Latest / Daily Classic Science Fiction Books / 16 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

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

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen, The Seven Moods of Dorian. That timeless clock
0:08
Speaker 1: of all lunatics, which was so bright in the sky
0:11
Speaker 1: that night, may really have had some elfin luck about it,
0:15
Speaker 1: like a silver penny. Not only had it irritated mister
0:19
Speaker 1: Hibbs into the mysteries of Dionysius and mister Bulrose into
0:23
Speaker 1: the arboreal habits of his ancestors, but one night of
0:27
Speaker 1: it made a very considerable and rather valuable change in
0:31
Speaker 1: mister Dorian Wimpole, the poet of the Birds. He was
0:36
Speaker 1: a man neither foolish nor evil any more than Shelley,
0:40
Speaker 1: only a man made sterile by living in a world
0:42
Speaker 1: of indirectness and insincerity with words rather than with things.
0:49
Speaker 1: He had not had the smallest intention of starving his chauffeur.
0:55
Speaker 1: He did not realize that there was worse spiritual murder
0:58
Speaker 1: in merely forgetting him. But as hour after hour passed
1:03
Speaker 1: over him alone with the donkey and the moon, he
1:06
Speaker 1: went through a raging and shifting series of frames of mind,
1:10
Speaker 1: such as his cultured friends would have described as moods.
1:15
Speaker 1: The first mood I regret to say was one of
1:18
Speaker 1: black and grinding hatred. He had no notion of the
1:22
Speaker 1: chauffeur's grievance, and could only suppose he had been bribed
1:26
Speaker 1: or intimidated by the demonic donkey torturers. But mister Wimple
1:32
Speaker 1: was much more capable at that moment of torturing a
1:35
Speaker 1: chauffeur than mister Pump had ever been of torturing a donkey,
1:39
Speaker 1: for no sane man can hate an animal. He kicked
1:44
Speaker 1: the stones into the road, sending them flying into the forest,
1:49
Speaker 1: and wished that each one of them was a chauffeur.
1:53
Speaker 1: The bracken by the roadside he tore up by the roots,
1:57
Speaker 1: as representing the hair of the chauffeur, to which it
2:00
Speaker 1: bore no resemblance. He hit with his fists such trees,
2:04
Speaker 1: as I suppose, seemed in form an expression most reminiscent
2:08
Speaker 1: of the chauffeur, but desisted from this, finding that in
2:12
Speaker 1: this apparently one sided contest, the tree had rather the
2:16
Speaker 1: best of it, but the whole wood and the whole
2:19
Speaker 1: world had become a kind of omnipresent and pantheistic chauffeur,
2:24
Speaker 1: and he hit at him everywhere. The thoughtful reader will
2:28
Speaker 1: realize that mister Wimple had already taken a considerable upward
2:32
Speaker 1: stride in what he would have called the cosmic scale.
2:37
Speaker 1: The next best thing to really loving a fellow creature
2:40
Speaker 1: is really hating him, especially when he is a poorer man,
2:44
Speaker 1: separated from you otherwise by mere social stiffness. The desire
2:50
Speaker 1: to murder him is at least an acknowledgment that he
2:53
Speaker 1: is alive. Many a man has owed the first white
2:58
Speaker 1: gleams of the dawn of democracy in his soul to
3:01
Speaker 1: a desire to find a stick and beat the butler.
3:06
Speaker 1: And we have it on the unimpeachable local authority of
3:09
Speaker 1: mister Humphrey Pump, that Squire Merriman chased his librarian through
3:14
Speaker 1: three villages with a horse pistol, and was a radical
3:18
Speaker 1: ever after. His rage also did him good merely as
3:24
Speaker 1: a relief, and he soon passed into a second and
3:27
Speaker 1: more positive mood of meditation. The damnable monkeys go on
3:32
Speaker 1: like this, he muttered, And then they call the donkey.
