Many years ago I had a schoolfellow and bosom friend whom I knew as Billy, but whose name as it stood in the Register was William Xavier Plosive. Where his family came from, or where they got their outlandish name, I know not. From its rarity I infer that the Plosive stock has not multiplied lavishly on the earth. Only twice, since the days of my friendship with Billy, have I encountered that name. There is, or was, a wayside public-house in Devonshire, the landlord of which was a Plosive; it bore the sign of the "Dog and Ladle," which the signboard interpreted by a picture of a large retriever in precipitate flight with a tin ladle tied to his tail. The other Plosive of my acquaintance kept a shop in a Canadian city; he was a French half-breed, and, as I have heard, a great rascal.

Billy's father was said to have been a Roman Catholic; and I infer from the name he bestowed on his son that he had a turn for waggishness of a sort. Plosive senior must have foreseen what would happen. No sooner, of course, was the name William X. Plosive seen on the outside of the poor boy's copy-books than a whisper passed through the whole school—"Billy Burst." And that name remained with him to the end. It was more appropriate than its bestowers knew.

"When did Billy burst?" "Why did Billy burst?" "Will Billy burst again?" and a hundred questions of the like order were asked all day long apropos of nothing. They were shouted in the playground. They were whispered in the class. They broke the silence of the dormitory in the dead of night. With them we relieved our pent-up feelings in hours of tedium or of gloom. Introduced pianissimo, they profaned the daily half-hour devoted to the study of Divinity. Innumerable impositions followed in their train. One morning the Rev. Cyril Puttock, M.A., who "took" us in Divinity, saw written large on the blackboard in front of him these words: "What burst Billy?" I spent my next half-holiday in writing out the Beatitudes a hundred times.

Billy and I slept in the same dormitory and our beds were side by side. Both of us were bad sleepers, and many a deep affinity did our souls discover in the silent watches of the night. As a place to observe the workings of telepathy I know of no spot on earth to compare with the dormitory of a boarding-school. The atmosphere of our dormitory was, if I may say so, in a state of chronic telepathic saturation, and the area where the currents ran strongest was in the space between Billy's bed and mine. This is the sort of thing that would go on:

"Billy, are you awake?"

"Yes; I knew you were."

"Shall we talk?"

"I want to, ever so."

"I say, we are going to have that beastly pudding for dinner to-morrow."

"That's just what I want to talk about."

"I've got an idea. Billy, I found out yesterday where they cook those puddings. They boil them in the copper of the outhouse, and the cook leaves them there while she looks after the rest of the dinner."

"Ripping!" answered Billy. "I'll tell you what we'll do.—Hush! Is old Ginger awake?—All right. Well, we'll sneak into the outhouse to-morrow when the cook isn't looking, pinch the puddings out of the copper and chuck 'em in the pond."

"Why, Billy, that's just what I was going to say to you. But won't we scald ourselves?"

"I've thought of that. We'll get the garden fork and jab it into the puddings. They boil 'em in bags, you know."

"There's a better way than that. We'll get in before the copper has begun to boil."

"I hadn't thought of that, but I was just going to," said Billy. "Yes, that's the way."

Enterprises such as these, however, were episodic, and merely serve to show how great souls, born under the same star, and united in the grand trend of their life-directions, share also the minor details of their activity. The seat of our affinities lay deeper. Both Billy and I were persons with an "end" in life, and breathed in common the atmosphere of great designs. We were like two young trees planted side by side on a breezy hill-top. Our roots were in the same soil; our branches swayed to the same rhythm; we heard the same secrets from the whispering winds. We were always on the heights. Few were the days of our companionship when we were not infatuated about something or other; and I sometimes doubt whether even yet I have outgrown the habit, so deep was its spring in my own nature and so strong the reinforcement it received from the influence of Billy. Sometimes we were infatuated about the same thing; and sometimes each of us struck out an independent line of his own; but always we were the victims of one mania or another.

At the time this history begins the particular mania that afflicted me was the collecting of tramcar tickets. My friends used to save them for me; I begged them from passengers as they alighted from the cars; I picked them up in the street; and I had over seven thousand collected in a box. I thought that when the sum had risen to ten thousand the goal of my existence would be reached; and it may be said that I lived for little else.

Billy's mania was astronomy. He would spend the hours of his playtime lying on his stomach with a map of the stars spread out before him on the floor. Billy was a great astronomer—in secret. On the very day when he and I were being initiated into the mysteries of Decimals, he whispered to me in class, "I say, I wonder how people found out the weight of the planets." He was an absent-minded boy, and many a clout on the head did he receive at this time for paying no attention to what was going on in class. Little did the master know what Billy was thinking of as he stared at the wall before him with his great, dreamy eyes—and not for ten thousand worlds would Billy have told him. He was thinking about the weight of the planets, and the problem lay heavy on his soul; and Billy grew ever more absent-minded, and spent more time on his stomach every day. At last he suddenly waked up and began to get top-marks not only in Arithmetic but in every other subject as well. And later on, when we came to the Quadratic Equations and the Higher Geometry, the master was amazed to find that Billy required no teaching at all.

