction Books

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter twelve, Vegetarianism in the Forest. Humphrey Pump's cooking of
0:06
Speaker 1: a fungus in an old frying pan, which he had
0:09
Speaker 1: found on the beach, was extremely typical of him. He was, indeed,
0:14
Speaker 1: without any pretense of book learning, a certain kind of
0:17
Speaker 1: scientific man that science has really been unfortunate in losing.
0:22
Speaker 1: He was the old fashioned English naturalist, like Gilbert White,
0:26
Speaker 1: or even Isaac Walton, who learned things not academically like
0:31
Speaker 1: an American professor, but actually like an American Indian. And
0:36
Speaker 1: every truth a man has found out as a man
0:39
Speaker 1: of science is always subtly different from any truth he
0:42
Speaker 1: has found out as a man, because a man's family, friends, habits,
0:47
Speaker 1: and social type have always got well under wade before
0:51
Speaker 1: he has thoroughly learned the theory of anything. For instance,
0:55
Speaker 1: any eminent botanist at a soiree of the Royal Society
0:59
Speaker 1: could tell you, of course, that other edible fungi exist
1:03
Speaker 1: as well as mushrooms and truffles. But long before he
1:07
Speaker 1: was a botanist, still less an eminent botanist, he had begun,
1:11
Speaker 1: so to speak, on a basis of mushrooms and truffles.
1:15
Speaker 1: He felt in a vague way that these were really etible,
1:19
Speaker 1: that mushrooms were a moderate luxury proper to the middle classes,
1:23
Speaker 1: while truffles were a much more expensive luxury, more suitable
1:27
Speaker 1: to the smart set. But the old English naturalists, of
1:31
Speaker 1: whom Isaac Walton was perhaps the first and Humphrey Pump
1:35
Speaker 1: perhaps the last, had in many cases really begun at
1:39
Speaker 1: the other end, and found by experience, often most disastrous experience,
1:45
Speaker 1: that some fungi are wholesome and some are not. But
1:48
Speaker 1: the wholesome ones are on the whole the majority. So
1:52
Speaker 1: a man like Pump was no more afraid of a
1:55
Speaker 1: fungus as such than he was of an animal as such.
1:59
Speaker 1: He started with the supposition that a gray or purple
2:02
Speaker 1: growth on a stone must be a poisonous growth. Then
2:06
Speaker 1: he started with the supposition that a dog who came
2:09
Speaker 1: to him out of the wood must be a mad dog.
2:13
Speaker 1: Most of them he knew, those he did not know,
2:16
Speaker 1: he treated with rational caution. But to him as a
2:20
Speaker 1: whole race, these weird hued and one legged goblins of
2:23
Speaker 1: the forests were creatures friendly to man. You see, he
2:28
Speaker 1: said to his friend the captain, eating vegetables isn't half bad.
2:33
Speaker 1: So long as you know what vegetables there are and
2:35
Speaker 1: eat all of them that you can. But there are
2:38
Speaker 1: two ways where it goes wrong among the gentry. First,
2:42
Speaker 1: they've never had to eat a carrot or a potato,
2:45
Speaker 1: because it was all there was in the house, So
2:48
Speaker 1: they've never learned how to be really hungry for carrots,
2:51
Speaker 1: as that donkey might be. They only know the vegetables
2:54
Speaker 1: that are meant to help the meat. They know you
2:57
Speaker 1: take duck in peas, and when they turn vegetarian they
3:01
Speaker 1: can only think of the peas without the duck. They
3:04
Speaker 1: know you take lobster in a salad, and when they
3:07
Speaker 1: turn vegetarian, they can only think of this salad without
3:11
Speaker 1: the lobster. But the other reason is worse. There's plenty
3:15
Speaker 1: of good people even round here, and still more in
3:18
Speaker 1: the North, who get meat very seldom, but then when
3:22
Speaker 1: they do get it, they gobble it up like good uns.
