The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still
remained in London.
One night last week, he said, some fools got the electric light in
order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze, crowded
with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting
till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came they became
aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking
down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have
given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road towards them,
and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away.
Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe!
From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose
plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the
possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than half
believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand
something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on doing
nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that
he personally was to capture and fight the great machine.
After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed
to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was nothing loath.
He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away
and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism
glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great occasion.
There s some champagne in the cellar, he said.
We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy, said I.
No, said he; I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We ve a heavy
enough task before us! Let us take a rest and gather strength while we
may. Look at these blistered hands!
And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards
after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London
between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we played
for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober
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