"What has happened to Billy?" asked somebody; and the answer came, "Why, of course, Billy has burst."

So he had. Billy had found out "how they weighed the planets," and the mass of darkness that oppressed him had been blown away in the explosion. About the same time I burst also. On counting up my tickets I found there were ten thousand of them.

Then came a pause, during which Billy and I wandered about in dry places seeking rest and finding none. Life lost its spring and the world seemed very flat, stale, and unprofitable. Conversation flagged, or became provocative of irritable rejoinders. "I say, what are you going to do with all those tramcar tickets?" asked Billy one day. "Oh, shut up!" I replied. Shortly afterwards it was my turn. "Billy, tell me what they mean by 'sidereal time.'" "Oh, shut up!" said he.

We were both waiting for the new birth, or the new explosion, utterly unconscious of our condition. But the Powers-that-be were maturing their preparations, and, all being complete, they put the match to the train in the following manner.

The usual exchange of measles and whooping-cough had been going on in our school, and Billy and I being convalescent from the latter complaint, to which we had both succumbed at the same time, were sent out one day to take an airing in the Park. On passing down a certain walk, shaded by planes, we noticed a very old gentleman seated in a bath-chair which had been wheeled under the shadow of one of the trees. He sat in the chair with his head bent forward on his chest, and his wasted hands were spread out on the cover. He seemed an image of decrepitude, a symbol of approaching death. He was absolutely still. A young woman on the bench beside him was reading aloud from a book.

I think it was the immobility of the old man that first arrested our attention. The moment we saw him we stopped dead in our walk and stood, motionless as the figure before us, staring at what we saw. We just stared without thinking, but even at this long distance I can remember a vague emotion that stirred me, as though I had suddenly heard the wings of time beating over my innocent head, or as though a faint scent of death had arisen in the air around; such, I suppose, as horses or dogs may feel when they pass over the spot where a man has been slain.

Suddenly Billy Burst clutched my arm—he had a habit of doing that.

"I say," he whispered, "let's go up to him and ask him to tell us the time."

We crept up to the bath-chair like two timid animals, literally sniffing the air as we went. Neither the old man nor his companion had noticed us, and it was not until we had both stopped in front of them that the reader looked up from her book. The old man was still unaware of our presence.

"If you please," said Billy, "would you mind telling us the time?"

At the sound of Billy's voice the old man seemed to wake from his dream. He lifted his head and listened, as though he heard himself summoned from a far point in space; and his eyes wandered vaguely from side to side unable to focus the speaker. Then they fell on Billy and his gaze was arrested.

Now Billy was a beautiful person—the very image of his mater. The eyes of the houri were his, the lids slightly elevated at the outer angle; he had the mouth of them that are born to speak good things; and about his brow there played a light which made you dream of high Olympus and of ancestors who had lived with the gods. Yes, there was a star on Billy's forehead; and this star it was that arrested the gaze of the old man.

A look of indescribable pleasure overspread the withered face. It almost seemed as if, for a moment, youth returned to him, or as if a breath of spring had awakened in the midst of the winter's frost.

"The time, laddie?" said he, "Why, yes, of course I can give you the time; as much of it as you want. For, don't you see, I'm a very old fellow—ninety-one last birthday; which I should think is not more than eighty years older than you, my little man. So I've plenty of time to spare. But don't take too much of it, my laddie. It's not good for little chaps like you. Now, how much of the time would you like?"

"The correct time, if you please, sir," said Billy, ignoring the quantitative form in which the question had been framed.

So the old gentleman gave us the correct time. When we had passed on, I looked back and saw that he was talking eagerly to his companion and pointing at Billy.

"I'll tell you what," said Billy as soon as we were out of hearing. "I've found out something. It does old gentlemen good to ask them the time. Let's ask some more."

So for an hour or more we wandered about looking out for old gentlemen—"to do them good." Several whom we met were rejected by Billy on the ground that they were not old enough, and allowed to pass unquestioned. Some three or four came up to the standard, and at each experiment we found that our magic formula worked with wonderful success. It provoked smiles and kind words; it pleased the old gentlemen; it did them good. Old hands were laid on young shoulders; old faces lit up; old watches were pulled out of old pockets. One was a marvel with a long inscription on the gold back of it. And the old gentleman showed us the inscription, which stated that the watch had been presented to him by his supporters for his services to political progress and for the gallant way in which he had fought the election at So-and-so in 1867. Yes, it did the old gentlemen good. But, be it observed, Billy was the spokesman every time.

