ad, and showed me a little crimson book. It
was an anthology. I should think it might be commendably put on
the 'Index Expurgatorius' of upcountry missionaries.

It was called 'The Cheerful City,' and dwelt on the delights of
civilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a useful
purpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but,
here, what does it spell for my delirious Cockney save only
desiderium?

I read him two or three selections obediently, but without
enthusiasm. Were they from Herrick and Charles Lamb? I rather
think they were.

Afterwards he asked me for a few verses of the Gospel. I cheered
up.

'What would you like?'

'Oh, that story at the end of St. John. I've often thought of it
since I was so cold and wet; and got to your camp-fire. "The fire
of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread," that's it.'

I read with a will, but rather sadly.

'That's it,' he said. 'It seems to bring back the fog, and going
to early Service past that coffee-stall, and the smell of that
shop next to the Surrey Arms.'

I thought of his homely comparison after I had left him for the
night. It moved me strangely. I read the letter he had lent me
the letter of Cecilia, who found the Berkshire moors so banal.
Yes, she promised to prove a very undesirable help-meet on the
veld, so far as I could judge. I thought over things generally
that night, and I made up my mind to make a Quixotic offer in the
morning. I would offer to take on Leonard's work. Let him go home
and be happy in his scented town, with his intolerantly urban (or
suburban) Cecilia. He was splendid stuff. He might do much,
surely, in that quaint atmosphere of light and locomotion and
fragrance that his sense of romance demanded. Here Cecilia would
surely be either impossible or a very great nuisance. While, even
without Cecilia, Leonard did not seem well suited in his sphere,
and I judged that he would soon be rotten with fever and wouldn't
last.

As for me, I liked country life much, and roughing it a little. I
had no particular fear of fever. I compared my physique with
Leonard's not without complacency. I thought of the other side,
too: the east country that village of all villages, those
villagers of all villagers.

But that night I was full of over-seas fervor. I remembered
phrases that had rung cut finely at meetings Outpost Duty, the
Church in Greater Britain, The White Man's Burden, In Darkest
Africa, etc., etc. When I fell asle