his formulæ had passed before 673 emerged triumphant, and the outfit prepared for what I may call the transatlantic flight. I was glad to find that the gold was undisturbed. "After a few weeks in seclusion in inexpensive London lodgings, I decided that no further time should be lost. Although I had saved a little money from the handsome salary which Parke Hopkinson allowed me, I was not then, any more than I now am, a man of means. Rightly or wrongly, I decided that I would have no collaborator; if all went well, my presence in this country on one day and my presence in America on, at the latest, the next, could be unassailably established. Having sprung the discovery on the world in one glorious burst, I could then come to my own terms with any scientist, government, or company in existence. There was big money in this, I saw, and the more the business was confined to me and me alone, the bigger the money would be. Selfish? Perhaps. Egotistical? Certainly. But think of the temptation. "In all this I thought very little of my own safety. Parke Hopkinson was dead, killed by Dædaloid. But then, of course, he had been foolish. Major Radcliffe's dog was probably dead too. But then it knew nothing about Dædaloid, and lacked my protective outfit. However, I determined that I should give myself every chance of coming out alive. The first 66 essential seemed to be to get properly clear of the earth, without the risk of fouling any obstruction. At first I decided that I should simply go to the country and float off a hill. Eventually I came to the conclusion that nothing less than Ben Nevis would do. The danger of coming in contact with anything on this side of the Atlantic would thus be absolutely eliminated. Clearly Ben Nevis was the place for me. Accordingly, provided with poor Parke Hopkinson's outfit and a third-class single ticket to Fort William, I set out on my adventure. I could not help contrasting my unobtrusive departure with the surging crowds that I hoped would throng round me on my return. The journey in question impressed me as tedious and unattractive; there, too, I could not help comparing it, by anticipation, with the new and more exciting method which I was soon to test, and later, if all went well, to universalise. I should add that I left the folios, the formulæ, and such of the stock of Dædaloid as I did not require for my immediate purposes, with Mrs Buckley, my London landlady, a simple soul, whom I judged too stupid to be dishonest. "However, I must stop this and bid you good-night reluctantly, for I am off early to-morrow. I wish you could come with me, for I am sure it would interest you to see one of our big bridges in progress, and here you have only seen the merest fringe of our frontier life. I think you said you had to return at once for the opening of Parliament and your important departmental work. It is a pity you cannot find time to go to Quetta; for although it is not a big city like Peshawar, it has, both in its immediate surroundings and in the road to it, many special features of frontier life, which differ in degree from what you see here. Anyhow, when you return to Whitehall and carry on your useful administrative work, it will, I hope, be not a disagreeable reflection to think that in the service of the King we are united in aim, though the surroundings are so very different, working as we do for the good of our fellow-subjects and for peace and goodwill among our neighbours." We parted most cordially, the kindly old gentleman thanking me with unnecessary emphasis for what I had told him, and hoping that I would look him up when I returned to England. But we never met again; he died a few years later, honoured and respected by all. The sequel as regards the road to Fort Sandeman is illustrative of some of the truths above discussed. A few weeks later, just as the hot weather was beginning, the tribesmen murdered the native assistant commissioner (who, as I suspected, had been using his position for his own nefarious purposes), and blew up all the dynamite which had been collected for the road operations in the precipice work. As the Indian railways are forbidden to convey explosives in the hot weather, this meant postponing further work on those parts of the road for several months; and as the young engineer in charge was evidently unnerved by current events, he was sent to a safer place elsewhere, and a strong and capable sapper subaltern took over charge. He very soon brought the tribesmen into order, and by the time the dynamite was delivered at the nearest railway station (eighty-five miles off, on the far side of the swollen Indus) he had organised work in the gorge portion. He established his headquarters on an upland plateau in a small fort close to a sheer precipice of some 200 feet in height, at the foot of which brawled a small stream. In this stream there was excellent fishing, and in the moun tains around good shooting, both of small and big game, so he had some opportunities of recreation in his scanty spare time. But in other respects his life was one of solitary hard work, for he was seventy miles from the nearest white man, and saw no one but natives except when his superior officers came to see how he was getting on. Ultimately the difficulties of making the nine miles of road through precipitous mountain country were overcome, and although it was not designed originally for motor traffic, Lord Kitchener, the first Commander-in-Chief to penetrate these mountain fastnesses, drove his motor-car easily all over this road through the wild precipitous country. All this happened about twenty years ago. The problem is more than ever important now that the advent of the motor-lorry has altered the conditions of warfare and of commerce. Much development to the existing roads, adding width, reducing gradients, and improving the surface is involved; fords over streams, which could be traversed by laden animals or carts, must now be crossed by adequate bridges. But, unlike a railway, such a road can be used by the nomad hordes of wan dering traders, whose goods are still dependent, beyond the border, on camel and donkey, but who benefit by our improved traffic conditions and by the increased protection which recent warfare has produced on the frontier routes. Still the same wedge-shaped masses of mountain territory exist between these routes, and the same crude ideas of right and wrong prevail. A brave lady, Mrs Starr, has recently related to the world in simple language her experience of some of these people and their land, and has shown us that among them there are some kindly natures susceptible of gratitude. It may take many years of patient dealing to convince them of our desire for goodwill, and of our intention to make our roads not only a pathway for war-though this they must be of necessity-but of peace and prosperity. But if we are true to our high ideals, the influence will tell in the longrun, and the roads will remain, as Alexander's have done, for all time. AN AFFAIR OF SOME GRAVITY. BY T. B. SIMPSON. "That moment that his face I see, WHEN I go up to London on business I always stay in a hotel, and somehow a hotel is the kind of place in which I never feel quite at home. Some people, I know, are so constituted that they do not feel at home anywhere else, but I am not like that. Domesticity is my strong line, and there is no moment so pleasant to me in the whole day as the one which occurs each evening when I have returned from the office and my wife pulls forward the arm-chair and gives me my slippers in front of the fire. But, of course, my wife never comes with me when I go to London. She has suggested once or twice lately that it is a long time since she has been there; she has never seen the moving stairways on the Tubes, she says, and she would like to go to the Military Tournament. But I give her no encouragement; she would only find it very unsettling. So it was with the usual strange, rather restless feeling that on the evening of my arrival I took a seat in the lounge of my hotel, in order to pass the hour or so which must elapse before dinner. There was the usual crowd of people -COLERIDGE, The Ancient Mariner. coming and going. They were of every kind, and making a great deal of noise; several of the women were smoking, as I regretted to observe, and one or two were drinking cocktails. I could not help thinking how the times had changed since I was a young man, when, of course, women drank only in private. The corner I was sitting in was a quiet one, and there was no one close to me except a middle-aged man at an adjoining table. When I had looked all round at every one else, I found my eyes resting on him. Certainly there was nothing very remarkable about him. He was cleanshaven, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he presented the appearance of having been so recently. He had a reflective, somewhat melancholy air, and, although he wasn't exactly shabby, his appearance certainly suggested that he had seen better days. He must have felt that I was looking at him, for he turned and gazed at me. I make a point of never staring at people, so I at once looked away. Besides, something told me that this was the kind of man who talks to strangers, and my wife does not greatly care for my talking to strangers in hotels. But turning away was no good, for the man at once rose and seated himself beside me. “Good evening, sir," he said. Instantly resolving that, while I would not on any account tell this man anything about myself or my business, far less lend him money or play cards with him, I must still be reasonably civil, I returned his greeting. "I see that, like myself, you are stranded alone among these scenes of thoughtless gaiety, if I am not mistaken," he went on, sweeping his arm round the little groups of chatterers. 66 66 Why, yes," I said, thinking it well to add, that is, for the present." "Ah, happy man, you expect a companion. Nothing is more melancholy to my mind than to be solitary amidst so much good cheer. But such is my lot. Perhaps you will allow me to while away a few moments with you until your friend appears." "I shall be delighted," I said, trying in vain to sound as though I were. But he talked on, without paying very much attention to my replies. "Did it ever strike you," he asked, "how closely a place like this resembles life?" I couldn't say it had, and didn't. fully. Quite," I said, rather doubt 66 "And yet, mark you," he continued, infusing more spirit into his words, time was when I was a man much too busy, indeed I may even say too important, to spare a moment to idleness in such a place as this. No, sir; those were the days when I could not have afforded to enter into conversation with-pardon my so describing you-a mere stranger . . . however attractive," he added, after a melancholy pause. "Not at all," I mumbled, at a loss for words. "Yes," he continued moodily, his lack-lustre eye fixed in a retrospective gaze; "if you will bear with me for a moment I will tell you one remarkable incident in my past which will let you know the kind of man I was. But this is dry work. Waiter!" And, hailing a passing attendant, he looked for a moment "What does the poet say distinctly less retrospective. |