. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But I
must be a man and enter."

He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind the
counter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirely
business-like smile.

"A fine evening, sir," he said.

"Fine indeed, strange Father," said Adam, stretching his hands
somewhat forward. "It is on such clear and mellow nights that your
shop is most itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons of
green and gold and crimson, which from afar oft guide the pilgrim of
pain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft."

"Can I get you anything?" asked the chemist.

"Let me see," said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. "Let me have
some sal volatile."

"Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?" said the young
man, genially.

"One and six--one and six," replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness.
"I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question."

He paused and collected himself.

"It is necessary," he muttered--"it is necessary to be tactful, and to
suit the appeal to each profession in turn."

"I come," he resumed aloud, "to ask you a question which goes to the
roots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witchery
cease?" And he waved his stick around the shop.

Meeting with no answer, he continued with animation--

"In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of your
profession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened."

"Anything more, sir?" asked the chemist.

"Oh," said Wayne, somewhat disturbed--"oh, what is it chemists sell?
Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met these
men of Bayswater and North Kensington--Mr. Bowles, they are
materialists. They see no witchery in your work, even when it is
wrought within their own borders. They think the chemist is
commonplace. They think him human."

The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult,
and immediately said--

"And the next article, please?"

"Alum," said the Provost, wildly. "I resume. It is in this sacred
town alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when you
fight for us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything you
typify. You fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as
surely as Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of
Fairyland in some strange manner diminishes."

"Anything more, sir?" asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfuln