sound-scrolls--noises with long tails
and whirligig decorations like foolish fireworks--though I think the art
of the future will be pyrotechnics. Mad, mad, I tell you! But whether
mad or not matters little in our land of freedom, where all men are born
unequal, where only the artists are sad. They are useless beings, openly
derided, and when one is caught napping, doing something that offends
church or State or society, he is imprisoned. Mad, you know! No wonder
anarchy is thriving, no wonder every true artist is an anarch, unavowed
perhaps, yet an anarch, and an atheist."

"Not so fast!" interrupted Arved. "I'm an anarchist, but I don't believe
in blowing up innocent policemen. Neither do you, Quell. You wouldn't
hurt a bartender! Give an anarchist plenty to drink, and he sheds his
anarchy like a shirt. There are, I have noticed, three stages in the
career of a revolutionist: destruction, instruction, construction. He
begins the first at twenty, at forty he is teaching, at sixty he
believes in society--especially if he has money in the bank." Quell
regarded the speaker sourly.

"You are a wonder, Arved. You fly off on a wild tangent stimulated by
the mere sound of a word. Who said anything about dynamite-anarchy?
There's another sort that men of brains--madmen if you will--believe and
indirectly teach. Emerson was one, though he hardly knew it. Thoreau
realized it for him, however. Don't you remember his stern rebuke when
Emerson visited him in Concord jail: 'Henry, why art thou here?' meekly
inquired the mystic man. 'Ralph, why art thou _not_ here?' was the
counter-question. Thoreau had brave nerves. To live in peace in this
malicious swamp of a world we must all wear iron masks until we are
carted off to the _domino-park_; pious people call it the cemetery. Now,
I'm going to sleep. I'm tired of all this jabbering. We are crazy for
sure, or else we wouldn't talk so much."

Arved grumbled, "Yes, I've noticed that when a man in an asylum begins
to suspect his keepers of madness he's mighty near lunacy himself."

"You have crazy blue eyes, Arved! Where's that flask--I'm dry again!
Let's sleep."

They drained the bottle and were soon dozing, while about them buzzed
the noon in all its torrid splendour.

When they awoke it was solid night. They yawned and damned the darkness,
which smelt like stale india-rubber, so Quell said. They cursed life and
the bitter taste in their mouths. Quell spoke of his thirst in words