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18 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen, The Republic of Peaceways. In a hamlet round
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Speaker 1: about Windermere, let us say, or somewhere in Wordsworth's country
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Speaker 1: there could be found a cottage in which could be
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Speaker 1: found a cottager. So far all is as it should be,
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Speaker 1: and the visitor would first be conscious of a hearty
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Speaker 1: and even noisy, elderly man with an apple face and
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Speaker 1: a short white beard. This person would then loudly proffer
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Speaker 1: to the visitor the opportunity of seeing his father, a
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Speaker 1: somewhat more elderly man with a somewhat longer white beard,
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Speaker 1: but still up and about, And these two together would
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Speaker 1: then initiate the neophyte into the joys of the society
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Speaker 1: of a grandfather who was more than a hundred years old,
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Speaker 1: and still very proud of the fact this miracle, it seemed,
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Speaker 1: had been worked entirely on milk. The subject of this diet,
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Speaker 1: the oldest of the three men, continued to discuss an
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Speaker 1: enormous detail. For the rest it might be said that
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Speaker 1: his pleasures were purely arithmetical. Some men count their years
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Speaker 1: with dismay, and he counted his with a juvenile vanity.
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Speaker 1: Some men collect stamps or coins, and he collected days.
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Speaker 1: Newspaper men interviewed him about the historic times through which
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Speaker 1: he had lived without eliciting anything whatever, except that he
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Speaker 1: had apparently taken to an exclusive milk diet at about
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Speaker 1: the age when most of us leave it off. Asked
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Speaker 1: if he was alive in eighteen fifteen, he said that
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Speaker 1: was the very year he found it wasn't any milk,
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Speaker 1: but must be mountain milk, like doctor Meadows says. Nor
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Speaker 1: would his calculating creed of life have allowed him to
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Speaker 1: understand you if you had said that in a meadowland
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Speaker 1: over sea that lies before the city of Brussels, boys
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Speaker 1: of his old school in that year gained the love
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Speaker 1: of the gods and died young. It was the philanthropic
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Speaker 1: doctor Meadows, of course, who discovered this deathless tribe and
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Speaker 1: erected on it the whole of his great dietetic philosophy,
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Speaker 1: to say nothing of the houses and dairies of Peaceways.
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Speaker 1: He attracted many pupils and backers among the wealthy and
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Speaker 1: influential young men who were, so to speak, training for
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Speaker 1: extreme old age, infant old men, embryo nonagenarians. It would
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Speaker 1: be an exaggeration to say that they watched joyfully for
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Speaker 1: the first white hair, as fascination Fledgeby watched for his
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Speaker 1: first whisker. But it is quite true to say that
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Speaker 1: they seemed to have scorned the beauty of woman and
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Speaker 1: the feasting of friends, and above all the old idea
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Speaker 1: of death with glory. In comparison with this vision of
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Speaker 1: the sports of second childhood, peace Ways was, in its
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Speaker 1: essential plan, much like what we call a garden city,
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Speaker 1: a ring of buildings where the work people did their work,
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Speaker 1: with a pretty ornamental town in the center where they
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Speaker 1: lived in the open country outside. This was no doubt
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Speaker 1: much healthier than the factory system in the great towns,
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Speaker 1: and may have partly accounted for the serene expression of
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Speaker 1: Doctor Meadows and his friends, if any part of the
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Speaker 1: credit can be spared from the splendors of mountain milk.
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Speaker 1: The place lay far from the common highways of England,
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Speaker 1: and its inhabitants were enabled to enjoy their quiet skies
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Speaker 1: and level woods almost undisturbed, and fully absorb whatever may
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Speaker 1: be valuable in the Meadows method and view. Until one
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Speaker 1: day a small and very dirty motor drove into the
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Speaker 1: middle of their town. It stopped beside one of those
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Speaker 1: triangular islets of grass that are common at forked roads,
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Speaker 1: And two men in goggles, one tall and the other short,
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Speaker 1: got out and stood on the central space of grass,
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Speaker 1: as if they were buffoons about to do tricks, as
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Speaker 1: indeed they were. Before entering the town, they had stopped
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Speaker 1: by a splendid mountain stream quickening and thickening rapidly into
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Speaker 1: a river, unhelmed and otherwise eased themselves, eaten a little
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Speaker 1: bread bought at Whittington, and drank the water of the
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Speaker 1: widening current which opened on the valley of Pieceways. I'm
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Speaker 1: beginning quite to like water, said the taller of the
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Speaker 1: two nights. I used to think it a most dangerous drink.
