two shabby children ran across the road; a knot of dirty men with
red neckerchiefs round their bare throats lurched along, discussing
filthily; a ragged old man with a face of despair yelled horribly in
the mud the name of a paper; while far off, amongst the tossing heads of
horses, the dull flash of harnesses, the jumble of lustrous panels
and roofs of carriages, we could see a policeman, helmeted and dark,
stretching out a rigid arm at the crossing of the streets.

"Yes; I see it," said Jackson, slowly. "It is there; it pants, it runs,
it rolls; it is strong and alive; it would smash you if you didn't look
out; but I'll be hanged if it is yet as real to me as . . . as the other
thing . . . say, Karain's story."

I think that, decidedly, he had been too long away from home.





THE IDIOTS


We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a
smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side of
the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horse
dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box.
He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphill
by the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on the
ground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with the
end of the whip, and said--