—­Ay, but brain beats muscle, and what if the Jew should prove to have superior power of brain?  A dreaded hypothesis!  Why, then you see the insurgent Saxon seamen (of the names in two syllables with accent on the first), and their Danish captains, and it may be but a remnant of high-nosed old Norman Lord de Warenne beside them, in the criminal box:  and presently the Jew smoking a giant regalia cigar on a balcony giving view of a gallows-tree.  But we will try that:  on our side, to back a native pugnacity, is morality, humanity, fraternity—­nature’s rights, aha! and who withstands them? on his, a troop of mercenaries!

And that lands me in Red Republicanism, a hop and a skip from Socialism! said Mr. Radnor, and chuckled ironically at the natural declivity he had come to.  Still, there was an idea in it . . . .

A short run or attempt at running after the idea, ended in pain to his head near the spot where the haunting word punctilio caught at any excuse for clamouring.

Yet we cannot relinquish an idea that was ours; we are vowed to the pursuit of it.  Mr. Radnor lighted on the tracks, by dint of a thought flung at his partner Mr. Inchling’s dread of the Jews.  Inchling dreaded Scotchmen as well, and Americans, and Armenians, and Greeks:  latterly Germans hardly less; but his dread of absorption in Jewry, signifying subjection, had often precipitated a deplorable shrug, in which Victor Radnor now perceived the skirts of his idea, even to a fancy that something of the idea must have struck Inchling when he shrugged:  the idea being . . . he had lost it again.  Definition seemed to be an extirpation enemy of this idea, or she was by nature shy.  She was very feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted.  Not until nigh upon the close of his history did she return, full-statured and embraceable, to Victor Radnor.

CHAPTER II

THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE

The fair dealing with readers demands of us, that a narrative shall not proceed at slower pace than legs of a man in motion; and we are still but little more than midway across London Bridge.  But if a man’s mind is to be taken as a part of him, the likening of it, at an introduction, to an army on the opening march of a great campaign, should plead excuses for tardy forward movements, in consideration of the large amount of matter you have to review before you can at all imagine yourselves to have made his acquaintance.  This it is not necessary to do when you are set astride the enchanted horse of the Tale, which leaves the man’s mind at home while he performs the deeds befitting him:  he can indeed be rapid.  Whether more active, is a question asking for your notions of the governing element in the composition of man, and of hid present business here.  The Tale inspirits one’s earlier ardours, when we sped without baggage, when the Impossible was wings to imagination, and heroic sculpture the