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Speaker 1: In theory, of course, it ought only to be given
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Speaker 1: to people who are fainting. It's really good for them,
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Speaker 1: much better than brandy. Besides, think of wasting good brandy
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Speaker 1: on people who are fainting. But I don't go so
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Speaker 1: far as I did. I shouldn't insist on doctor's prescription
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Speaker 1: before I allow people water. That was the too severe
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Speaker 1: morality of youth. That was my innocence and goodness. I
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Speaker 1: thought that if I fell once, water drinking might become
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Speaker 1: a habit. But I do see the good side of water, now,
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Speaker 1: how good it is when you're really thirsty, how it
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Speaker 1: glitters and gurgles, how alive it is. After all, it's
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Speaker 1: the best of drinks after the other. As it says
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Speaker 1: in the song, feast on wine or fast on water,
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Speaker 1: and your honor shall stand. Sure, God, Almighty son and daughter,
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Speaker 1: He the valiant, she the pure. If an angel out
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Speaker 1: of heaven brings you other things to drink, thank him
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Speaker 1: for his kind intentions, go and pour them down the sink.
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Speaker 1: Tea is like the East. He grows in a great
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Speaker 1: yellow mandarin, with their vanity of manner and on consciousness
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Speaker 1: of sin. All the women, like a harem at his
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Speaker 1: pigtail troop belong, And like all the East he grows in.
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Speaker 1: He is poison when he's strong. Tea. Although an Oriental
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Speaker 1: is a gentleman, at least, Koko is a cad and coward.
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Speaker 1: Koko is a vulgar beast. Koko is a dull, disloyal, lying,
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Speaker 1: crawling cad and clown, and may very well be grateful
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Speaker 1: to the fool that takes him down. As for all
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Speaker 1: the windy waters, they were rained like trumpets down. When
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Speaker 1: good drink had been dishonored by the tipplers of the town.
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Speaker 1: When red wine had brought red ruin and the death
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Speaker 1: dance of our times, Heaven sent us soda water as
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Speaker 1: a torment for our crimes upon my soul. This water
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Speaker 1: tastes quite nice. I wonder what vintage now, and he
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Speaker 1: smacked his lips with solemnity. It tastes just like the
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Speaker 1: year eighteen eighty one tasted. You can fancy anything in
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Speaker 1: the tasting way, returned his shorter companion, mister Jack, who
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Speaker 1: was always up to his tricks. Did serve plain water
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Speaker 1: in those little glasses they drink liqueurs out of, and
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Speaker 1: every one swore it was a delicious liqueur and wanted
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Speaker 1: to know where they could get it, all except old
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Speaker 1: Admiral Guffen, who said it tasted too strong of olives.
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Speaker 1: But water's much the best for our games. Certainly, Patrick nodded,
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Speaker 1: and then said, I doubt if I could do it,
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Speaker 1: if it weren't for the comfort of looking at that,
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Speaker 1: And he kicked the rum keg and feeling we shall
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Speaker 1: have a good swig at it some day. It feels
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Speaker 1: like a fairy tale, carrying that about as if rum
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Speaker 1: were a pirate's treasure as if it were molten gold. Besides,
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Speaker 1: we can have such fun with it with other people.
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Speaker 1: What was that joke I thought of this morning? Oh?
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Speaker 1: I remember, where's that milk can of mine? For the
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Speaker 1: next twenty minutes he was industriously occupied with his milk
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Speaker 1: can and the cask, Pump watching him with an interest
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Speaker 1: amounting to anxiety, lifting his head. However, at the end
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Speaker 1: of that time he knotted his red brows and said,
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Speaker 1: what's that? What's what? Asked the other traveler. That said
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Speaker 1: Captain Patrick Delroy, and pointed to a figure approaching on
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Speaker 1: the road parallel to the river. I mean, what's it? For?
