But when Smith was in wild spirits he grew more and more serious, not more and
more flippant like Michael Moon. This proposal of a private court of justice,
which Moon had thrown off with the detachment of a political humourist,
Smith really caught hold of with the eagerness of an abstract philosopher.
It was by far the best thing they could do, he declared, to claim sovereign
powers even for the individual household.

"You believe in Home Rule for Ireland; I believe in Home Rule
for homes," he cried eagerly to Michael. "It would be better
if every father COULD kill his son, as with the old Romans;
it would be better, because nobody would be killed.
Let's issue a Declaration of Independence from Beacon House.
We could grow enough greens in that garden to support us,
and when the tax-collector comes let's tell him we're self-supporting,
and play on him with the hose.... Well, perhaps, as you say,
we couldn't very well have a hose, as that comes from the main;
but we could sink a well in this chalk, and a lot could be
done with water-jugs.... Let this really be Beacon House.
Let's light a bonfire of independence on the roof, and see house
after house answering it across the valley of the Thames! Let us begin
the League of the Free Families! Away with Local Government! A fig
for Local Patriotism! Let every house be a sovereign state as this is,
and judge its own children by its own law, as we do by the Court
of Beacon. Let us cut the painter, and begin to be happy together,
as if we were on a desert island."

"I know that desert island," said Michael Moon; "it only
exists in the `Swiss Family Robinson.' A man feels a strange
desire for some sort of vegetable milk, and crash comes down
some unexpected cocoa-nut from some undiscovered monkey.