3:26
Speaker 1: But the trouble with the gentry is different. The trouble
3:29
Speaker 1: is the same sort of gentry that don't want to
3:32
Speaker 1: eat meat don't really want to eat anything. The man
3:36
Speaker 1: called a vegetarian who goes to ivywood house is generally
3:40
Speaker 1: like a cow trying to live on a blade of
3:42
Speaker 1: grass a day. You and I, Captain, have pretty well
3:46
Speaker 1: been vegetarians for some time so as not to break
3:49
Speaker 1: into the cheese, And we haven't found it so difficult
3:53
Speaker 1: because we eat as much as we can. It's not
3:57
Speaker 1: so difficult as being teetotalers, answered Dalroy, so as not
4:01
Speaker 1: to break into the cask. But I'll never deny that
4:04
Speaker 1: I feel the better for that too, on the whole,
4:08
Speaker 1: but only because I could leave off being one whenever
4:10
Speaker 1: I chose, And now I come to think of it,
4:14
Speaker 1: he cried, with one of his odd returns of animal energy.
4:18
Speaker 1: If I'm to be a vegetarian, why shouldn't I drink?
4:21
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't I have a purely vegetarian drink? Why shouldn't
4:25
Speaker 1: I take vegetables in their highest forms? So to speak?
4:29
Speaker 1: The modest vegetarians ought, obviously, to stick to wine or beer,
4:33
Speaker 1: plain vegetarian drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the
4:37
Speaker 1: blood of bulls and elephants, as i'll conventional'll meat eaters.
4:41
Speaker 1: Do I suppose what is the matter? Nothing, answered Pump.
4:47
Speaker 1: I was looking out for somebody who generally turns up
4:50
Speaker 1: about this time. But I think I'm fast. I should
4:54
Speaker 1: never have thought so, from the look of you, answered
4:57
Speaker 1: the captain. But what I'm saying is that the d
5:00
Speaker 1: drinking of decent fermented liquor is just simply the triumph
5:03
Speaker 1: of vegetarianism. Why it's an inspiring idea. I could write
5:08
Speaker 1: a sort of song about it, as for instance, you
5:12
Speaker 1: will find me drinking rum like a sailor in a slum.
5:16
Speaker 1: You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian. You
5:19
Speaker 1: will find me drinking gin in the lowest kind of inn,
5:23
Speaker 1: because I am a rigid vegetarian. Why it's a vista
5:27
Speaker 1: of verbal felicity and spiritual edification. It has I not
5:32
Speaker 1: know how many hundred aspects. Let's see, how could the
5:36
Speaker 1: second verse go? Something like So I cleared the inn
5:40
Speaker 1: of wine, and I tried to climb the sign, and
5:43
Speaker 1: I tried to hail the constable as Marion, but he
5:46
Speaker 1: said I couldn't speak, and he bowled me to the
5:49
Speaker 1: beak because I was a happy vegetarian. I really think
5:54
Speaker 1: something instructive to the human race may come out of
5:57
Speaker 1: all this hullo. Is that what you're looking for? The
6:02
Speaker 1: quadruped crudal came in out of the woods a whole
6:05
Speaker 1: minute later than the usual time, and took his seat
6:08
Speaker 1: beside Humphrey's left foot with a preoccupied air. Good old Boy,
6:13
Speaker 1: said the Captain. You seem to have taken quite a
6:16
Speaker 1: fancy to us. I doubt, Hump, if he's properly looked
6:20
Speaker 1: after up at the house. I particularly don't want to
6:24
Speaker 1: talk against Ivy Wood, Hump. I don't want his soul
6:27
Speaker 1: to be able in all eternity to accuse my soul
6:30
Speaker 1: of a mean detraction. I want to be fair to
6:34
Speaker 1: him because I hate him like hell, and he has
6:36
Speaker 1: taken from me all for which I lived. But I
6:40
Speaker 1: don't think with all this in my mind, I don't
6:42
Speaker 1: think I say anything beyond what he would own himself.
