wered Grant. "I never said a word against eminent men of
science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes
itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new
religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall
of man they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't
understand. Now that they talk about the survival of the fittest they
think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion,
they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean. The
Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that,
instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk
unscientifically about science."

"That is all very well," said the big young man, whose name appeared
to be Burrows. "Of course, in a sense, science, like mathematics or
the violin, can only be perfectly understood by specialists. Still, the
rudiments may be of public use. Greenwood here," indicating the little
man in the blazer, "doesn't know one note of music from another. Still,
he knows something. He knows enough to take off his hat when they play
'God save the King'. He doesn't take it off by mistake when they play
'Oh, dem Golden Slippers'. Just in the same way science--"

Here Mr Burrows stopped abruptly. He was interrupted by an argument
uncommon in philosophical controversy and perhaps not wholly legitimate.
Rupert Grant had bounded on him from behind, flung an arm round his
throat, and bent the giant backwards.

"Knock the other fellow down, Swinburne," he called out, and before I
knew where I was I was locked in a grapple with the man in the purple
blazer. He was a wiry fighter, who bent and sprang like a whalebone, but
I was heavier and had taken him utterly by surprise. I twitched one of
his feet from under him; he swung for a moment on the single foot, and
then we fell with a crash amid the litter of newspapers, myself on top.

My attention for a moment released by victory, I could hear Basil's
voice finishing some long sentence of which I had not heard the
beginning.

"... wholly, I must confess, unintelligible to me, my dear sir, and
I need not say unpleasant. Still one must side with one's old friends
against the most fascinating new ones. Permit me, therefore, in tying
you up in this antimacassar, to make it as commodious as handcuffs can
reasonably be while..."

I had staggered to my feet. The gigantic Burrows was toiling in