A Knight Out 7
So, when I turned into the café, I think the real
reason was that I hoped to find somebody there, and
talk the night out. People think that talking is a sign
of thinking. It isn’t, for the most part; on the con-
trary, it’s a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve
oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the
muscles helps the body to become temporarily un-
conscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the
foreknowledge of its doom.
You see what gloomy thoughts a fellow can have,
even when he’s Fortune’s pet. It’s a disease of civilisa-
tion. We're in an intermediate stage between the
stupor of the peasant and—something that is not yet
properly developed.
I went into the café and sat down at one of the
marble tables. I had a momentary thrill of joy—it
reminded me of France so much—of all those days of
ferocious gambling with Death.
I couldn't see a soul I knew. But at least I knew
by sight the two men at the next table. Every one
knew that gray ferocious wolf—a man built in every
line for battle, and yet with a forehead which lifted
him clean out of the turmoil. The conflicting elements
in his nature had played the devil with him. Jack
Fordham was his name. At sixty years of age he
was still the most savage and implacable of publicists.
“ Red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson said. Yet the
man had found time to write great literature ; and his
rough and tumble with the world had not degraded
his thought or spoilt his style.
Sitting next him was a weak, good-natured, working
journalist named Vernon Gibbs. He wrote practically
the whole of a weekly paper—had done, year after
year with the versatility of a practised pen and
the mechanical perseverance of an instrument which
has been worn by practice into perfect easi-
ness.
Yet the man had a mind for all that. Some instinct
told him that he had been meant for better things.
D.D.F. B