ioned ideas, and leave
_them_ to put the world to rights. After all, it's their world."

Sec.2

Now, though you may think this a very uninteresting chapter--a mere
dialogue over the tea-cups, I take leave to present it to you as
quite the most dramatic and most central of our humble tale. The
events that lend it this distinguished character were happening
hundreds of miles from Radley's room, in places where more powerful
people than Penny or Doe or I were building Castles in the Air. An
Emperor was dreaming of a towering, feudal Castle, broad-based upon
a conquered Europe and a servile East. Nay, more, he had finished
with dreaming. All the materials of this master-mason were ready to
the last stone. And, if the two pistol-shots meant anything, they
meant that the Emperor had begun to build.

And, since building was the order of the day, there were wise men in
the councils of the Free Nations who saw that they must destroy the
Emperor's handiwork and build instead a Castle of their own, where
Liberty, International Honour, and many other lovely things might
find a home. So for all of us self-opinionated boys, it was a matter
of hours this summer evening before we should be told to tumble our
petty Castles down, and shape from their ruins a brick or two for
the Castle of the Free Peoples. Well, we tumbled them down. And the
rest of this story, I think, is the story of the bricks that were
made from their dust.

Sec.3

Doe and I left Radley and the doctor to their dispute, and retired
to our study. It was then that Doe began to blush and say:

"Funny the subject of our ambitions cropped up. Only a few days ago
I tried to write a poem about it."

I pleaded for permission to read it.

"You can, if you like," he said, getting very crimson. With
trembling hands he extracted a notebook from his pocket and
indicated the poem to me. From that moment I saw that he was waiting
in an agony of suspense for my approval.

I took it to the window, and, by the half-light of evening, read:

If God were pleased to satisfy
My every whim,
I'd tell you just the little things
I'd ask of Him:
A little love--a little love, and that comes first of all,
And then a chance, and more than one, to raise up them that fall;
Enough, not overmuch, to spend;
And discourse that would charm me
With one familiar friend;
A little music, and, perhaps, a song or two to sing;

And I would ask of Go