w she must miss
many trains before the brothers could be separated.

Frances told me that when they were at the seaside the landlady would
sometimes clear away breakfast, leaving the brothers arguing, come to
set lunch and later set dinner while still they argued. They had come
to the seaside but they never saw the sea.

Once Frances was staying with them at a house they had taken by the
sea. Her room was next to Cecil's and she could not sleep for the
noise of the discussion that went on hour after hour. About one in
the morning she rapped on the wall and said, "O Cecil, do send
Gilbert to bed." A brief silence followed, and then the remark, in a
rather abashed voice, "There's no one here." Cecil had been arguing
with himself. Gilbert too argued with himself for the stand he was
taking was a hard one. Mr. Belloc has told me that he felt Gilbert
suffered at any word against England, that his patriotism was
passionate. And now he had himself to say that he believed his
country to be in the wrong. To admit it to himself, to state it to
others.

This autumn of 1899 G.K. began to write for the _Speaker_. The weekly
of this title had long been in a languishing condition when it was
taken over by a group of young Liberals of very marked views. Hammond
became editor and Philip Comyns Carr sub-editor. Sir John Simon was
among the group for a short while, but he soon told one of them that
he feared close association with the _Speaker_ might injure his
career. F. Y. Eccles was in charge of the review department. He is
able to date the start of what was known as the "new" _Speaker_ with
great exactitude, for when the first number was going to press the
ultimatum had been sent to Kruger and the editors hesitated as to
whether they should take the risk of announcing that it was war in
South Africa. They decided against, but before their second number
appeared war had been declared.

My difficulty in getting a picture of the first meeting of Belloc and
Chesterton illustrates the problem of human testimony and the limits
of that problem. For I imagine a scripture critic, old style, would
end by concluding that the men never met at all.

F. Y. Eccles, E. C. Bentley and Lucian Oldershaw all claim to have
made the momentous introduction, Mr. Eccles adding that it took place
at the office of the _Speaker_, while Gilbert himself has described
the meeting twice: once in the street, once in a restaurant. Belloc
remembers the introduct