he moon. He paused a little,
panting in the gallery under the ball, and idly kicked his heels, moving
a few yards along it. And as he did so a thunderbolt struck his soul.
A man, a heavy, ordinary man, with a composed indifferent face, and a
prosaic sort of uniform, with a row of buttons, blocked his way. Michael
had no mind to wonder whether this solid astonished man, with the brown
moustache and the nickel buttons, had also come on a flying ship. He
merely let his mind float in an endless felicity about the man. He
thought how nice it would be if he had to live up in that gallery with
that one man for ever. He thought how he would luxuriate in the nameless
shades of this man's soul and then hear with an endless excitement about
the nameless shades of the souls of all his aunts and uncles. A moment
before he had been dying alone. Now he was living in the same world with
a man; an inexhaustible ecstasy. In the gallery below the ball Father
Michael had found that man who is the noblest and most divine and most
lovable of all men, better than all the saints, greater than all the
heroes--man Friday.

In the confused colour and music of his new paradise, Michael heard only
in a faint and distant fashion some remarks that this beautiful solid
man seemed to be making to him; remarks about something or other being
after hours and against orders. He also seemed to be asking how Michael
"got up" there. This beautiful man evidently felt as Michael did that
the earth was a star and was set in heaven.

At length Michael sated himself with the mere sensual music of the voice
of the man in buttons. He began to listen to what he said, and even to
make some attempt at answering a question which appeared to have been
put several times and was now put with some excess of emphasis. Michael
realized that the image of God in nickel buttons was asking him how
he had come there. He said that he had come in Lucifer's ship. On
his giving this answer the demeanour of the image of God underwent a
remarkable change. From addressing Michael gruffly, as if he were a
malefactor, he began suddenly to speak to him with a sort of eager
and feverish amiability as if he were a child. He seemed particularly
anxious to coax him away from the balustrade. He led him by the arm
towards a door leading into the building itself, soothing him all the
time. He gave what even Michael (slight as was his knowledge of the
world) felt to be an improbable account of the