, and somehow rather fiendish laugh.

"But I don't want power," said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfort
at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light.
Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again.

"Everybody wants power," he said. "Power in some form or other. The sort
of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power
to persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power in
persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obey
you. But I divagate."

"Do you?" asked Denis faintly.

"Yes," Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, "the time will come. We men
of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of
reason. We can't leave the world any longer to the direction of chance.
We can't allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like
Napoleon, mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning
everything upside down. In the past it didn't so much matter; but our
modern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War,
another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In
future, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world's
maniacs is canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work,
like a mountain torrent driving a dynamo..."

"Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel," said Denis. "You ought to
complete the simile."

Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. "There's only one thing to be
done," he said. "The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire,
and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They
must found the Rational State."

The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis's mental and bodily
faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talked
with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise
gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice went
on sounding and sounding in Denis's ears with the insistence of a
mechanical noise.

"In the Rational State," he heard Mr. Scogan saying, "human beings will
be separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of
their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities
of their mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what
would now seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child
that is born and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and
docketed, the c