ght," he remarked. "You live
in a world of painted laths and shadows. All this passion for the
picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette heroes.
You make up romances about gipsies and sailors, and the blackguards
they call pioneers, but you know nothing about them. If you did, you
would find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine. But the
great things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore.
It's like--it's like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked
like a buttercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to
eat."

At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his
pipe. He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be about to
take the road. He bade them good night, and it seemed to Dickson that
his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike
that of the agreeable companion at dinner.

"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare
say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap--life in the
bush, stockriding and the rest of it. But probably he's a bank-clerk
from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion, and it
blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out, and
with it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."

Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought
a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.

But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the
interruption. "That's the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst
up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish the destruction
before we can build. It is the same with literature and religion, and
society and politics. At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for
priests and pedants. I've no use for upper classes and middle classes.
There's only one class that matters, the plain man, the workers, who
live close to life."

"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among the
Bolsheviks."

Mr. Heritage approved. "They are doing a great work in their own
fashion. We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle crude
and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the right
end of the stick. They seek truth and reality."

Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.

"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.

"Exercise," was the answer. "I've been kept pretty closely tied up all
winter. And I