6:46
Speaker 1: For his brain is clear when I say that he
6:49
Speaker 1: could never understand an animal, and so he could never
6:52
Speaker 1: understand the animal side of a man. He doesn't know
6:56
Speaker 1: to this day, Hump, that your sight and hearing are
6:59
Speaker 1: sixty times quicker than his. He doesn't know that I
7:02
Speaker 1: have a better circulation that explains the extraordinary people he
7:07
Speaker 1: picks up and acts with. He never looks at them
7:10
Speaker 1: as you and I look at that dog. There was
7:13
Speaker 1: a fellow calling himself Gluck, who was mainly by Ivywood's influence,
7:18
Speaker 1: I believe his colleague on the Turkish conferences, being supposed
7:23
Speaker 1: to represent Germany. My dear Hump, he was a man
7:27
Speaker 1: that a great gentleman like Ivywood ought not to have
7:30
Speaker 1: touched with a barge pole. It's not the race he was,
7:34
Speaker 1: if it was one race, it's the sort he was.
7:37
Speaker 1: A chorus common, levantine, nark and eavesdropper. But you mustn't
7:42
Speaker 1: lose your temper, Hump. I implore you, Hump, to control
7:46
Speaker 1: this tendency to lose your temper when talking at any
7:49
Speaker 1: length about such people have recourse, Hump, to that consoling
7:53
Speaker 1: system of versification, which I have already explained to you. Oh,
7:58
Speaker 1: I knew a doctor Gluck, and his nose it had
8:01
Speaker 1: a hook, and his attitudes were anything but arian. So
8:05
Speaker 1: I gave him all the pork that I had upon
8:08
Speaker 1: a fork, because I am myself a vegetarian. If you are,
8:15
Speaker 1: said Humphrey, Pump, you'd better come and eat some vegetables.
8:19
Speaker 1: The white hat can be eaten cold or raw, for
8:22
Speaker 1: that matter, but blood spots want some cooking. You are right, Hump,
8:28
Speaker 1: said Delroy, seating himself with every appearance, of speechless greed.
8:32
Speaker 1: I will be silent, as the poet says, I am
8:36
Speaker 1: silent in the club, I am silent in the pub.
8:39
Speaker 1: I am silent on a bally peak in Darien. For
8:43
Speaker 1: I stuff away for life, shoving peas in with a knife,
8:47
Speaker 1: because I am at heart a vegetarian. He fell to
8:51
Speaker 1: his food with great GUSTO despatched a good deal of
8:54
Speaker 1: it in a very short time, threw a glance of
8:57
Speaker 1: gloomy envy at the cask, and then sprang to his
9:00
Speaker 1: feet again. He caught up the insign from where it
9:04
Speaker 1: leaned against the pantomime cottage, and planted it like a
9:07
Speaker 1: pike in the ground beside him. Then he began to
9:11
Speaker 1: sing again, in an even louder voice than before. O,
9:15
Speaker 1: Lord ivy Wood may lop, and his privilege is sylvan
9:19
Speaker 1: and riparian, and is also free to top. But do
9:24
Speaker 1: you know, said humph, also finishing his lunch, that I'm
9:28
Speaker 1: rather tired of that particular tune. Tired, is it, said
9:33
Speaker 1: the indignant irishman. Then I'll sing you a longer song
9:36
Speaker 1: to an even worse tune, about more and more vegetarians,
9:41
Speaker 1: and you shall see me dances well. And I shall
9:44
Speaker 1: dance till you burst into tears and offer me the
9:47
Speaker 1: half of your kingdom, and I shall ask for mister
9:50
Speaker 1: Levison's head on the frying pan. For this, let me
9:54
Speaker 1: tell you, is a song of Oriental origin, celebrating the
9:58
Speaker 1: caprices of an ancient Babylonian sultan, and should be performed
10:02
Speaker 1: in palaces of ivory, with palm trees and a bulbul accompaniment.
