comet which had been on the first occasion only a dubious speck in the sky, certainly visible only when it was magnified, was now a great white presence, brighter than Jupiter, and casting a shadow on its own account.  It was now actively present in the world of human thought, every one was talking about it, every one was looking for its waxing splendor as the sun went down—­the papers, the music-halls, the hoardings, echoed it.

Yes; the comet was already dominant before I went over to make everything clear to Nettie.  And Parload had spent two hoarded pounds in buying himself a spectroscope, so that he could see for himself, night after night, that mysterious, that stimulating line—­the unknown line in the green.  How many times I wonder did I look at the smudgy, quivering symbol of the unknown things that were rushing upon us out of the inhuman void, before I rebelled?  But at last I could stand it no longer, and I reproached Parload very bitterly for wasting his time in “astronomical dilettantism.”

“Here,” said I.  “We’re on the verge of the biggest lock-out in the history of this countryside; here’s distress and hunger coming, here’s all the capitalistic competitive system like a wound inflamed, and you spend your time gaping at that damned silly streak of nothing in the sky!”

Parload stared at me.  “Yes, I do,” he said slowly, as though it was a new idea.  “Don’t I? . . .  I wonder why.”

“I want to start meetings of an evening on Howden’s Waste.”

“You think they’d listen?”

“They’d listen fast enough now.”

“They didn’t before,” said Parload, looking at his pet instrument.

“There was a demonstration of unemployed at Swathinglea on Sunday.  They got to stone throwing.”

Parload said nothing for a little while and I said several things.  He seemed to be considering something.

“But, after all,” he said at last, with an awkward movement towards his spectroscope, “that does signify something.”

“The comet?”

“Yes.”

“What can it signify?  You don’t want me to believe in astrology.  What does it matter what flames in the heavens—­when men are starving on earth?”

“It’s—­it’s science.”

“Science!  What we want now is socialism—­not science.”

He still seemed reluctant to give up his comet.

“Socialism’s all right,” he said, “but if that thing up there was to hit the earth it might matter.”

“Nothing matters but human beings.”

“Suppose it killed them all.”

“Oh,” said I, “that’s Rot,”

“I wonder,” said Parload, dreadfully divided in his allegiance.

He looked at the comet.  He seemed on the verge of repeating his growing information about the nearness of the paths of the earth and comet, and all that might ensue from that.  So I cut in with something I had got out of a now forgotten writer called Ruskin, a volcano of beautiful language and nonsensical suggestions, who prevailed very greatly with eloquent excitable young men in those days.  Something it was about the insignificance of science and the supreme importance of Life.  Parload stood listening, half turned towards the sky with the tips of his fingers on his spectroscope.  He seemed to come to a sudden decision.