From that time onward, Billy and I were Masters in Magic, no less, infatuated with our calling and devoted to our formula. The star-books were bundled into Billy's play-box; the ten thousand tramcar tickets were thrown into the fire.

Never since the world began, thought we, had a more glorious game been invented, never had so important an enterprise been conceived by the wit of man and entrusted to two apostles twelve years old. A world-wide mission to old gentlemen was ours. Who would have believed there were so many of them? They seemed to spring into existence, to gather themselves from the four quarters of the earth, in order that they might receive the healing touch of our formula. We met them in the street, in the Park, by the river, at the railway station, coming out of church—everywhere. And all were completely in our power. Oh, it was magnificent!

So it went on for three or four weeks. But a shock was in store for us.

At first, as I have said, Billy was the spokesman. But there came a day when it seemed good that some independence of action should be introduced into the partnership. Billy went one way and I another.

Going on alone, I presently espied an old gentleman, of promising antiquity, walking briskly down one of the gravel paths. He was intermittently reading a newspaper. Trotting up behind him, I observed that in the intervals of his reading he would be talking to himself. He would read for half a minute and then, whipping the newspaper behind his back, begin to declaim, as though he were making a speech, quickening his pace meanwhile, so that I was hard put to it to keep up with him. Indeed I had to run, and was out of breath when, coming up alongside, I popped out my question, "If you please, sir, what o'clock is it?"

"Go to the devil!" growled the old ruffian. And without pausing even to look at me he strode on, continuing his declamation, of which I happen to remember very distinctly these words: "I cannot, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulating the government on the disgrace into which they have brought the country." I recall these words because they resembled something in a speech of Chatham's which I had to learn by heart at school, and I remember wondering whether the old gentleman was trying to learn the same speech and getting it wrong, or whether he was making up something of his own.

Be that as it may, I had received a blow and my fondest illusion was shattered. I was personally insulted. As a professional magician I was flouted, and my calling dishonoured. And, worst of all, the magic had broken down. For the first time the formula had failed to work—had done the old gentleman no good. It cut me to the heart.

I ran about in great distress, seeking Billy, whom finding presently I informed in general terms of what had happened.

"What did you say to the old beast?" asked Billy.

"I said, 'If you please, sir, what o'clock is it?'"

"Oh, you ass!" cried Billy. "Those are the wrong words. If you'd said, 'Would you mind telling me the time?' he'd have gone down like a ninepin. Only cads say 'what o'clock.' He thought you were a cad! Oh, you idiot! Leave me to do it next time."

Thus it came to pass that the partnership was resumed on its old basis, with Billy as the predominant member and spokesman of the Firm.

And now we entered on what I still regard as an enterprise of pith and moment. We determined, after long colloquy in the bedroom, to waylay this recalcitrant old gentleman once more, and repeat our question in its proper form, and with Billy as spokesman. Had I been alone, my courage would certainly have failed to carry me through. But with Billy at my side I was never afraid of anything either then or afterwards. O Billy, if only you had been with me—then—and then—if only I had felt your presence when the great waters went over me, if only I could have seen your tilted dreaming eyes when—I would have made a better thing of it, indeed I would! But one was taken and the other left; and I had to fight those battles alone—alone, but not forgetful of you. I did not fight them very well, Billy; and yet not so ill as I should have done had I never known you.

Well, for several days the declaiming gentleman, whom we now knew as "the old beast," and never called by any other name, failed to appear. But at last we caught sight of him, striding along and violently whipping his newspaper behind his back, just as before.

On the former occasion, when I was alone, I had operated from the rear, but with Billy in support, I proposed that we should attack from the front. So we threw ourselves in his path and marched steadily to meet him. On he came, and as he drew near, down went the newspaper, and, as though he were spitting poison, he hissed out from between his teeth a fearful sentence, of which the last words were: "the most iniquitous government that has ever betrayed and abused the confidence of a sovereign people"—staring meanwhile straight over our heads.

"If you please, sir," said Billy in his singing voice, "would you mind telling us the time?"

"Go to——" But at that moment the gentleman lowered his fierce old eyes and encountered the gaze of Billy, who was standing full in his path.

Have you ever seen a wild beast suddenly grow tame? I have not, but I saw something like it on the occasion of which I speak. Never did a swifter or more astonishing change pass over the countenance of any human being. I really think the old fellow suffered a physical shock, for he stepped back two paces and looked for a moment like one who has been seriously hurt. Then he recovered himself; lowered his spectacles to the tip of his nose; gazed over them, at me for a moment, at Billy for a quarter of a minute, and finally broke out into a hearty laugh.

