enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of groups
by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when
he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out
of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched.
His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest
Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This
or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't
somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this.
Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great
little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn
there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged
the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look
particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer!
Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science!
Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their
beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed how penetrating
the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID
you do it?'

"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer.
One imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly
and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps
a little special aptitude.'"

So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in
sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine
swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church
appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer
sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth
stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely