But it was denied me.  Turn where I would I found this monotonous brilliancy of the general intelligence, this ruthless, ceaseless sparkle of humour and good sense.  The “mostly fools” theory has been used in an anti-democratic sense; but when I found at last my priceless ass, I did not find him in what is commonly called the democracy; nor in the aristocracy either.  The man of the democracy generally talks quite rationally, sometimes on the anti-democratic side, but always with an idea of giving reasons for what he says and referring to the realities of his experience.  Nor is it the aristocracy that is stupid; at least, not that section of the aristocracy which represents it in politics.  They are often cynical, especially about money, but even their boredom tends to make them a little eager for any real information or originality.  If a man like Mr. Winston Churchill or Mr. Wyndham made up his mind for any reason to attack Syndicalism he would find out what it was first.  Not so the man I found in the club.

He was very well dressed; he had a heavy but handsome face; his black clothes suggested the City and his gray moustaches the Army; but the whole suggested that he did not really belong to either, but was one of those who dabble in shares and who play at soldiers.  There was some third element about him that was neither mercantile nor military.  His manners were a shade too gentlemanly to be quite those of a gentleman.  They involved an unction and over-emphasis of the club-man:  then I suddenly remembered feeling the same thing in some old actors or old playgoers who had modelled themselves on actors.  As I came in he said, “If I was the Government,” and then put a cigar in his mouth which he lit carefully with long intakes of breath.  Then he took the cigar out of his mouth again and said, “I’d give it ’em,” as if it were quite a separate sentence.  But even while his mouth was stopped with the cigar his companion or interlocutor leaped to his feet and said with great heartiness, snatching up a hat, “Well, I must be off.  Tuesday!”.  I dislike these dark suspicions, but I certainly fancied I recognised the sudden geniality with which one takes leave of a bore.

When, therefore, he removed the narcotic stopper from his mouth it was to me that he addressed the belated epigram.  “I’d give it ’em.”

“What would you give them,” I asked, “the minimum wage?”

“I’d give them beans,” he said.  “I’d shoot ’em down shoot ’em down, every man Jack of them.  I lost my best train yesterday, and here’s the whole country paralysed, and here’s a handful of obstinate fellows standing between the country and coal.  I’d shoot ’em down!”

“That would surely be a little harsh,” I pleaded.  “After all, they are not under martial law, though I suppose two or three of them have commissions in the Yeomanry.”

“Commissions in the Yeomanry!” he repeated, and his eyes and face, which became startling and separate, like those of a boiled lobster, made me feel sure that he had something of the kind himself.