"Well," he exclaimed, in the merriest of voices, "you're a couple of young rascals. What are your names, and how old are you, and what school do you belong to, and who are your fathers?"

We answered his questions in a fairly business-like manner until we came to that about the fathers. Here there was an interlude. For Billy had to explain, in succession, that he had no father, and no mother, and no brothers, and no sisters—indeed, no relations at all that he knew of. And there was some emotion at this point.

"Bless my soul," said the old gentleman, "that's very sad—very sad indeed. But who pays for your schooling?"

"A friend of my mater's," said Billy. "He's very good to me and has me to his house for the holidays."

"And gives you plenty of pocket-money?"

"Lots," answered Billy.

The old gentleman ruminated, and there was more emotion.

"Then you are not an unhappy boy?" he said at length.

"Not a bit," answered Billy.

"Thank God for that! Thank God for that! I should be very sorry to learn you were unhappy. I hope you never will be. You don't look unhappy."

"I'm not," repeated Billy.

All this time the old gentleman seemed quite unconscious of my existence. But I was not hurt by that. I was well used to being overlooked when Billy was with me, and never questioned for a moment the justice of the arrangement. But now the old gentleman seemed to recollect himself.

"What was it you asked me just now?" said he.

"We asked if you would mind telling us the time."

"Ha, just so. Now are you quite sure that what you asked for is what you want? You said 'the time' not 'time.' For you must know, my dears, that there's a great difference between 'time' and 'the time.'"

Billy and I looked at each other, perplexed and disgusted—perplexed by the subtle distinction just drawn by the old gentleman; disgusted at being addressed as "my dears." ("He might as well have given us a kiss while he was about it," we thought.)

"We want the time, if you please," we said at length.

"What, the whole of it?" said the old gentleman.

"No," answered Billy, "we only want the bit of it that's going on now."

"Which bit is that?" said our venerable friend.

"That's just what we want to know," answered Billy.

This fairly floored the old gentleman. "You'll be a great Parliamentary debater one day, my boy," he said, "but the bit of time that's going on now is not an easy thing to catch. My watch can't catch it."

"Give us the best your watch can do," answered Billy.

This made the old fellow laugh again. "Better and better," said he. "Well, the best my watch can do is a quarter past twelve. And that reminds me that you two young scamps have made me late for an appointment. Now be good boys, both of you; and don't forget to write every week to your moth—to your friends. And put that in your pockets." Whereupon he gave each of us half-a-sovereign.

We walked on in silence, not pondering what had happened, for we pondered nothing in those days, but serenely conscious of triumph. A potent secret was in our hands and the world was at our feet.

"It worked," said Billy at length.

"Rather!" I answered.

"It did him good."

"Rather!"

"We beat him."

"Rather!"

Presently we were greeted by the Park-keeper, who was a friend of ours.

"Well, young hopefuls," he said, "and who have you been asking the time of to-day?"

We pointed to the old gentleman whose figure was still visible in the distance.

"Him!" cried the Park-keeper. "Well, bless your rascal impudence! Do you know who he is?"

"No."

"Why, he's Lord——."

The name mentioned was that of a distinguished member of the Cabinet which had recently gone out of office.

Did we quail and cower at the mention of that mighty name? Did we cover ourselves with confusion? Not we.

"I'm awfully glad we asked him," said Billy as we walked away.

"So am I—I say, Billy, I wish we could meet the Pope. He's jolly old, and I'll bet he's jolly miserable, too."

"You shut up about his being miserable," answered Billy, who, as we know, was a Roman Catholic. "He ain't half as miserable as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wish we could meet him!"

"Or the Emperor of Germany," I suggested.

"Yes, he'd do. I'd ask him, and you bet he'd tell us. But"—and here Billy's manner became explosive—"I'll tell you what! I wish we could meet God! He's a jolly sight older than the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Emperor of Germany. I believe he'd like to be asked more than any of them. And I'd ask him like a shot!"

"But he's not miserable," I interposed.

"How do you know he isn't—sometimes? It would do him good anyhow."

I was getting out of my depth. As a speculator I had none of the boldness which prompted the explosions of Billy, and an instinct of decency suggested a change of conversation.

"What shall we do with those half-sovereigns?" I asked.

"Hush!" said Billy, "they'll hear you."

"Who'll hear me?"

"Never mind who. They're listening, you bet. Never say 'half-sovereigns' again."

"But what are we to do with them?"

"Keep them. Let's put a cross on each of them at once."

So we took out the coins, and with our penknives we scratched a cross on the cheek of her gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria.

Both coins are now in my possession. The cross on the cheek of Queen Victoria has worked wonders. It has brought me good luck. In return I have hedged the coins with safeguards both moral and material. When I am gone they will be——But I am anticipating.