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Speaker 1: The figure had a longish beard and very long hair
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Speaker 1: falling far below its shoulders. It had a serious and
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Speaker 1: steadfast expression. It was dressed in what the inexperienced mister
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Speaker 1: Pump at first took to be its nightgown, but afterward
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Speaker 1: learned it to be its complete goat's hair tunic, unmixed
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Speaker 1: even with a thread of the destructive and deadly wool
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Speaker 1: of the sheep. It had no boots on its feet.
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Speaker 1: It walked very swiftly to a particular turn of the stream,
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Speaker 1: and then turned very sharply, since it had accomplished its
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Speaker 1: constitutional and walked back toward the perfect town of pieceways.
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Speaker 1: I suppose it's somebody from that milk place, said Humphrey,
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Speaker 1: pump indulgently. They seem to be pretty mad. I don't
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Speaker 1: mind that so much, said Delroy. I'm mad myself sometimes,
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Speaker 1: But a madman has only one merit and last link
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Speaker 1: with God. A madman is always logical. Now, what is
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Speaker 1: the logical connection between living on milk and wearing your
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Speaker 1: hair long? Most of us lived on milk when we
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Speaker 1: had no hair at all? How do they connect it up?
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Speaker 1: Are there any heads even for a synopsis? Is it say,
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Speaker 1: milk water shaving water shaving hair? Is it milk kindness?
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Speaker 1: Unkindness convicts hair? What is the logical connection between having
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Speaker 1: too much hair and having far too few boots? What
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Speaker 1: can it be? Is it hare hair? Trunk leather, trunk
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Speaker 1: leather boots? Is it hare beard oysters paddling no boots?
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Speaker 1: Man is liable to air, especially when every mistake he
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Speaker 1: makes is called a movement? But why should all the
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Speaker 1: lunacies live together? Because all the lunatics should live together,
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Speaker 1: said Humphrey. And if you'd seen what happened up at
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Speaker 1: Crampton with the farming out idea. You'd know it's all
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Speaker 1: very well, captain. But if people can prevent a guest
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Speaker 1: of great importance being buried up to the neck and
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Speaker 1: farm manure, they will, they will, really, he coughed, almost apologetically.
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Speaker 1: He was about to attempt a resumption of the conversation
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Speaker 1: when he saw his companion slap the milkan and keg
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Speaker 1: back into the car and get into it himself. You drive,
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Speaker 1: he said, Drive me where those things live, you know. Hump.
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Speaker 1: They did, not, however, arride in the civic center of
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Speaker 1: such things. Without yet another delay, they left the river
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Speaker 1: and followed the man with the long hair and the
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Speaker 1: goatskin frock, and he stopped, as it had opened, at
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Speaker 1: a house on the outskirts of the village. The adventurers stopped,
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Speaker 1: also out of curiosity, and were at first relieved to
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Speaker 1: see the man almost instantly reappear, having transacted his business
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Speaker 1: with a quickness that seemed incredible. A second glance showed
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Speaker 1: them it was not the man, but another man dressed
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Speaker 1: exactly like him. A few minutes more of inquisitive delay
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Speaker 1: showed them many of the kilty and goatish sect going
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Speaker 1: in and out of this particular place, each clad in
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Speaker 1: his innocent uniform. This must be the temple and Chapel,
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Speaker 1: muttered Patrick, it must be here they sacrifice a glass
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Speaker 1: of milk to a cow, or whatever it is they do.
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Speaker 1: While the joke is pretty obvious, but we must wait
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Speaker 1: for a lull in the crowding of the congregation. When
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Speaker 1: the last long haired phantom had faded up the road,
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Speaker 1: Delroy sprang from the car and drove the sign board
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Speaker 1: deep into the earth with savage violence, and then very
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Speaker 1: quietly knocked at the door. The apparent owner of the
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Speaker 1: place of whom the two last of the long haired
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Speaker 1: and barefooted idealists were taking a rather hurried farewell, was
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Speaker 1: a man curiously ill fitted for the part he seemed
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Speaker 1: cast for in the only possible plot. Both Pump and
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Speaker 1: Delroy thought they had never seen a man look so sullen.
