In such a household as the Wells household must be you are greeted by your hostess in a robust manner with “So glad you’re on time.  The match begins at two.”  And when you say “What match,” you are told that there is a little tennis tournament on for the week-end and that you and Hank are scheduled to start the thing off with a bang.  “But I haven’t played tennis for five years,” you protest, thinking of the delightful privacy of your own little hall bedroom in town.  “Never mind, it will all come back to you.  Bill has got some extra things all put out for you upstairs.”  So you start off your week-end by making a dub of yourself and are known from that afternoon on by the people who didn’t catch your name as “the man who had such a funny serve.”

Or if it isn’t that, it’s dancing.  Immediately after dinner, just as you are about to settle down for a comfortable evening by the fire, you notice that they are rolling back the rugs.  “House-cleaning?” you suggest, with a nervous little laugh.  “Oh, no, just a little dancing in your honor.”  And then you tell them that your honor will be satisfied perfectly without dancing, that you haven’t danced since you left school, that you don’t dance very well, or that you have hurt your foot; to which the only reply is an encouraging laugh and a hail-fellow-well-met push out into the middle of the floor.

A pox on both your house parties!

* * * * *

And yet, in a way, that is just what one might expect from Mr. Wells.  He has done the same thing to me in his books many a time.  I personally have but little facility for world-repairing.  I haven’t the slightest idea of how one would go about making things better.  And yet before I am more than two-thirds of the way through “Joan and Peter” or “The Undying Fire” or “The Outline of History,” Mr. Wells has me out on the hockey-field waving a stick with a magnificent enthusiasm but no aim, rushing up and down and calling, “Come on, now!” to no one in particular.

No matter how discouraging things seem when I pick up a Wells book, or how averse I may be to launching out on a crusade of any sort, I always end by walking with a firm step to the door (feeling, somehow, that I have grown quite a bit taller and much handsomer) and saying quietly:  “Meadows, my suit of armor, please; the one with a chain-mail shirt and a purple plume.”

This, of course, is silly, as any of Mr. Wells’s critics will tell you.  It is the effect that he has on irresponsible, visionary minds.  But if all the irresponsible, visionary minds in the world become sufficiently belligerent through a continued reading of Mr. Wells, or even of the New Testament, who knows but what they may become just practical enough to take a hand at running things?  They couldn’t do much worse than the responsible, practical minds have done, now, could they?

XLIX