3:35
Speaker 1: One of the lower animals ride on a donkey, would
3:39
Speaker 1: he I'd like to see the donkey riding on him
3:41
Speaker 1: for a bit, good old man. The patient ass turned
3:46
Speaker 1: mild eyes on him when he patted it, and Dorian
3:49
Speaker 1: Wimpole discovered, with a sort of subconscious surprise, that he
3:54
Speaker 1: really was fond of the donkey. Deeper still, in his
3:58
Speaker 1: subliminal self, he knew, knew that he had never been
4:01
Speaker 1: fond of an animal before. His poems about fantastic creatures
4:05
Speaker 1: had been quite sincere and quite cold. When he said
4:09
Speaker 1: he loved a shark, he meant he saw no reason
4:12
Speaker 1: for hating a shark, which was right enough. There is
4:15
Speaker 1: no reason for hating a shark, however much reason there
4:18
Speaker 1: may be for avoiding one. There is no harm in
4:21
Speaker 1: a craken if you keep it in a tank or
4:23
Speaker 1: in a sonnet. But he also realized that his love
4:27
Speaker 1: of creatures had been turned round and was working from
4:30
Speaker 1: the other end. The donkey was a companion and not
4:33
Speaker 1: a monstrosity. It was dear because it was near, not
4:38
Speaker 1: because it was distant. The oyster had attracted him because
4:41
Speaker 1: it was utterly unlike a man, unless it be counted
4:45
Speaker 1: a touch of masculine vanity to grow a beard. The
4:48
Speaker 1: fancy is no idler than that he had himself used
4:52
Speaker 1: in suggesting a sort of feminine vanity in the permanence
4:56
Speaker 1: of a pearl. But in that maddening vigil among the
5:00
Speaker 1: mystic pines. He found himself more and more drawn toward
5:05
Speaker 1: the donkey, because it was more like a man than
5:08
Speaker 1: anything else around him, because it had eyes to see
5:12
Speaker 1: and ears to hear, and the latter even unduly developed heath.
5:18
Speaker 1: It hath ears to hear. Let him hear, he said,
5:21
Speaker 1: scratching those gray, hairy flappers with affection. Haven't you lifted
5:25
Speaker 1: your eyes toward heaven? And will you be the first
5:28
Speaker 1: to hear the last trumpet? The ass rubbed his nose
5:31
Speaker 1: against him with what seemed almost like a human caress,
5:35
Speaker 1: and Dorian caught himself wondering how a caress from an
5:38
Speaker 1: oyster could be managed. Everything else around him was beautiful,
5:42
Speaker 1: but inhuman. Only in the first glory of anger could
5:46
Speaker 1: he really trace in a tall pine tree the features
5:50
Speaker 1: of an ex taxicabman from Kennington. Trees and ferns had
5:55
Speaker 1: no living ears that they could wag, nor mild eyes
5:58
Speaker 1: that they could move. He patted the donkey again, but
6:03
Speaker 1: the donkey had reconciled him to the landscape, and in
6:06
Speaker 1: his third mood, he began to realize how beautiful it was.
6:10
Speaker 1: On a second study, he was not sure it was
6:13
Speaker 1: so inhuman. Rather, he felt that its beauty at least
6:17
Speaker 1: was half human, that the aureole of the sinking moon
6:20
Speaker 1: behind the woods was chiefly lovely because it was like
6:23
Speaker 1: the tender colored aureole of an early saint, and that
6:27
Speaker 1: the young trees were after all noble, because they held
6:31
Speaker 1: up their heads like virgins cloudily. There crowded into his
6:35
Speaker 1: mind ideas with which it was imperfectly familiar, especially an
6:41
Speaker 1: idea which he had heard called the image of God.
6:45
Speaker 1: It seemed to him more and more that all these things,
6:48
Speaker 1: from the donkey to the very docks and ferns by
6:51
Speaker 1: the roadside, were dignified and sanctified by their partial resemblance
6:55
Speaker 1: to something else. It was as if they were baby drawings,
7:00
Speaker 1: the wild, crude sketches of nature in her first sketch
7:03
Speaker 1: Books of Stone. He had flung himself on a pile
7:07
Speaker 1: of pine needles to enjoy the gathering darkness of the
7:10
Speaker 1: pine woods as the moon sank behind them. There is
7:14
Speaker 1: nothing more deep and wonderful than really impenetrable pine woods,
7:19
Speaker 1: where the nearer trees show against the more shadowy a
7:23
Speaker 1: tracery of silver upon gray, and of gray upon black.
7:28
Speaker 1: It was by this time, in pure pleasure and idleness
7:32
Speaker 1: that he picked up a pine needle to philosophize about it.
7:38
Speaker 1: Think of sitting on needles, he said, Yet, I suppose
7:41
Speaker 1: this is the sort of needle that Eve in the
7:44
Speaker 1: old legend used in Eden. I and the old legend
7:49
Speaker 1: was right too. Think of sitting on all the needles
7:52
Speaker 1: in London. Think of sitting on all the needles in Sheffield.
7:57
Speaker 1: Think of sitting on any needles, except on all the
8:00
Speaker 1: needles of Paradise. Oh, yes, the old legend was right enough.
8:05
Speaker 1: The very needles of God are softer than the carpets
8:08
Speaker 1: of men. He took a pleasure in watching the weird
8:12
Speaker 1: little forest animals creeping out from under the green curtains
8:15
Speaker 1: of the wood. He reminded himself that in the old
8:19
Speaker 1: legend they had been as tame as the ass, as
8:22
Speaker 1: well as being as comic. He thought of Adam naming
8:25
Speaker 1: the animals, and said to a beetle, I should call
8:29
Speaker 1: you Budger. The slugs gave him great entertainment, and so
8:34
Speaker 1: did the worms. He felt a new and realistic interest
8:37
Speaker 1: in them, which he had not known before. It was
8:40
Speaker 1: indeed the interest that a man feels in a mouse.
8:43
Speaker 1: In a dungeon the interest of any man tied by
8:46
Speaker 1: the leg and forced to see the fascination of small things.
8:51
Speaker 1: Creatures of the wormy kind, especially crept out at very
8:54
Speaker 1: long intervals. Yet he found himself waiting patiently for hours
8:59
Speaker 1: for the pleasure of their acquaintance. One of them, rather
9:02
Speaker 1: specially arrested his eye because it was a little longer
9:05
Speaker 1: than most worms, and seemed to be turning its head
9:09
Speaker 1: in the direction of the donkey's left fore leg. Also,
9:13
Speaker 1: it had a head to turn, which most worms have not.
9:17
Speaker 1: Dorian Wimpole did not know much about exact natural history,
9:21
Speaker 1: except what he had once got up very thoroughly from
9:24
Speaker 1: an encyclopedia for the purposes of a sympathetic villainel. But
9:30
Speaker 1: as this information was entirely concerned with the conjectural causes
9:34
Speaker 1: of laughter in the Hyaena, it was not directly helpful
9:37
Speaker 1: in this case. But though he did not know much
9:40
Speaker 1: natural history, he knew some. He knew enough to know
9:45
Speaker 1: that a worm ought not to have a head, and
9:48
Speaker 1: especially not a squared and flattened head shaped like a
9:52
Speaker 1: spade or a chisel. He knew enough to know that
9:55
Speaker 1: a creeping thing with a head of that pattern survives
9:58
Speaker 1: in the English countryside, though it is not common. In short,
10:04
Speaker 1: he knew enough to step across the road and set
10:06
Speaker 1: a sharp and savage boot heel on the neck and
10:09
Speaker 1: spine of the creature, breaking it into three black bits
10:13
Speaker 1: that writhed once more before they stiffened. Then he gave
10:17
Speaker 1: out a great explosive sigh. The donkey, whose leg had
10:22
Speaker 1: been in such danger, looked at the dead adder with
10:26
Speaker 1: eyes that had never lost their moony mildness. Even Dorian
10:30
Speaker 1: himself looked at it for a long time, and with
10:33
Speaker 1: feelings he could neither arrest nor understand, before he remembered
10:38
Speaker 1: that he had been comparing the little Wood to Eden,
10:41
Speaker 1: and even in Eden, he said at last, And then
10:45
Speaker 1: the words of Fitzgerald failed upon his lips. And while
10:49
Speaker 1: he was warring with such words and thoughts, something happened
10:53
Speaker 1: about him and behind him, something he had written about
10:56
Speaker 1: a hundred times and read about a thousand, something he
11:00
Speaker 1: had never seen in his life. It flung faintly across
11:04
Speaker 1: the broad foliage, a wan and pearly light, far more
11:07
Speaker 1: mysterious than the lost moonshine. It seemed to enter through
11:12
Speaker 1: all the doors and windows of the woodland, pale and silent,
11:16