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Speaker 1: His face was of the rubicund sort that does not
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Speaker 1: suggest jollity, but merely a stagnant indigestion in the head.
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Speaker 1: His mustache hung heavy and dark, his brows yet heavier
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Speaker 1: and darker. Delroy had seen something of the sort on
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Speaker 1: the faces of defeated people disgracefully forced into submission, But
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Speaker 1: he could not make head or tail of it in
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Speaker 1: connection with the priggish perfections of peaceways. It was all
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Speaker 1: the odd because he was manifestly prosperous. His clothes were
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Speaker 1: smartly cut in something of the sporting manner, and the
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Speaker 1: inside of his house was at least four times grander
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Speaker 1: than the outside. But what mystified the most was this
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Speaker 1: that he did not so much exhibit the natural curiosity
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Speaker 1: of a gentleman whose private house is entered by strangers,
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Speaker 1: but rather an embarrassed and restless expectation. During Delroy's eager
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Speaker 1: apologies and courteous inquiries about the direction and accommodations of peaceways,
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Speaker 1: his eye, which was of the boiled gooseberry order, perpetually
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Speaker 1: wandered from them to the cupboard, and then again to
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Speaker 1: the window. And at last he got up and went
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Speaker 1: to look out into the road. Oh yes, sir, very
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Speaker 1: healthy place, pieceways, he said, peering through the lattice. Very
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Speaker 1: dash it. What do they mean? A very healthy place?
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Speaker 1: Of course, they have their little ways. Only drink pure milk,
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Speaker 1: don't they asked? Doalroy, the householder looked at him with
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Speaker 1: a rather wild eye and grunted, yes, so they say,
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Speaker 1: And he went again to the window. I've bought some
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Speaker 1: of it, said Patrick, patting his pet milk can, which
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Speaker 1: he carried under his arm as if unable to be
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Speaker 1: separated from Doctor Meadow's discovery. Have a glass of milk, sir.
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Speaker 1: The man's boiled eye began to bulge in anger or
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Speaker 1: some other emotion. What do you want, he muttered, Are
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Speaker 1: you tex or what? Agents and distributors of the Meadow's
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Speaker 1: Mountain milk, said the captain, with simple pride. Taste it.
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Speaker 1: The dazed householder took a glass of the blameless liquid
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Speaker 1: and sipped it, and the change on his face was extraordinary. Well,
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Speaker 1: I'm jiggered, he said, with a broad and rather coarse grin.
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Speaker 1: That's a queer dodge. You're in the joke, I see.
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Speaker 1: Then he went again restlessly to the window and added,
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Speaker 1: but if we're all friends, why the blazes don't the
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Speaker 1: others come in? I've never known trade so slow before.
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Speaker 1: Who are the others, asked mister pump Oh, the usual
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Speaker 1: piece sways, people, said the other They generally come here
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Speaker 1: before work. Doctor Meadows don't work them for very long
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Speaker 1: hours that wouldn't be healthy or whatever he calls it.
15:09
Speaker 1: But he's particular about their being punctual. I've seen em
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Speaker 1: running with all their pure minded dogs on. When the
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Speaker 1: hooter gave the last call, then he abruptly opened the
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Speaker 1: front door and called out, impatiently but not loudly, come
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Speaker 1: along in. If you're coming, you'll give the show away
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Speaker 1: if you play the fool out there. Patrick looked out also,
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Speaker 1: and the view of the road outside was certainly rather singular.
