To Mr. Russell it all seemed true, and part of the miracle.  He had nothing to add, and therefore added nothing.

“Obviously you are a poet,” said Jay.  “You have a poetic look.”

“What look is that?” asked Mr. Russell, much pleased.  It was twenty years since he had even remembered that he possessed a look of his own.

“A silly sullen look,” said Jay.  Presently she added:  “But it must have been disappointing to find yourself a poet in Victorian times.  I always think of you Olders and Wisers as coming out of your stuffy nineteenth century into our nice new age with a sigh of relief.”

“Oh no,” said Mr. Russell.  “You must remember that when we were born into it, it became our nice new age, and therefore to us there is no age like it.”

“It seems incredible,” said Jay.  “Did Older and Wiser people ever live violently, ever work—­work hard—­until their brains were blind and they cried because they were so tired?  Did they ever get drowned in seas full of foaming ambitions?  Did they ever fight without dignity but with joy for a cause?  Did they ever shout and jump with joy in their pyjamas in the moonlight?  Did they ever feel just drunk with being young, and in at the start?  And were Older and Wiser people’s jokes ever funny?”

“We were fools often,” said Mr. Russell.  “Once, when I was fifteen, I bit my hand—­and here is the scar—­because I thought I had found a new thing in life, and I thought I was the first discoverer.  But as to jokes, you are on very dangerous ground there.  One’s sense of humour is a more tender point than one’s heart, especially an Older and Wiser sense of humour.  You know, we think the jokes of your nice new age not half so funny as ours.  But as neither you nor I make jokes, that obstacle need not come between us.”

“Oh, I think difference of date is never in itself an obstacle,” said Jay.  “Time is not important enough to be an obstacle.”

“You and I know that,” said Mr. Russell.

A little unnoticed knot of Salvationists surprised Jay at a distance by singing the tune of a sentimental song popular five years ago, and then they surprised her again, as she passed them, and heard the words to which the tune was being sung.  Brimstone had usurped the place of the roses in that song, and the love left in it was not apparently the kind of love that Hackney understands.

“Why don’t they sing the old hymn tunes?” asked Jay.  “Or tunes like ’Abide with Me’—­not very old or very good, but worn down with devotion like the steps of an old church?  Why do they take the drama out of it all?”