Speaker 1: but confident, like men that keep a tryst. Soon its
11:20
Speaker 1: white robes had threads of gold and scarlet, and the
11:23
Speaker 1: name of it was morning. For some time past loud
11:28
Speaker 1: and in vain, all the birds had been singing to
11:30
Speaker 1: the poet of the birds. But when that minstrel actually
11:34
Speaker 1: saw a broad daylight breaking over wood and road, the
11:37
Speaker 1: effect on him was somewhat curious. He stood staring at
11:41
Speaker 1: it in gaping astonishment until it had fulfilled the fullness
11:45
Speaker 1: of its shining fate. And the pine cones and the
11:48
Speaker 1: curling ferns, and the live donkey and the dead viper
11:52
Speaker 1: were almost as distinct as they could be at noon,
11:55
Speaker 1: or even in a pre Raphaelite picture. And then the
11:59
Speaker 1: fourth moon fell upon him like a bolt from the blue,
12:02
Speaker 1: and he strode across and took the donkey's bridle as
12:06
Speaker 1: if to lead it along. Damn it all, he cried,
12:11
Speaker 1: in a voice as cheerful as the cock crow that
12:14
Speaker 1: rang recently from the remote village. It's not everybody who's
12:17
Speaker 1: killed a snake. Then he added, reflectively, I bet doctor
12:22
Speaker 1: Gluck never did come along. Donkey. Let's have some adventures,
12:27
Speaker 1: the finding and fighting of positive evil is the beginning
12:30
Speaker 1: of all fun, and even of all farce. All the
12:33
Speaker 1: wild woodland looked jolly now the snake was killed. It
12:37
Speaker 1: was one of the fallacies of his literary clik to
12:40
Speaker 1: refer all natural emotions to literary names. But it might
12:45
Speaker 1: not untruly be said that he had passed out of
12:47
Speaker 1: the mood of Materlink into the mood of Whitman, and
12:50
Speaker 1: out of the mood of Whitman into the mood of Stevenson.
12:54
Speaker 1: He had not been a hypocrite when he asked for
12:57
Speaker 1: gilded birds of Asia or purple polype out of the
13:00
Speaker 1: southern seas. He was not a hypocrite now when he
13:05
Speaker 1: asked for mere comic adventures along a common English road.
13:09
Speaker 1: It was his misfortune and not his fault, if his
13:12
Speaker 1: first adventure was his last, and was much too comic
13:16
Speaker 1: to laugh at. Already the one morning had warmed into
13:20
Speaker 1: a pale blue and was spotted with those little, plump,
13:23
Speaker 1: pink clouds, which must surely have been the origin of
13:26
Speaker 1: the story that pigs might fly. The insects of the
13:30
Speaker 1: grass chattered so cheerfully that every green tongue seemed to
13:34
Speaker 1: be talking the sky line. On every side was broken
13:38
Speaker 1: only by objects that encouraged such swash bucklering comedy. There
13:44
Speaker 1: was a windmill that Chaucer's miller might have inhabited, or
13:48
Speaker 1: Savante's champion charged. There was an old leaden church spire
13:54
Speaker 1: that might have been climbed by Robert Clive, away toward
13:58
Speaker 1: Pebblewick and the sea. There were the few broken stumps
14:00
Speaker 1: of wood which Humphrey Pump declares to this day to
14:04
Speaker 1: have been the stands for an unsuccessful children's swing, but
14:08
Speaker 1: which tourists always accept as the remains of the antique gallows.
14:13
Speaker 1: In the gayety of such surroundings, it a small wonder
14:16
Speaker 1: if Dorian and the donkey stepped briskly along the road,
14:21
Speaker 1: the very donkey reminded him of Sancho Panza. He did
14:25
Speaker 1: not wake out of this boisterous reverie of the white
14:27
Speaker 1: road and the wind till a motor horn had first
14:31
Speaker 1: hooted and then howled, till the ground had shaken with
14:34
Speaker 1: the shock of a stoppage, until a human hand fell
14:38
Speaker 1: heavily and tightly on his shoulder. He looked up and
14:42
Speaker 1: saw the complete costume of a police inspector. He did
14:46
Speaker 1: not worry about the face, and there fell on him
14:49
Speaker 1: the fifth or unexpected mood, which is called by the
14:52
Speaker 1: vulgar astonishment. In despair, he looked at the motor car
14:57
Speaker 1: itself that had anchored so abruptly under the oper said Hedge.
