“`No, no, no!’ he cried emphatically. `That way is long and very weary.  At the end of the world, at the back of the dawn, I shall find the wife I really married and the house that is really mine.  And that house will have a greener lamp-post and a redder pillar-box.  Do you,’ he asked with a sudden intensity, `do you never want to rush out of your house in order to find it?’

“`No, I think not,’ I replied; `reason tells a man from the first to adapt his desires to the probable supply of life.  I remain here, content to fulfil the life of man.  All my interests are here, and most of my friends, and—­’

“`And yet,’ he cried, starting to his almost terrific height, `you made the French Revolution!’

“`Pardon me,’ I said, `I am not quite so elderly.  A relative perhaps.’

“`I mean your sort did!’ exclaimed this personage. `Yes, your damned smug, settled, sensible sort made the French Revolution.  Oh!  I know some say it was no good, and you’re just back where you were before.  Why, blast it all, that’s just where we all want to be—­back where we were before!  That is revolution—­going right round!  Every revolution, like a repentance, is a return.’

“He was so excited that I waited till he had taken his seat again, and then said something indifferent and soothing; but he struck the tiny table with his colossal fist and went on.

“`I am going to have a revolution, not a French Revolution, but an English Revolution.  God has given to each tribe its own type of mutiny.  The Frenchmen march against the citadel of the city together; the Englishman marches to the outskirts of the city, and alone.  But I am going to turn the world upside down, too.  I’m going to turn myself upside down.  I’m going to walk upside down in the cursed upsidedownland of the Antipodes, where trees and men hang head downward in the sky.  But my revolution, like yours, like the earth’s, will end up in the holy, happy place—­ the celestial, incredible place—­the place where we were before.’

“With these remarks, which can scarcely be reconciled with reason, he leapt from the seat and strode away into the twilight, swinging his pole and leaving behind him an excessive payment, which also pointed to some loss of mental balance.  This is all I know of the episode of the man landed from the fishing-boat, and I hope it may serve the interests of justice.—­ Accept, Sir, the assurances of the very high consideration, with which I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
                                            “Jules Durobin.”

“The next document in our dossier,” continued Inglewood, “comes from the town of Crazok, in the central plains of Russia, and runs as follows:—­

“Sir,—­My name is Paul Nickolaiovitch:  I am the stationmaster at the station near Crazok.  The great trains go by across the plains taking people to China, but very few people get down at the platform where I have to watch.  This makes my life rather lonely, and I am thrown back much upon the books I have.  But I cannot discuss these very much with my neighbours, for enlightened ideas have not spread in this part of Russia so much as in other parts.  Many of the peasants round here have never heard of Bernard Shaw.