rike the dark old drum of peril
in the paradise of children? But consider a moment; do not condemn me
hastily. Even that paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning of
that danger, just as the Eden that was made for perfection contained
the terrible tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of
its pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless,
the witness of the constructive instinct older than the destructive.
You keep dolls; you make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry.
You keep Noah's Arks; you perpetuate the memory of the salvation of
all life as a precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only,
sir, the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish rationality
of the earth? Do you not keep more terrible things? What are those
boxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Are
they not witnesses to that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely
death, which could not be excluded even from the immortality of Eden?
Do not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull."

"I don't," said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with great
emphasis.

"I am glad to hear it," replied Wayne. "I confess that I feared for my
military schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How, I
thought to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords that
give pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am at
least partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least
the entry of a gate of your fairyland--the gate through which the
soldiers enter, for it cannot be denied--I ought, sir, no longer to
deny, that it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentle
employment make you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Let
your own silvery experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there
is war in Notting Hill."

The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat hands
like two fans on the counter.

"War?" he cried. "Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke! Oh,
what a sight for sore eyes!"

Wayne was almost taken aback by this outburst.

"I am delighted," he stammered. "I had no notion--"

He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who took
a flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop.

"You look here, sir," he said; "you just look here."

He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which were
flapping outside his shop.

"Look at those, sir,