15:02
Speaker 1: The man at the steering wheel was so erect and
15:05
Speaker 1: unresponsive that Dorian felt sure he was feasting his eyes
15:08
Speaker 1: on yet another policeman. But on the seat behind was
15:12
Speaker 1: a very different figure, a figure that baffled him all
15:16
Speaker 1: the more because he felt certain he had seen it somewhere.
15:19
Speaker 1: The figure was long and slim, with sloping shoulders, and
15:23
Speaker 1: the costume, which was untidy yet contrived to give the
15:26
Speaker 1: impression that it was tidy on other occasions. The individual
15:31
Speaker 1: had bright yellow hair, one lock of which stuck straight
15:35
Speaker 1: up and was exalted, like the little horn in his
15:38
Speaker 1: favorite scriptures. Another tuft of it, in a bright but
15:42
Speaker 1: blinding manner, fell across and obscured the left optic, as
15:47
Speaker 1: in literal fulfillment of the parable of a beam in
15:49
Speaker 1: the eye. The eyes, with or without beams in them,
15:53
Speaker 1: looked a little bewildered, and the individual was always nervously
15:57
Speaker 1: resettling his necktie. For the individual went by the name
16:02
Speaker 1: of Hibbs, and had only recently recovered from experiences wholly
16:06
Speaker 1: new to him. What on earth do you want, asked
16:11
Speaker 1: Wimpole of the policeman. His innocent and startled face and
16:16
Speaker 1: perhaps other things about his appearance evidently caused the inspector
16:20
Speaker 1: to waver, Well, it's about this here, donkey, sir, he said,
16:25
Speaker 1: Do you think I stole it? Cried the indignant aristocrat. Well,
16:30
Speaker 1: of all the mad worlds, a pack of thieves steal
16:32
Speaker 1: my limousine. I save their damned donkey's life at the
16:35
Speaker 1: risk of my own, and I'm run in for stealing
16:39
Speaker 1: the clothes of the indignant aristocrat probably spoke louder than
16:43
Speaker 1: his tongue. The officer dropped his hand, and, after consulting
16:47
Speaker 1: some papers in his hand, walked across to consult with
16:50
Speaker 1: the unkempt gentleman. Gentleman in the car that seems to
16:55
Speaker 1: be a similar cart and donkey Duron heard him saying,
16:58
Speaker 1: but the clothes don't seem to fit your description of
17:01
Speaker 1: the men you saw. Now, mister Hibbs had extremely vague
17:05
Speaker 1: and wild recollections of the men he saw. He could
17:08
Speaker 1: not even tell what he had done and what he
17:10
Speaker 1: had merely dreamed. If he had spoken sincerely, he would
17:14
Speaker 1: have described a sort of green nightmare of forests, in
17:17
Speaker 1: which he found himself in the power of an ogre
17:20
Speaker 1: about twelve feet high, with scarlet flames for hair, and
17:24
Speaker 1: dressed rather like Robin Hood. But a long course of
17:28
Speaker 1: what is known as keeping the party together had made
17:31
Speaker 1: it as unnatural to him to tell any one, even himself,
17:34
Speaker 1: what he really thought about anything, as it would have
17:37
Speaker 1: been to spit or to sing. He had at present
17:41
Speaker 1: only three motives and strong resolves. One not to admit
17:45
Speaker 1: that he had been drunk, two not to let any
17:49
Speaker 1: one escape whom Lord Ivywood might possibly want to question,
17:54
Speaker 1: and three not to lose his reputation for sagacity and tact.
17:59
Speaker 1: This party has a brown velvet suit, you see, and
18:02
Speaker 1: a fur overcoat, the inspector continued, And in the notes
18:05
Speaker 1: I have from you, you say the man wore a uniform.