And now the fever was in full possession of our souls. I believe we were secretly determined to bring all the old gentlemen in the world under the sway of our formula. We were beneficent magicians. Had we been older, a vast prospect of social regeneration would have opened before us. But all we knew at the time was that we possessed a power for rejuvenating the aged. An ardent missionary fervour burned in our bones; and we were swept along as by a whirlwind. Never was infatuation more complete.

As a preliminary step to the accomplishment of these great designs we resolved to ask ten thousand old gentlemen to tell us the time. Making a calculation, we reckoned that, at the normal rate of progress, nine years would be required to complete the task. We were a little disconcerted, and, in order to expedite matters, we resolved to include old ladies, and any young persons of either sex with grey hair, or who, in our opinion, showed other signs of prematurely growing old. This led on to further extensions. We agreed, first, that anyone who looked "miserable" should have the benefit of our formula; next, that all limitations whatsoever, save one, should be withdrawn, and the formula allowed a universal application. The outstanding limitation was that nobody should be asked the question until he had been previously viewed by Billy, who was a psychologist, and pronounced by him to be "the right sort." What constituted the "right sort" we never succeeded in defining; enough that Billy knew the "right sort" when he saw it and never made a mistake. We believed that all mankind were divided into two classes, the sheep and the goats; in other words, those who were worthy to be asked the time and those who were not, and Billy was the infallible judge for separating them the one from the other. To ask the question of any person was to seal that person's election and to put upon him the stamp of immortality.

I believed, and still believe, that many whom we accosted were instantly conscious of a change for the better in their general conditions. Years afterwards I met a man who remembered these things and bore testimony to the good we had done him. "It so happened," said he, "that just before I met you boys, that day, I had been speculating heavily on the Stock Exchange and had had a run of infernal bad luck. But the moment that little chap with the tilted eyes spoke to me I said to myself, 'The clouds are breaking.' And, by George, sir, my luck turned that very day. I walked straight to the telegraph office and sent my broker a wire which netted me a matter of £7000."

As became a firm of business-like magicians, Billy and I kept books, duly averaged and balanced, entering in them day by day the names of the persons to whom we had applied the formula. Are the names worthy of being recorded? Perhaps not. But a few specimens will do no harm and may incidentally serve to reveal the scope and catholicity of our operations. One of these books is before me now, and here are a few of the names, culled almost at random from its pages. It will be observed that in the last group our faculty of invention gave out and we were compelled to plagiarise.

Mr Smoky, Mr Shinytopper, Uncle Jelly-bones, Aunt Ginger, Lady Peppermint, Bishop Butter, Canon Sweaty, Dirty Boots, Holy Toad, Satan, Old Hurry, Old Bless-my-soul, Old Chronometer, Miss No-watch, Dr Beard, Lord Splutters, Aurora, Mrs Proud, Polly Sniggers, Diamond Pin, Cigar, Cuttyperoozle, Jim, Alfred Dear! Mr Just-engaged, Miss Ditto, Mr Catch-his-train, Mr Hot, The Reverend Hum, The Reverend Ha-ha, So-there-you-be, Mrs Robin, Mr High-mind, Mr Love-lust, Mr Heady.

II

All of a sudden, and in the most unexpected manner, these vast designs of ours contracted their dimensions, or, as one might say, our outlook became focussed on a solitary point. From a world-wide mission to all mankind we narrowed down at a single stroke to a concentrated operation on a strictly limited class. But I can tell you that what our mission lost in scope it gained in intensity. You shall hear how all this happened and judge for yourself.

One night Billy and I were lying awake as usual, and the question "shall we talk?" had been asked and duly answered in the affirmative. We had raised ourselves in bed, leaning toward each other, and the telepathic current was running strong.

"Billy," I whispered, "I've got a ripping notion, a regular stunner. I'm bursting to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Put your ear a little closer, Billy, and listen like mad. Suppose you were to meet a beautiful woman—what would you do?"

Quick as thought came the answer—"I should ask her to tell me the time."

"Why, that's exactly what I should do. We'll do it, the very next time we meet one. And, Billy, I'm sure we shall meet one soon."

"So am I."

Next day, the instant we were freed from school we bolted for the Park, exalted in spirit and full of resolution. A lovely Presence floated in the light above us and accompanied us as we ran. Arrived in the Park, we seemed to have reached the threshold of a new world. We stood on a peak in Darien; and before us there shimmered an enchanted sea lit by the softest of lights and tinted with the fairest of colours. Forces as old as the earth and as young as the dawn were stirring within us; the breath of spring was in our souls, and a vision of living beauty, seen only in the faintest of glimpses, lured us on.

Think not that we lacked discrimination. "Let's wait, Billy," I said, as he made a dart forward at a girl in a white frock, "till we find one beautiful enough. That one won't do. Look at the size of her feet."