10:08
Speaker 1: And he began to bellow another and older lyric of
10:11
Speaker 1: his own on vegetarianism. Nebecan Nezar, the King of the
10:16
Speaker 1: Jews suffered from new and original views. He crawled on
10:20
Speaker 1: his hands and knees, it said, with grass in his
10:23
Speaker 1: mouth and a crown on his head, with a wow taiyidley,
10:27
Speaker 1: et cetera. Those in traditional paths that trod thought the
10:32
Speaker 1: thing was a curse from God. But a pioneer men
10:36
Speaker 1: always abuse like Nebecan Nezar, the King of the Jews
10:41
Speaker 1: delroy as he sang this, actually began to dance about
10:45
Speaker 1: like a ballet girl, an enormous and ridiculous figure in
10:48
Speaker 1: the sunlight, waving the wooden sign around his head. Koudel
10:53
Speaker 1: opened his eyes and pricked up his ears, and seemed
10:56
Speaker 1: much interested in these extraordinary evolutions. Suddenly, with one of
11:01
Speaker 1: those startling changes that will transfigure the most sedentary dogs,
11:06
Speaker 1: Koudle decided that the dance was again, and began to
11:09
Speaker 1: bark and bound round the performer, sometimes leaping so far
11:13
Speaker 1: into the air as almost to threaten the man's throat.
11:17
Speaker 1: But though the sailor naturally knew less about dogs than
11:20
Speaker 1: the countryman, he knew enough about them, as about many
11:24
Speaker 1: other things, not to be afraid. And the voice he
11:27
Speaker 1: sang with might have drowned out the baying of a
11:30
Speaker 1: pack black lord fulon the Frenchman Slew thought it a
11:35
Speaker 1: futurist thing to do. He offered them grass instead of bread,
11:40
Speaker 1: so they stuffed him with grass. When they cut off
11:42
Speaker 1: his head with a wow, tiredly, et cetera. For the
11:47
Speaker 1: pride of his soul, he perished then, But of course
11:50
Speaker 1: it is always the pride that men a man in
11:53
Speaker 1: advance of his age accuse. Like nebek Nezzar, the king
11:57
Speaker 1: of the Jews. Simeon Sky of Sticks in Maine thought
12:02
Speaker 1: of the thing, and was added again. He gave good
12:05
Speaker 1: brass and water in pails to a thousand irishmen hammering
12:09
Speaker 1: rails with a wow, tiredly et cetera, appetites differ, and
12:14
Speaker 1: tied to a steak. He was tarred and feathered for
12:17
Speaker 1: conscience sake. But stoning the prophets is ancient news. Like
12:22
Speaker 1: nebeken Nezzar, the King of the Jews, in an abandoned
12:27
Speaker 1: unusual even for him, He had danced his way down
12:30
Speaker 1: through the thistles into the jungle of weeds risen round
12:33
Speaker 1: the sunken chapel, and the dog, now fully convinced that
12:37
Speaker 1: it was not only a game, but an expedition, perhaps
12:41
Speaker 1: a hunting expedition, ran barking in front of him along
12:45
Speaker 1: the path that his own dog's paws had already burst
12:48
Speaker 1: through the tangle before Patrick Delroy well knew what he
12:52
Speaker 1: was doing, or even remembered that he still carried the
12:55
Speaker 1: ridiculous signboard in his hand. He found himself outside the
12:59
Speaker 1: open port of a sort of narrow tower, at the
13:02
Speaker 1: angle of a building which, to the best of his recollection,
13:06
Speaker 1: he had never seen before. Poodle instantly ran up four
13:10
Speaker 1: or five steps in the dark staircase inside, and then,
13:13
Speaker 1: lifting his ears again, looked back for his companion. There
13:18
Speaker 1: is perhaps such a thing as asking too much of
13:21
Speaker 1: a man, if there is. It was asking too much
13:24
Speaker 1: of Patrick Delroy to ask him not to accept so
13:27
Speaker 1: eccentric an invitation. Hurriedly plunging his unwieldy wooden ensign upright
13:33
Speaker 1: in the thick of thistles and grass, he bent his
13:36
Speaker 1: gigantic neck and shoulders to enter the porch and proceeded
13:40
Speaker 1: to climb the stairs. It was quite dark, and it
13:43
Speaker 1: was only after at least two twists of the stone
13:46
Speaker 1: spiral that he saw light ahead of him, And then
13:49
Speaker 1: it was a sort of rent in the wall that
13:51
Speaker 1: seemed to him as ragged as the mouth of a
13:53
Speaker 1: Cornish cave. It was also so low that he had
13:57
Speaker 1: some difficulty in squeezing his ball through it, but the
14:01
Speaker 1: dog had jumped through with an air of familiarity, and
14:04
Speaker 1: once more looked back to see him follow. If he
14:09
Speaker 1: had found himself inside any ordinary domestic interior, he would
14:13
Speaker 1: instantly have repented his escapade and gone back. But he
14:17
Speaker 1: found himself in surroundings which he had never seen before,
14:21
Speaker 1: or even in one sense believed possible. His first feeling
14:27
Speaker 1: was that he was walking in the most sealed and
14:29
Speaker 1: secret suite of apartments in the castle of a dream.
