in moments which would try the suavity of more
ordinary men; and with the utmost calm and clarity he began to tell me
the inner workings of his mind, while the growing dawn-light irradiated
his wasted and expressive features, and the flames slowly roasted his
left boot.

"'Yes,' he said quietly, and his eyes turned inwards, 'I have at last
seen the problem clearly, and seen it whole. It is largely because of
this that I have elected to seek the seclusion of another world. What
that world contains for me I know not, though so many public men have
tried to tell me; but it has never been my way to recoil from the
Unknown, and I am ready for my journey beyond the wide world's end.'

"I was greatly struck by the large-hearted way in which he spoke those
words, and I interrupted him to ask whether he did not think that there
was something fundamental in the British character which would leap as
one man at such an act of daring sacrifice and great adventure.

"'As regards that,' he replied fearlessly, while in the light of the
ever-brightening dawn I could, see the suspender on his right leg
gradually charring, so that he must already have been in great pain, 'as
regards that, it is largely the proneness of the modern British to
leap to verbal extremity which is inducing me to afford them this
object-lesson in restraint and commonsense. Ouch!'

"This momentary ejaculation seemed to escape him in spite of all his
iron control; and the smell of burning flesh brought home to me as
nothing else, perhaps, could have done the tortures he must have been
suffering.

"'I feel,' he went on very gravely, 'that extravagance of word and
conduct is fatal to my country, and having so profoundly experienced
its effects upon myself, I am now endeavouring by a shining example
to supply a remedy for a disease which is corroding the vitals and
impairing the sanity of my countrymen and making them a race of
second-hand spiritual drunkards. Ouch!'

"I confess that at this moment the tears started to my eyes, for a more
sublime show than the spectacle of this devoted man slowly roasting
himself to death before my eyes for the good of his country I had seldom
seen. It had a strange, an appalling interest, and for nothing on earth
could I have torn my gaze away. I now realized to the full for the first
time the will-power and heroism of the human species, and I rejoiced
with a glorious new feeling that I was of the same breed as this man,
made