"Whackers!" said he, checking himself. And then he made a remark which I have often thought was the strangest thing Billy ever uttered. "I wouldn't be surprised," came the solemn whisper, "if her feet were made of clay."

So day by day we ranged the Park, sometimes together, sometimes separate, possessed of one thought only—that of a woman beautiful enough to be asked the time. Hundreds of faces—and forms—were examined, sometimes to the surprise of their owners; but the more we examined, the more inexorable, the more difficult to satisfy, became our ideal. At each fresh contact with reality it rose higher and outran the facts of life, until we were on the point of concluding that the world contained no woman beautiful enough to be asked the time. Never were women stared at with greater innocence of heart, but never were they judged by a more fastidious taste. And yet we had no definable criterion. Of each new specimen examined all we could say was, "That one won't do." But why she wouldn't do we didn't know. We never disagreed. What wouldn't do for Billy wouldn't do for me, and vice versa.

Once we met a charming little girl about our own age, walking all alone. "That's the one!" cried I. "Come on, Billy."

I started forward, Billy close behind. Presently he clutched my jacket, "Stop!" he said, "What if she has no watch?"

The little girl was running away.

"We've frightened her," said Billy, who was a little gentleman. "We're two beasts."

"She heard what you said about the watch," I answered, "and thought we wanted to steal it. She had one after all. Billy, we've lost our chance."

As we went home that day, something gnawed cruelly at our hearts. Things had gone wrong. An ideal world had been on the point of realisation, and a freak of contingency had spoiled it. In another moment "time" would have been revealed to us by one worthy to make the revelation. But the sudden thought of a watch had ruined all. Once more we had tasted the tragic quality of life.

With ardour damped but not extinguished, we continued the quest day after day. But we were now half-hearted and we became aware of a strange falling-off in the beauty of the ladies who frequented the Park.

"We shall never find her here," said Billy. "Let's try the walk down by the river. They are better-looking down there, especially on Sunday afternoon. And I'll bet you most of them have watches."

The very day on which Billy made this proposal another nasty thing happened to us. We were summoned into the Headmaster's study and informed that complaints had reached him concerning two boys who were in the habit of walking about in the Park and staring in the rudest manner at the young ladies, and making audible remarks about their personal appearance. Were we the culprits? We confessed that we were. What did we mean by it? We were silent: not for a whole Archipelago packed full of buried treasure would we have answered that question. Did we consider it conduct worthy of gentlemen? We said we did not, though as a matter of fact we did. Dark hints of flagitiousness were thrown out, which our innocence wholly failed to comprehend. The foolish man then gave himself away by telling us that whenever we met Miss Overbury's school on their daily promenade we were to walk on the other side of the road.

Billy and I exchanged meaning glances: we knew now who had complained (as though we would ever think of asking them to tell us the time!). Finally we were forbidden, under threat of corporal chastisement, to enter the Park under any pretexts or circumstances whatsoever.

"The old spouter doesn't know," said I to Billy as we left the room, "that we've already made up our minds not to go there again. What a 'suck-in' for him!"

Necessity having thus combined with choice, the scene of our quest was now definitely shifted to the river-bank, where a broad winding path, with seats at intervals, ran under the willows. Here a new order of beauty seemed to present itself, and our hopes ran high. Several promising candidates presented themselves at once. One, I remember, wore a scarlet feather; another carried a gray muff. The scarlet feather was my fancy; the gray muff Billy's.

I think it was on the occasion of our third visit to the river that the crisis came. We sat down on the bank and held a long consultation. "Well," said Billy at last, "I'm willing to ask Scarlet Feather. She's ripping. Her nose takes the cake; but, mind you, Gray Muff has the prettier boots. And I know Scarlet Feather has a watch—I saw the chain when we passed her just now. But before deciding I'm going to have another look at Gray Muff. She's just round the bend. You wait here—I'll be back in half a second."

I was left alone, and for some minutes I continued to gaze at the flowing stream in front of me. Suddenly I saw, dancing about on the surface of the water—but doubtless the whole thing was hallucination! My nerves were in high tension at the moment, and in those days I could have dreams without going to sleep.

The dream was interrupted by the sudden return of Billy. He was white as the tablecloth and trembling all over.

"Come on!" he gasped. "I've found the very one! Quick, quick, or she'll be gone!"

"Is it Gray Muff?" I asked.

"No, no. It's another. The Very One, I tell you. The One we've been looking for."

"Billy," I said, "I've just seen a Good One too. She was dancing about on the water."

"Oh, rot!" cried Billy. "Mine's the One! Come on, I say! I'm certain she won't wait. She looked as though she wouldn't sit still for a single minute."