14:33
Speaker 1: All the chambers had that air of perpetually opening inwards,
14:36
Speaker 1: which is the soul of the Arabian nights. And the
14:40
Speaker 1: ornament was of the same tradition, gorgeous and flamboyant, yet
14:45
Speaker 1: featureless and stiff. A purple mansion seemed to be built
14:49
Speaker 1: inside a green mansion, and a golden mansion inside that,
14:53
Speaker 1: And the quaintly cut doorways or fretted lattices all had
14:57
Speaker 1: wavy lines, like a dancing sea, and for some reason,
15:01
Speaker 1: sea sickness. For all he knew, this gave him a
15:04
Speaker 1: feeling as if the place were beautiful but faintly evil,
15:08
Speaker 1: as if it were bored and twisted for the fallen
15:11
Speaker 1: palace of the worm. But he had also another sensation,
15:15
Speaker 1: which he could not analyze, for it reminded him of
15:19
Speaker 1: being a fly on the ceiling or the wall. Was
15:23
Speaker 1: it the hanging gardens of Babylon, coming back to his imagination,
15:27
Speaker 1: or the castle east of the sun and west of
15:29
Speaker 1: the moon. Then he remembered that, in some boyish illness,
15:33
Speaker 1: he had stared at a rather moorish sort of wall paper,
15:37
Speaker 1: which was like rosen rows of brightly colored corridors, empty
15:41
Speaker 1: and going on forever. And he remembered that a fly
15:45
Speaker 1: was walking along one of the parallel lines, and it
15:48
Speaker 1: seemed to his childish fancy that the corridors were all
15:51
Speaker 1: dead in front of the fly, but all came to life.
15:54
Speaker 1: As he passed by George, he cried, I wonder whether
16:00
Speaker 1: that's the real truth about East and West, That the
16:03
Speaker 1: gorgeous East offers everything needed for adventures except the man
16:07
Speaker 1: to enjoy them. It would explain the tradition of the
16:10
Speaker 1: Crusades uncommonly. Well, perhaps that's what God meant by Europe
16:14
Speaker 1: and Asia. We dress the characters and they paint the scenery. Well, anyhow,
16:20
Speaker 1: three of the least asiatic things in the world are
16:23
Speaker 1: lost in this endless Asiatic palace, a good dog, a
16:27
Speaker 1: straight sword, and an irishman. But as he went down
16:31
Speaker 1: this telescope of tropical colors, he really felt something of
16:35
Speaker 1: that hard, fatalistic freedom of the heroes or should we say,
16:39
Speaker 1: villains in the Arabian Nights. He was prepared for any impossibility.
16:44
Speaker 1: He would hardly have been surprised if from under the
16:47
Speaker 1: lid of one of the porcelain pots standing in a
16:50
Speaker 1: corner had come a serpentine string of blue or yellow smoke.
16:54
Speaker 1: As if some wizard's oil were within. He would hardly
16:58
Speaker 1: have been surprised if from under the curtains or closed
17:02
Speaker 1: doors had crawled out a snaky track of blood, or
17:05
Speaker 1: if a dumb negro dressed in white had come out
17:08
Speaker 1: with a bowstring having done his work. He would not
17:12
Speaker 1: have been surprised if he had walked suddenly into the
17:15
Speaker 1: still chamber of some sultan asleep, whom to wake was
17:19
Speaker 1: a death in torments. And yet he was very much
17:22
Speaker 1: more surprised by what he did see. And when he
17:26
Speaker 1: saw it, he was certain at last that he was
17:28
Speaker 1: only wandering in the labyrinth of his own brain, For
17:32
Speaker 1: what he saw was what was really in the core
17:34
Speaker 1: of all his dreams. What he saw, indeed, was more
17:39
Speaker 1: appropriate to that inmost eastern chamber than anything he had imagined.
