he driver opened the trap and talked through it in a manner not wholly
common in conversations through that aperture.

"Mr. MacIan," he said shortly and civilly.

"Mr. Turnbull," replied his motionless fare.

"Under circumstances such as those in which we were both recently placed
there was no time for anything but very abrupt action. I trust therefore
that you have no cause to complain of me if I have deferred until this
moment a consultation with you on our present position or future action.
Our present position, Mr. MacIan, I imagine that I am under no special
necessity of describing. We have broken the law and we are fleeing
from its officers. Our future action is a thing about which I myself
entertain sufficiently strong views; but I have no right to assume or to
anticipate yours, though I may have formed a decided conception of your
character and a decided notion of what they will probably be. Still, by
every principle of intellectual justice, I am bound to ask you now and
seriously whether you wish to continue our interrupted relations."

MacIan leant his white and rather weary face back upon the cushions in
order to speak up through the open door.

"Mr. Turnbull," he said, "I have nothing to add to what I have said
before. It is strongly borne in upon me that you and I, the sole
occupants of this runaway cab, are at this moment the two most important
people in London, possibly in Europe. I have been looking at all the
streets as we went past, I have been looking at all the shops as we went
past, I have been looking at all the churches as we went past. At
first, I felt a little dazed with the vastness of it all. I could not
understand what it all meant. But now I know exactly what it all means.
It means us. This whole civilization is only a dream. You and I are the
realities."

"Religious symbolism," said Mr. Turnbull, through the trap, "does not,
as you are probably aware, appeal ordinarily to thinkers of the school
to which I belong. But in symbolism as you use it in this instance, I
must, I think, concede a certain truth. We _must_ fight this thing
out somewhere; because, as you truly say, we have found each other's
reality. We _must_ kill each other--or convert each other. I used to
think all Christians were hypocrites, and I felt quite mildly towards
them really. But I know you are sincere--and my soul is mad against you.
In the same way you used, I suppose, to think that all atheists thought
atheism w