18:09
Speaker 1: When we say uniform, said mister Hibbs, frowning intellectually. When
18:12
Speaker 1: we say uniform, of course, we must distinguish some of
18:16
Speaker 1: our friends who don't quite see eye to eye with us,
18:19
Speaker 1: you know, and he smiled with tender leniency. Some of
18:23
Speaker 1: our friends wouldn't like it called a uniform perhaps, But
18:27
Speaker 1: of course, well it wasn't a police uniform, for instance.
18:31
Speaker 1: Ha ha, I should hope not, said the official shortly.
18:37
Speaker 1: So in a way, however, said Hibbs, clutching his verbal talisman.
18:42
Speaker 1: At last, it might be brown velvet in the dark.
18:47
Speaker 1: The inspector replied to this helpful suggestion with some wonder.
18:51
Speaker 1: But it was a moon like limelight, he protested. Yours, yars,
18:57
Speaker 1: cried Hibbs, in a high tone that can only be
19:00
Speaker 1: described as a hasty drawl. Yars discolors everything, of course,
19:04
Speaker 1: the flowers and things. But look here, said the inspector.
19:07
Speaker 1: You said, the principal man's hair was red, A blonde type.
19:11
Speaker 1: A blonde type, said Hibbs, waving his hand, with a
19:13
Speaker 1: solemn lightness. Reddish yellowish, brownish sort of hair, you know.
19:18
Speaker 1: Then he shook his head and said, with the heaviest solemnity,
19:20
Speaker 1: the word was capable of carrying teutonic, purely teutonic. The
19:26
Speaker 1: inspector began to feel some wonder that, even in the
19:30
Speaker 1: confusion following on Lord Ivywood's fall, he had been put
19:34
Speaker 1: under the guidance of this particular guide. The truth was
19:38
Speaker 1: that Levison, once more, masking his own fears under his
19:41
Speaker 1: usual parade of hurry, had found Hibs at a table
19:44
Speaker 1: by an open window, with wild hair and sleepy eyes,
19:47
Speaker 1: picking himself up with some sort of medicine. Finding him
19:52
Speaker 1: already fairly clear headed in a dreary way, he had
19:55
Speaker 1: not scrupled to use the remains of his bewilderment to
19:58
Speaker 1: despatch him with the police in first pursuit. Even the
20:03
Speaker 1: mind of a semi recovered drunkard, he thought, could be
20:05
Speaker 1: trusted to recognize any one so unmistakable as the captain.
20:10
Speaker 1: But though the diplomatist Debauch was barely over his strange
20:15
Speaker 1: soft fear and cunning were awake. He felt fairly certain
20:20
Speaker 1: the man in the fur coat had something to do
20:22
Speaker 1: with the mystery, as men with fur coats do not
20:25
Speaker 1: commonly wander about with donkeys. He was afraid of offending
20:29
Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood, and at the same time afraid of exposing
20:32
Speaker 1: himself to a policeman. You have large discretion, he said, gravely,
20:38
Speaker 1: very right, you should have large discretion in the interests
20:41
Speaker 1: of the public. I think you would be quite authorized
20:44
Speaker 1: for the present in preventing the man's escape and the
20:48
Speaker 1: other man, inquired the officer with knitted brow, do you
20:52
Speaker 1: suppose he has escaped? The other man repeated Hibbs, however,
20:56
Speaker 1: regarding the distant windmill through the half closed lids, as
21:00
Speaker 1: if this were a new fine shade introduced into an
21:03
Speaker 1: already delicate question. Well, hang it all, said the police officer.
21:08
Speaker 1: You must know whether there were two men or one.
21:11
Speaker 1: Gradually it dawned in a great dawn of horror over
21:15
Speaker 1: the brain of Hibs that this was what he specially
21:18
Speaker 1: couldn't know. He had always heard and read in comic
21:22
Speaker 1: papers that a drunken man sees double and beholds two
21:26
Speaker 1: lamp posts, one of which is, as the higher critic
21:29
Speaker 1: would have said, purely subjective. For all he knew, being
21:34
Speaker 1: a mere novice inebriation might produce the impression of the
21:37
Speaker 1: two men in his dreamlike adventure, when in truth there
21:42
Speaker 1: had only been one two men. You know, one man,
21:47
Speaker 1: he said, with a sort of moody carelessness. Well, we
21:50
Speaker 1: can go into their numbers later. They can't have a
21:54
Speaker 1: very large following here, He shook his head very firmly.