17:44
Speaker 1: On a divan of blood red and orange cushions lay
17:47
Speaker 1: a startlingly beautiful woman with a skin almost swarthy enough
17:51
Speaker 1: for an Arab's, and who might well have been the
17:54
Speaker 1: princess proper to such an Arabian tale. But in truth,
17:58
Speaker 1: it was not her appropriate fretness to the scene, but
18:01
Speaker 1: rather her inappropriateness that made his heart bound. It was
18:06
Speaker 1: not her strangeness, but her familiarity that made his big
18:09
Speaker 1: feet suddenly stop. The dog ran on yet more rapidly,
18:15
Speaker 1: and the princess on the sofa welcomed him warmly, lifting
18:18
Speaker 1: him on his short hind legs. Then she looked up
18:22
Speaker 1: and seemed turned to stone. Bismola said the Oriental traveler affably,
18:28
Speaker 1: may your shadow never grow less or more. As the
18:31
Speaker 1: ladies would say, the commander of the faithful has deputed
18:35
Speaker 1: his least competent slave to bring you back a dog.
18:39
Speaker 1: Owing to temporary delay in collecting the fifteen largest diamonds
18:43
Speaker 1: in the moon, he has been compelled to send the
18:45
Speaker 1: animal without any collar. Those responsible for the delay will
18:50
Speaker 1: instantly be beaten to death with the tails of dragons.
18:54
Speaker 1: The frightful shock, which had not yet left the lady's face,
18:58
Speaker 1: brought him back to responsible speech. In short, he said,
19:03
Speaker 1: in the name of the Prophet Dog, I say, joan,
19:06
Speaker 1: I wish this wasn't a dream. It isn't, said the girl,
19:11
Speaker 1: speaking for the first time. And I don't know yet
19:14
Speaker 1: whether I wish it was well, argued the dreamer rationally,
19:20
Speaker 1: What are you any time? If you are not a
19:22
Speaker 1: dream or a vision? And what are all these rooms,
19:26
Speaker 1: if they aren't a dream, or rather a nightmare. This
19:30
Speaker 1: is the new wing of Ivywood House, said the lady
19:33
Speaker 1: addressed as Joan, speaking with great difficulty. Lord Ivywood has
19:38
Speaker 1: fitted them up in the Eastern style. He is inside
19:42
Speaker 1: conducting a most interesting debate in defense of Eastern vegetarianism.
19:47
Speaker 1: I only came out because the room was rather hot. Vegetarian,
19:52
Speaker 1: cried Delroy, with abrupt and rather unreasonable exasperation. That table
19:58
Speaker 1: seems to fall a bit short vegetarianism, and he pointed
20:02
Speaker 1: to one of the long, narrow tables laid somewhere in
20:05
Speaker 1: almost all the central rooms and loaded with elaborate cold
20:09
Speaker 1: meats and expensive wines. He must be liberal minded, cried Joan,
20:16
Speaker 1: who seemed to be on the verge of something possibly temper.
20:20
Speaker 1: He can't expect people suddenly to begin being vegetarians when
20:24
Speaker 1: they've never been before. It has been done, said Dalroy tranquility,
20:30
Speaker 1: walking across to look at the table. I say, eu
20:34
Speaker 1: ascetical friends seem to have made a pretty good hole
20:37
Speaker 1: in the champagne. You may not believe it, Joan, but
20:40
Speaker 1: I haven't touched what you call alcohol for a month,
20:44
Speaker 1: with which words he filled with champagne a large tumbler
20:48
Speaker 1: intended for claret cup, and swallowed it at a draft.
20:52
Speaker 1: Lady Joan Brett stood up straight but trembling. Now, what's
20:57
Speaker 1: really wrong, pat, she cried, Oh, don't be silly. You know,
21:01
Speaker 1: I don't care about the alcohol or all that. But
21:04
Speaker 1: you're in the man's house uninvited, and he doesn't know that.