"What is she like, Billy?" I asked as we hurried away.

"She's—oh, she's the exact image of my mater!" he said.

Billy's mater had died about a year ago. At the age of twelve I had been deeply in love with her, and to this hour her image remains with me as the type of all that is most lovely and commendable in woman. O Billy's mater, will these eyes ever see you again? How glad I am to remember you! I know where you lie buried, but I doubt if there lives another soul who could find your resting-place. Harshly were you judged and conveniently were you forgotten! But I will scatter lilies on your grave this very night.

Well, we ran with all our might. Scarlet Feather, Gray Muff, and the dancing "good one" on the surface of the water were clean forgotten as if they had never existed—as perhaps one of them never did. "Just like my mater!" Billy kept gasping. "Hurry up! I tell you she won't wait! She's on the seat watching the water; no, not that seat. It's round the next bend but one."

We turned the bend and came in sight of the seat where Billy had seen what he saw. The seat was empty. We looked round us: not a soul was in sight. We checked our pace and in utter silence, and very slowly, crept up to the empty seat, gazing round us as we walked. Was there ever such a melancholy walk! Oh, what a Via Dolorosa we found it! Arrived at the seat, Billy felt it all over with his hands and, finding nothing, flung himself face downwards on the turf and uttered the most lamentable cry I have ever heard.

"I knew she wouldn't wait," he moaned. "Oh, why weren't we quicker! Oh, why didn't I ask her the time the minute I saw her!"

As, shattered and silent, we crawled back to school, continually loitering to gaze at a world that was all hateful, I realised with a feeling of awe that I had become privy to something deep in Billy's soul. And I inwardly resolved that, so far as I could, I would set the matter right, and put friendship on a footing of true equality, by telling Billy the deepest secret of mine.

"Billy," I said, as we lay wakeful in the small hours of the next morning, "come and stay with us next holidays, and I will show you something."

"What is it?"

"You wait and see."

The great adventure was over. It had ended in disaster and tears. Never again did Billy and I ask any human being to tell us the time.

III

In those days I was a great metaphysician. Unassisted by any philosopher, ancient or modern, I had made a discovery in the metaphysical line. This discovery was my secret.

In the church-tower of the village where I was nurtured there was an ancient and curious clock, said to have been brought from Spain by a former owner of the parish. This clock was worked by an enormous pendulum which hung down, through a slit in the ceiling, into the body of the church, swinging to and fro at the west end of the nave. Its motion was even and beautiful; and the sight of it fascinated me continually through the hours of divine service. To those who were not attentive, the pendulum was inaudible; but if you listened you could detect a gentle tick, tock, between the pauses of the hymns or the parson's voice. "Let us pray," said the parson. "Tick," whispered the pendulum. "We beseech Thee—" cried the clerk, (tick!);—"to hear us, good Lord" (tock!). The clerk had unconsciously fallen into the habit of timing his cadence in the responses to correspond with these whispers of the pendulum. For my part, I used to think that this correspondence was the most beautiful arrangement in the universe. I loved the even motion of the pendulum; but I loved the faithful whispers more. To this day I have only to shut my eyes on entering a village church, and sit still for half a minute, and sure enough, stealing through the silence, comes the "tick, tock" of that ancient pendulum.

Of all the religious instruction I received during the eight or nine years we attended that church I confess I have not the faintest recollection. I cannot remember whether the sermons were good or bad, long or short, high, low, or broad. I know they never wearied me, for I never listened to a word that was said. The pendulum saw to that. There were two parsons in our time. The first, I have heard, was a very good man, but by no effort of memory can I recall what he was like. The second I do remember, and could draw his face on this sheet of paper, were I to try. I respected and admired him, not, I am sorry to say, for the purity of his life or his faithfulness in preaching the Gospel, but because he had fought and licked our gardener, whom I detested, outside the village Pub. With a little concentration of mind I can reconstruct the scene in church during this parson's tenure of office. I can see the rascal eminent in his pulpit, plodding through his task. I can hear the thud of the hymn-book which my father used to toss into the clerk's pew when he thought the sermon had lasted long enough: immediately the sermon stops and a great bull-voice roars out, "Now to God the Father," and so on. But all such incidents are as a fringe to the main theme of my memory—the restless curve of the swinging disc, and the whispered syllables of Time.

The question that haunted me was this: Did the pendulum stop on reaching the highest point of the ascending arc? Did it pause before beginning the descent? And if it stopped, did time stop with it? I answered both questions in the affirmative. Well, then, what was a second? Did the stoppage at the end of the swing make the second, or was the second made by the swing, the movement between the two points of rest? I concluded that it was the stoppage. For, mark you, it takes a second for the pendulum to reach the stopping point on either side; therefore there can be no second till that point is reached; the second must wait for the stoppage to do the business. I saw no other way of getting any seconds. And if no seconds, no minutes; and if no minutes, no hours, no days, and therefore no time at all—which is absurd.