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Speaker 1: He was used to crowds large and small, collecting outside
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Speaker 1: houses which he had honored with the sign of the
15:42
Speaker 1: old ship, but they generally stared up at it in
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Speaker 1: unaffected wonder and amusement. But outside this open door, some
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Speaker 1: twenty or thirty persons in what Pump had called their
15:53
Speaker 1: night gowns were moving to and fro like somnambulists, apparently
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Speaker 1: blind to the presence of the sign, looking at the
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Speaker 1: other side of the road, looking at the horizon, looking
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Speaker 1: at the clouds of morning, and only occasionally stopping to
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Speaker 1: whisper to each other. But when the owner of the
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Speaker 1: house called to one of these ostentatiously abstracted beings and
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Speaker 1: asked him hoarsely, what the devil was the matter? It
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Speaker 1: was natural for the milk fed one to turn his
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Speaker 1: feeble eye toward the sign. The gooseberry eyes followed his,
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Speaker 1: and the face to which they belonged was a study
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Speaker 1: in apoplectic astonishment. What the hell have you done to
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Speaker 1: my house? He demanded. Of course they can't come in
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Speaker 1: of this thing's here. I'll take it down if you like,
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Speaker 1: said Dolroy, stepping out and picking it up like a
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Speaker 1: flower from the front garden, to the amazement of the
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Speaker 1: men in the road, who thought they had strayed into
16:47
Speaker 1: a nursery fairy tale. But I wish in return you'd
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Speaker 1: give me some idea of what the blazes all this means.
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Speaker 1: Wait till I've served these men, replied his host. The
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Speaker 1: goat garbed persons went very sheishly or goatishly into the
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Speaker 1: now signless building, and were rapidly served with raw spirits,
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Speaker 1: which mister Pump suspected to be of no very superior quality.
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Speaker 1: When the last goat was gone, Captain Delroy said, I
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Speaker 1: mean that all this seems to me topsy turvy. I
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Speaker 1: understood that, as the law stands now, if there's a sign,
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Speaker 1: they are allowed to drink, and if there isn't, they
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Speaker 1: aren't the law, said the man, in a voice thick
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Speaker 1: with scorn. Do you think these poor brutes are afraid
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Speaker 1: of the law as they are of the doctor? Why
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Speaker 1: should they be afraid of the doctor? Asked Dolroy innocently.
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Speaker 1: I always heard that Peaceways was a self governing republic,
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Speaker 1: self governing. Be damned, was the illiberal reply. Don't he
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Speaker 1: own all the houses and could turn em out in
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Speaker 1: a snowstorm? Don't he pay all the wages and could
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Speaker 1: starve 'em stiff in a month? The law? And he
17:55
Speaker 1: snorted a moment after, he squared his elbows on the
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Speaker 1: table and began to explain more fully. I was a
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Speaker 1: brewer about here, and had the biggest brewery in these parts.
18:05
Speaker 1: There were only two houses which didn't belong to me,
18:08
Speaker 1: and the magistrates took away their licenses. After a time
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Speaker 1: ten years ago you could see Hugby's ales written beside
18:15
Speaker 1: every sign in the county. Then came these cursed radicals,
18:19
Speaker 1: and our leader, Lord Ivywood, must go over to their
18:23
Speaker 1: side about it and let this doctor buy all the
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Speaker 1: land under some new law that there sha'n't be any
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Speaker 1: pubs at all, and so my business is ruined so
18:33
Speaker 1: that he can sell his milk. Luckily, i'd done pretty
18:37
Speaker 1: well before and had some compensation, of course, and I
18:39
Speaker 1: still do a fair trade on the q T, as
18:42
Speaker 1: you see. But of course that don't amount to half
18:44
Speaker 1: the old one, for they're afraid of old meadows finding out,
18:48
Speaker 1: snuffling old blier and the gentleman with the good clothes
18:53
Speaker 1: spat on the carpet. I am a radical myself, said
18:58
Speaker 1: the irishman rather coldly. For all information on the Conservative Party,
19:02
Speaker 1: I must refer you to my friend mister Pump, who
19:05
Speaker 1: is of course in the inmost secrets of his leaders.
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Speaker 1: But it seems to me very rum sort of radicalism
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Speaker 1: to eat and drink at the orders of a master
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Speaker 1: who is a madman merely because he's also a millionaire.
19:19
Speaker 1: Oh liberty, What very complicated and even unsatisfactory social developments
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Speaker 1: are committed in thy name? Why don't they kick the
19:28
Speaker 1: old ass round the town a bit? No boots? Is
19:31
Speaker 1: that why they are allowed? No boots? Oh? Rollin down
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Speaker 1: hill and a milk? Can he can't object to that?
19:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, said Pump in his ruminant way. Master
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Speaker 1: Christian's aunt did. But ladies are more particular. Of course.
19:46
Speaker 1: Look here, cried Delroy in some excitement. If I stick
19:49
Speaker 1: up that sign outside and stay here to help, will
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Speaker 1: you defy them? You'd be strictly within the law and
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Speaker 1: any private coercion. I can promise you. They shall repent,
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Speaker 1: plant the sign and sell the stuff openly like a man,
20:03
Speaker 1: and you may stand in English history like a deliverer.
20:07
Speaker 1: Mister Hugby of Hugby's Ales only looked gloomily at the table.
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Speaker 1: His was not the sort of drinking, nor the sort
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Speaker 1: of drink selling on which the revolutionary sentiment flourishes. Well,
20:21
Speaker 1: said the captain. Will you come with me and say
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Speaker 1: here here? And how true? What matchless eloquence? If I
20:27
Speaker 1: make a speech in the market place, come along. There's
20:30
Speaker 1: room in our car. Well, I'll come with you if
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Speaker 1: you like, replied mister Hugby heavily. It's true. If yours
20:37
Speaker 1: is allowed, we might get our trade back too, And
20:40
Speaker 1: putting on a silk hat, he followed the captain and
20:42
Speaker 1: the innkeeper out to their little car. The model village
20:46
Speaker 1: was not an appropriate background for mister Hugby's silk hat. Indeed,
20:51
Speaker 1: the hat seemed somehow to bring out by contrast, all
20:56
Speaker 1: that was fantastic in the place. It was a superb
21:00
Speaker 1: morning some hours after sunrise. The edges of the sky,
21:05
Speaker 1: touching the ring of dim woods and distant hills, were
21:08
Speaker 1: still jeweled with the tiny transparent clouds of daybreak, delicate
21:12
Speaker 1: red and green or yellow. But above the vault of
21:16
Speaker 1: heaven rose through turquoise into a torrid and solid blue,
21:21
Speaker 1: in which the other clouds, the colossal cumuli, tumbled about
21:25
Speaker 1: like a celestial pillowphyte. The bulk of the houses were
21:29
Speaker 1: as white as the clouds, so that it looked, to
21:32
Speaker 1: use another simile, as if some of the whitewashed cottages
21:36
Speaker 1: were flying and falling about the sky. But most of
21:40
Speaker 1: the white houses were picked out here and there with
21:42
Speaker 1: bright colors, here an ornament in orange, or there a
21:45
Speaker 1: stripe of lemon yellow, as if by the brush of
21:48
Speaker 1: a baby giant. The houses had no thatching thatching is
21:53
Speaker 1: not hygienic, but were mostly covered with a sort of
21:56
Speaker 1: peacock green tiles bought cheap at a pre raffe a
22:00
Speaker 1: light bazaar, or less frequently by some still more esoteric
22:04
Speaker 1: sort of terra cotta bricks. The houses were not English,
22:09
Speaker 1: nor homelike, nor suited to the landscape, for the houses
22:13
Speaker 1: had not been built by free men for themselves, but
22:16
Speaker 1: at the fancy of a whimsical lord, but considered as
22:19
Speaker 1: a sort of elfant city in a pantomime. It was
22:22
Speaker 1: a really picturesque background for pantomimic proceedings. I fear mister
22:29
Speaker 1: Delroy's proceedings from the first rather deserved that name. To
22:33
Speaker 1: begin with. He left the sign, the cask, and the keg,
22:36
Speaker 1: all wrapped and concealed in the car, but removed all
22:40
Speaker 1: the wraps of his own disguise and stood on the
22:42
Speaker 1: central patch of grass in that green uniform that looked
22:45
Speaker 1: all the more insolent for being as ragged as the grass,
22:49
Speaker 1: even that was less ragged than his red hair, which