21:08
Speaker 1: Wasn't like you. He shall know, all right, said the
21:13
Speaker 1: large man quietly. I know the exact price of a
21:16
Speaker 1: tumbler of that champagne. And he scribbled some words in
21:20
Speaker 1: pencil on the back of a bill of fare on
21:22
Speaker 1: the table, and then carefully laid three shillings on top
21:25
Speaker 1: of it. And there you do, Philip, the worst wrong
21:29
Speaker 1: of all, cried Lady Joan flaming White. You know as
21:33
Speaker 1: well as I do, anyhow, that he would not take
21:36
Speaker 1: your money. Patrick Delroy stood looking at her for some seconds,
21:41
Speaker 1: with an expression on his broad and unusually open face
21:45
Speaker 1: which she found utterly puzzling. Curiously enough, he observed at last,
21:51
Speaker 1: and with absolutely even temper, Curiously enough, it is you
21:56
Speaker 1: who are doing Philip Ivywood a wrong. I think him
22:00
Speaker 1: quite capable of breaking England or creation but I do
22:04
Speaker 1: honestly think he would never break his word. And what
22:08
Speaker 1: is more, I think the more arbitrary and literal his
22:11
Speaker 1: word had been, the more he would keep it. You
22:14
Speaker 1: will never understand a man like that till you understand
22:18
Speaker 1: that he can have devotion to a definition, even a
22:21
Speaker 1: new definition. He can really feel about an amendment to
22:25
Speaker 1: an Act of Parliament inserted at the last moment, as
22:28
Speaker 1: you feel about England or your mother. Oh don't philosophize,
22:33
Speaker 1: cried Jane, suddenly, can't you see this has been a shock?
22:38
Speaker 1: I only want you to see the point, he replied.
22:42
Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood clearly told me, with his own careful lips,
22:45
Speaker 1: that I might go in and pay for fermented liquor
22:48
Speaker 1: in any place displaying a public sign outside, and he
22:52
Speaker 1: won't go back on that definition, or on any definition.
22:56
Speaker 1: If he finds me here, he may quite possibly put
22:59
Speaker 1: me in prison on some other charge, as a thief
23:03
Speaker 1: or a vagabond or what not, But he will not
23:06
Speaker 1: grudge me the champagne, and he will accept the three shillings,
23:10
Speaker 1: and I shall honor him for his glorious consistency. I
23:15
Speaker 1: don't understand, said Joan. One word of what you are
23:19
Speaker 1: talking about which way did you come? How can I
23:22
Speaker 1: get you away? You don't seem to grasp that you're
23:25
Speaker 1: an ivy wood house. You see, there's a new name
23:29
Speaker 1: outside the gate, observed Patrick conversationally, and led the lady
23:34
Speaker 1: to the end of the corridor by which he had
23:36
Speaker 1: entered and into its ultimate turret chamber. Following his indications,
23:42
Speaker 1: Lady Joan peered a little over the edge of the
23:44
Speaker 1: window where hung the brilliant purple bird in its brilliant
23:47
Speaker 1: golden cage. Almost immediately below, outside the entrance to the
23:52
Speaker 1: half closed stairway, stood a wooden tavern sign as solid
23:56
Speaker 1: and still as if it had been there for centuries.
24:00
Speaker 1: All back at the sign of the old ship, you see,
24:03
Speaker 1: said the captain, Can I offer you anything in a
24:06
Speaker 1: lady like way? There was a vast impudence in the slight,
24:10
Speaker 1: hospitable movement of his hand that disturbed Lady Jones's features
24:14
Speaker 1: with an emotion other than any she had desired to show. Well,
24:19
Speaker 1: cried Patrick with wild geniality. I've made you laugh again,
24:23
Speaker 1: my dear. He caught her to him as in a whirlwind,
24:27
Speaker 1: and then vanished from the fairy turret like a blast.
24:31
Speaker 1: Leaving her standing with her hand up to her wild
24:33
Speaker 1: black hair. End of chapter twelve,