I found great peace in this conclusion; but none the less I continued to support it by collateral reasonings, and by observation. In particular I determined, for reasons of my own, to make a careful survey of the hands of the clock. With this object I borrowed my father's field-glass, and, retiring to a convenient point of observation, focussed it on the clock-face. Instantly a startling phenomenon sprang into view. I saw that the big hand of the clock, instead of moving evenly as it seemed to do when viewed by the naked eye, was visibly jerking on its way, in time with the seconds that were being ticked off by the pendulum inside. By George, the hand was going jerk, jerk! The pendulum and the hand were moving together! Jerk went the hand: then a pause. What's happening now? thought I. Why the pendulum has just ticked and is going to tock. Tock it goes and—there you are!—jerk goes the hand again. "Why, of course," I said to myself, "that proves it. The hand stops, as well as the pendulum. The evidence of the hand corroborates the evidence of the pendulum. The seconds must be the stoppages. They can't be anything else. There's nothing else for them to be. I'll tell Billy Burst this very day! But no, I won't. I'll wait till the holidays and show it him."

Such was the secret which I resolved to impart to Billy in return for what he had disclosed to me.

Some months after this amazing discovery Billy came down for the holidays. He arrived late in the afternoon, and I could hardly restrain my impatience while he was having his tea. Hardly had he swallowed the last mouthful when I had him by the jacket. "Come on, Billy," I cried. "I'm going to show you something"—and we ran together to the church. Arrived there, I placed him in front of the pendulum, which seemed to be swinging that afternoon with an even friendlier motion than usual.

"There!" I said, "look at him."

Billy stood spell-bound. Oh, you should have seen his face! You should have seen his eyes slowly moving their lambent lights as they followed the rhythm of the pendulum from side to side. If Billy was hypnotised by the pendulum, I was hypnotised by Billy. Suddenly he clutched my arm in his wonted way.

"I say," he whispered, "it knows us. Here, old chap" (addressing the pendulum), "you know us, don't you? You're glad to see us, aren't you?"

"Tick, tock," said the pendulum.

"Can't he talk—just!" said Billy. "Look at his eye! He winked at me that time, I'll swear." And, by the Powers, the very next time the pendulum reached the top of the arc I saw the crumpled metal in the middle of the disc double itself up and wink at me also, plain as plain.

"Billy," I said, "if we stare at him much longer we shall both go cracked. Let's go into the churchyard. I've something else to show you."

So to the churchyard we went, and there, among the mouldering tombstones, I expounded to Billy my new theory as to the nature of Time, reserving the crowning evidence until Billy had grasped the main principle.

"So you see," I concluded, "the seconds are the stoppages."

"There aren't any stoppages," said he. "Pendulums don't stop."

"How can they go down after coming up unless they stop between?" I asked.

"Wait till you get to the Higher Mathematics."

"Then where do the seconds come in?"

"They don't come in: they are in all along."

"Then," I said triumphantly, "look at that clock face. Can't you see how the big hand goes jerk, jerk?"

"Well, what of that?"

"What of that? Why, if the seconds aren't the stoppages, what becomes of time between the jerks?"

"Why," answered Billy, "it's plugging ahead all the time."

"All what time?" I countered, convinced now that I had him in a vicious circle.

"Blockhead!" cried Billy. "Don't you remember what that old Johnny told us in the Park? There's all the difference in the world between the time and time."

"I'll bet you can't tell me what the difference is."

"Yes, I can. It's the difference between the pendulum and the clock-hand. Look at the jerking old idiot! That thing can't talk; that thing can't wink; that thing doesn't know us. Why, you silly, it only does what the pendulum tells it to do. The pendulum knows what it's doing. But that thing doesn't. Here, let's go back into the church and have another talk with the jolly old chap!"

Ten years later when Billy, barely twenty-three, had half finished a book which would have made him famous, I handed him an essay by a distinguished philosopher, and requested him to read it. The title was "On translating Time into Eternity." When Billy returned it, I asked him how he had fared. "Oh," he answered, "I translated time into eternity without much difficulty. But it was plugging ahead all the time."

Shortly after that, Billy rejoined his mater—a victim to the same disease. Poor Billy! You brought luck to others; God knows you had little yourself. He died in a hospital, without kith or kin to close his eyes. The Sister who attended him brought me a small purse which she said Billy had very urgently requested her to give me. On opening the purse I found in it a gold coin, marked with a cross. The nurse also told me that an hour before he died Billy sat up suddenly in his bed and, opening his eyes very wide, said in a singing voice:

"If you please, Sir, would you mind telling me the time?"