il pipe, down there in his dank
chamber, that London had lived long enough, had abused its
opportunities, had gone too far, in fine, with its civilisation. And
so he decided to wreck it.

Therefore he beckoned up his acolyte from the weedy end of the cavern,
and, "Bring me," he said, "the heart of the toad that dwelleth in
Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany." The acolyte slipped away by
the hidden door, leaving that grim old man with his frightful pipe,
and whither he went who knows but the gipsy people, or by what path he
returned; but within a year he stood in the cavern again, slipping
secretly in by the trap while the old man smoked, and he brought with
him a little fleshy thing that rotted in a casket of pure gold.

"What is it?" the old man croaked.

"It is," said the acolyte, "the heart of the toad that dwelt once in
Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany."

The old man's crooked fingers closed on it, and he blessed the acolyte
with his rasping voice and claw-like hand uplifted; the motor-bus
rumbled above on its endless journey; far off the train shook Sloane
Street.

"Come," said the old magician, "it is time." And there and then they
left the weedy cavern, the acolyte carrying cauldron, gold poker and
all things needful, and went abroad in the light. And very wonderful
the old man looked in his silks.

Their goal was the outskirts of London; the old man strode in front
and the acolyte ran behind him, and there was something magical in the
old man's stride alone, without his wonderful dress, the cauldron and
wand, the hurrying acolyte and the small gold poker.

Little boys jeered till they caught the old man's eye. So there went
on through London this strange procession of two, too swift for any to
follow. Things seemed worse up there than they did in the cavern, and
the further they got on their way towards London's outskirts the worse
London got. "It is time," said the old man, "surely."

And so they came at last to London's edge and a small hill watching it
with a mournful look. It was so mean that the acolyte longed for the
cavern, dank though it was and full of terrible sayings that the old
man said when he slept.

They climbed the hill and put the cauldron down, and put there in the
necessary things, and lit a fire of herbs that no chemist will sell
nor decent gardener grow, and stirred the cauldron with the golden
poker. The magician retired a little apart and muttered, then he
strode bac