21:58
Speaker 1: Quite impossible, And, as the late Lord Gushen used to say,
22:02
Speaker 1: you can prove anything by statistics. And here came an
22:06
Speaker 1: interruption from the other side of the road. And how
22:10
Speaker 1: long am I to wait here for you and your goshins,
22:12
Speaker 1: you silly goat, were the intemperate wood notes, issuing from
22:16
Speaker 1: the poet of the birds. I'm shot if I'll stand this,
22:20
Speaker 1: Come along, donkey, and let's pray for a better adventure
22:23
Speaker 1: next time. These are very inferior specimens of your own race.
22:28
Speaker 1: And seizing the bridle of the ass again, he strode
22:31
Speaker 1: past them, swiftly and almost as if urging the animal
22:34
Speaker 1: to gallop. Unfortunately, this disdainful dash for liberty was precisely
22:40
Speaker 1: what was wanting to weigh down the rocking intelligence of
22:43
Speaker 1: the inspector on the wrong side. If Wimpole had stood
22:47
Speaker 1: still a minute or two longer, the official, who was
22:50
Speaker 1: no fool, might have ended in disbelieving Hibbs's story altogether.
22:56
Speaker 1: As it was, there was a scuffle, not without blows
22:59
Speaker 1: on both sid sides, and eventually the Honorable Dorian Whimpole,
23:04
Speaker 1: Donkey and all was marched off to the village in
23:07
Speaker 1: which there was a police station, in which was a
23:10
Speaker 1: temporary cell in which a sixth mood was experienced. His
23:16
Speaker 1: complaints however, were at once so clamorous and so convincing,
23:21
Speaker 1: and his coat was so unquestionably covered with fur, that,
23:25
Speaker 1: after some questioning and cross purposes, they agreed to take
23:28
Speaker 1: him in the afternoon to ivywood House, where there was
23:31
Speaker 1: a magistrate incapacitated by a shot only recently extracted from
23:35
Speaker 1: his leg. They found Lord Ivywood lying on a purple
23:41
Speaker 1: ottoman in the midst of his Chinese puzzle of oriental apartments.
23:46
Speaker 1: He continued to look away as they entered, as if
23:49
Speaker 1: expecting with Roman calm, the entrance of a recognized enemy.
23:54
Speaker 1: But Lady Enid Wimpole, who was attending to the wants
23:57
Speaker 1: of the invalid, gave a sharp cry of a astonishment,
24:01
Speaker 1: and the next moment the three cousins were looking at
24:03
Speaker 1: each other. One could almost have guessed they were cousins,
24:08
Speaker 1: all being, as mister Hibs subtly put it, a blonde type.
24:12
Speaker 1: But two of the blonde types expressed amazement, and one
24:16
Speaker 1: blonde type merely rage. I am sorry, Dorian, said Ivywood,
24:21
Speaker 1: when he had heard the whole story. These fanatics are
24:24
Speaker 1: capable of anything I fear, and you very rightly resent
24:27
Speaker 1: their stealing your car. You are wrong, Philip answered the
24:31
Speaker 1: poet emphatically. I do not even faintly resent their stealing
24:34
Speaker 1: my car. What I do resent is the continued existence
24:38
Speaker 1: on God's Earth of this fool pointing to the serious Hibbs,
24:44
Speaker 1: and of that fool pointing to the Inspector. And yes,
24:49
Speaker 1: by thunder, of that fool too, And he pointed straight
24:53
Speaker 1: at Lord Ivywood. And I tell you, frankly, Philip, if
24:57
Speaker 1: there really are, as you say, two men who are
25:00
Speaker 1: bent on smashing your schemes and making your life a hell,
25:04
Speaker 1: I am very happy to put my car at their disposal.
25:07
Speaker 1: And now I'm off. You'll stop to dinner, inquired Ivywood,
25:12
Speaker 1: with frigid forgiveness. No thanks, said the disappearing Bard. I'm
25:17
Speaker 1: going up to town. The seventh Mood of Dorian Wimpole
25:22
Speaker 1: had a grand finale at the Cafe Royal and consisted
25:27
Speaker 1: largely of oysters. End of chapter sixteen