22:53
Speaker 1: no red jungle of the east could imitate. Then he
22:57
Speaker 1: took out, almost tenderly the large milk can and deposited it,
23:01
Speaker 1: almost reverently, on the island of turf. Then he stood
23:05
Speaker 1: beside it, like Napoleon beside a gun, with an expression
23:09
Speaker 1: of tremendous seriousness and even severity. Then he drew his sword,
23:14
Speaker 1: and with that flashing weapon, as with a flail, lashed
23:17
Speaker 1: and thrashed the echoing metal can till the din was deafening,
23:21
Speaker 1: and mister Hugby hastily got out of the car and
23:24
Speaker 1: withdrew to a slight distance, stopping his ears. Mister Pump
23:30
Speaker 1: sat solidly at the steering wheel, well, knowing it might
23:32
Speaker 1: be necessary to start in some haste. Gather, Gather, gather
23:37
Speaker 1: piece ways, shouted Patrick, still banging on the can and
23:40
Speaker 1: lamenting the difficulties of adapting MacGregor's gathering to the name
23:44
Speaker 1: and occasion. Were landless, landless, landless piece ways. Two or
23:51
Speaker 1: three of the goat clad, recognizing mister Hugby with a
23:54
Speaker 1: guilty look, drew near with great caution, and the captain
23:57
Speaker 1: shouted at them as if they were an army covered
24:00
Speaker 1: Bring Salisbury Plain citizens, he roared, saying anything that came
24:04
Speaker 1: into his head. Try the only original, unadulterated mountain milk,
24:09
Speaker 1: for which alone Mahomet came to the mountain, the original
24:13
Speaker 1: milk of the land, flowing with milk and honey, the
24:16
Speaker 1: high quality of which could alone have popularized so unappetizing
24:21
Speaker 1: a combination. Try our milk. None others are genuine who
24:26
Speaker 1: can do without milk? Even whales can't do without milk.
24:30
Speaker 1: If any lady or gentleman keeps a favorite whale at home,
24:33
Speaker 1: now's their chance. The early whale catches the milk. Just
24:37
Speaker 1: look at our milk. If you say you can't look
24:40
Speaker 1: at the milk because it's in the can, well look
24:43
Speaker 1: at the can. You must look at the can. You
24:46
Speaker 1: simply must. When duty whispers, low thou must, he bellowed
24:51
Speaker 1: at the top of his voice in a highly impromptu peroration.
24:56
Speaker 1: When duty whispers, low thou must, the youth reply, I can,
25:02
Speaker 1: And with the word can, he hit the can with
25:05
Speaker 1: a shocking and shattering noise, like a peal of demoniac
25:10
Speaker 1: bells of steel. This introductory speech is open to criticism
25:17
Speaker 1: from those who regard it as intended for the study
25:20
Speaker 1: rather than the stage. The present chronicler, who has no
25:24
Speaker 1: aim save truth, is bound to record that for its
25:27
Speaker 1: own unscrupulous purpose it was extremely successful, a great mass
25:33
Speaker 1: of the citizens of peace ways having been attracted by
25:36
Speaker 1: the noise of one man shouting like a crowd. There
25:40
Speaker 1: are crowds who do not care to revolt, but there
25:43
Speaker 1: are no crowds who do not like someone else to
25:46
Speaker 1: do it for them, a fact which the safest oligarchs
25:50
Speaker 1: may be wise to learn. But Delroy's ultimate triumph, I
25:54
Speaker 1: regret to say, consisted in actually handing to a few
25:58
Speaker 1: of the foremost of his audience some samples of his
26:01
Speaker 1: blameless beverage. The fact was certainly striking. Some were paralyzed
26:07
Speaker 1: with surprise, some were abruptly broken double with laughter. Many chuckled,
26:15
Speaker 1: some cheered, All looked radiantly toward the eccentric orator. And
26:21
Speaker 1: yet the radiance died quietly and suddenly from their faces,
26:25
Speaker 1: and only because one little old man had joined the group,
26:29
Speaker 1: a little old man in white linen, with a white
26:32
Speaker 1: pointed beard and a white powder puffuff hair like thistledown,
26:37
Speaker 1: a man whom almost every man present could have killed
26:40
Speaker 1: with the left arm. End of Chapter eighteen.