The night when the attack on Coalchester was planned was marked, as I have said, by rabbit-pie.  Mrs. Talbot would hardly have understood the significance of that rabbit-pie, though in the course of her occasional bobbings in and out of the room, to see that the young men were doing justice to her food,—­she had a curious notion that young men never ate enough,—­she would hear snatches of what she called “deep talk,” or shake her old head at her coming son-in-law, whom she already adored and mothered, with a “Law! what a boy it is!” She wasn’t quite sure sometimes as to the soundness of his “doctrine,” but wisely decided that her business was rather with his stomach than his brains,—­which no doubt God Almighty would look after for himself.

Wit at the expense of Coalchester can only be of interest to Coalchester wits and their butts, so I shall not record the bright and animated talk which helped to digest Mrs. Talbot’s rabbit-pie, but confine myself to a practical outcome of it.

What interests me specially about these young men was their rare practicality.  They were no mere dreamers, helpless visionaries, with ideas they had no notion how to embody.  Dreamers, of course, they were,—­otherwise there had been no point in their being practical,—­but they were dreamers who understood something of how dreams are best got on to the market of realities.

Characteristically, it was the poet of the party from whom the most practical suggestion came.  In itself, of course, there was no great originality in the idea of a weekly paper to be called “The Dawn,” devoted to the dissemination of the new light on every possible subject,—­politics and municipal misgovernment; the new social ideals; the newest and most delicate forms of art, music, and literature.  It was in the suggested method of publication and circulation that the originality lay.  The paper was to be given away and made to pay its expenses by tradesmen’s advertisements, a guarantee of a certain minimum distribution being given.  This method had, of course, been tried before for purposes of mere publicity, but never, I think, for the dissemination of truth and beauty.  The truth about life was to be paid for by lies about bacon and butter,—­or, let us say, business exaggerations rendered innocuous by custom, and therefore as harmless as truth.

Obviously Mr. Moggridge, who not unnaturally had felt a sense of moving about in worlds not realised during much of the deep talk, was here an authority of importance, and the idea at once appealed to him.  He would promise a permanent advertisement, and he even promised illustrations, in the form of blocks already engraved and occasionally used by the “Argus,” of the flourishing shops at 33, 34, 35 High Street, and 58, 59 Zion Street.  He had also some blocks of gigantic hams most hammily pictured, which might also be of use, and he would also be able to bring in a number of his fellow tradesmen.  Invaluable Mr. Moggridge!  What were truth without you!