“What on earth do you mean by that?” asked Pierce.

  “I mean,” said the lawyer, “that I have suddenly remembered the phrase he used. It was very exact; it was dull, deadly, literal truth. But I can be exact, too, at times, and just now I should like to look at a time-table.”

  They found the village of Ponder’s End in a condition as comically incongruous as could well be with the mystical experiences of Mr. Hilary Pierce. When we talk of such places as sleepy, we forget that they are very wide-awake about their own affairs, and especially on their own festive occasions. Piccadilly Circus looks much the same on Christmas Day or any other; but the market-place of a country town or village looks very different on the day of a fair or a bazaar. And Hilary Pierce, who had first come down there to find in a wood at midnight the riddle that he thought worthy of Merlin, came down the second time to find himself plunged suddenly into the middle of the bustling bathos of a jumble sale. It was one of those bazaars to provide bargains for the poor, at which all sorts of odds and ends are sold off. But it was treated as a sort of fete, and highly-coloured posters and handbills announced its nature on every side. The bustle seemed to be dominated by a tall dark lady of distinguished appearance, whom Owen Hood, rather to the surprise of his companions, hailed as an old acquaintance and managed to draw aside for a private talk. She had appeared to have her hands full at the bazaar; nevertheless, her talk with Hood was rather a long one. Pierce heard only the last words of it:

  “Oh, he promised he was bringing something for the sale. I assure you he always keeps his word.”

  All Hood said when he rejoined his companion was: “That’s the lady White was going to marry. I think I know now why things went wrong, and I hope they may go right. But there seems to be another bother. You see that clump of clod-hopping policemen over there, inspector and all. It seems they’re waiting for White. Says he’s broken the law in taking his house off the land, and that he has always eluded them. I hope there won’t be a scene when he turns up.”

  If this was Mr. Hood’s hope, it was ill-founded and destined to disappointment. A scene was but a faint description of what was in store for that hopeful gentleman. Within ten minutes the greater part of the company were in a world in which the sun and the moon seemed to have turned topsy-turvy and the last limit of unlikelihood had been reached. Pierce had imagined he was very near that limit of the imagination when he groped after the vanishing temple in the dark forest. But nothing he had seen in that darkness and solitude was so fantastic as what he saw next in broad daylight and in a crowd.

  At one extreme edge of the crowd there was a sudden movement — a wave of recoil and wordless cries. The next moment it had swept like a wind over the whole populace, and hundreds of faces were turned in one direction — in the direction of the road that descended by a gradual slope towards the woods that fringed the vicarage grounds. Out of these woods at the foot of the hill had emerged something that might from its size have been a large light grey omnibus. But it was not an omnibus. It scaled the slope so swiftly, in great strides, that it became instantly self-evident what it was. It was an elephant, whose monstrous form was moulded in grey and silver in the sunlight, and on whose back sat very erect a vigorous middle-aged gentleman in black clerical attire, with blanched hair and a rather fierce aquiline profile that glanced proudly to left and right.

  The police inspector managed to make one step forward, and then stood like a statue. The vicar, on his vast steed, sailed into the middle of the market-place as serenely as if he had been the master of a familiar circus. He pointed in triumph to one of the red and blue posters on the wall, which bore the traditional title of “White Elephant Sale.”

  “You see I’ve kept my word,” he said to the lady in a loud, cheerful voice. “I’ve brought a white elephant.”

  The next moment he had waved his hand hilariously in another direction, having caught sight of Hood and Crane in the crowd.

  “Splendid of you to come!” he called out. “Only you were in the secret. I told you I’d got a white elephant.”

  “So he did,” said Hood, “only it never occurred to us that the elephant was an elephant and not a metaphor. So that’s what he meant by Asiatic atmosphere and snow and mountains. And that’s what the big shed was really for.”

  “Look here,” said the inspector, recovering from his astonishment and breaking in on these felicitations. “I don’t understand all these games, but it’s my business to ask a few questions. Sorry to say it, sir, but you’ve ignored our notifications and evaded our attempts to—”

  “Have I?” inquired Mr. White brightly. “Have I really evaded you? Well, well, perhaps I have. An elephant is such a standing temptation to evasion, to evanescence, to fading away like a dewdrop. Like a snowdrop perhaps would be more appropriate. Come on, Snowdrop.”

  The last word came smartly, and he gave a smart smack to the huge head of the pachyderm. Before the inspector could move or anyone had realized what had happened, the whole big bulk had pitched forward with a plunge like a cataract and went in great whirling strides, the crowd scattering before it. The police had not come provided for elephants, which are rare in those parts. Even if they had overtaken it on bicycles, they would have found it difficult to climb it on bicycles. Even if they had had revolvers, they had omitted to conceal about their persons anything in the way of big-game rifles. The white monster vanished rapidly up the long white road, so rapidly that when it dwindled to a small object and disappeared, people could hardly believe that such a prodigy had ever been present, or that their eyes had not been momentarily bewitched. Only, as it disappeared in the distance, Pierce heard once more the high nasal trumpeting noise which, in the eclipse of night, had seemed to fill the forest with fear.

  It was at a subsequent meeting in London that Crane and Pierce had an opportunity of learning, more or less, the true story of the affair, in the form of another letter from the parson to the lawyer.

  “Now that we know the secret,” said Pierce cheerfully, “even his account of it ought to be quite clear.”

  “Quite clear,” replied Hood calmly. “His letter begins, `Dear Owen, I am really tremendously grateful in spite of all I used to say about leather and about horse-hair.’”

  “About what?” asked Pierce.

  “Horse-hair,” said Hood with severity. “He goes on, `The truth is they thought they could do what they liked with me because I always boasted that I hadn’t got one, and never wanted to have one; but when they found I had got one, and I must really say a jolly good one, of course it was all quite different.’”

  Pierce had his elbows up on the table, and his fingers thrust up into his loose yellow hair. He had rather the appearance of holding his head on. He was muttering to himself very softly, like a schoolboy learning a lesson.

  “He had got one, but he didn’t want one, and he hadn’t got one and he had a jolly good one.”

  “One what?” asked Crane irritably. “Seems like a missing word competition.”

  “I’ve got the prize,” observed Hood placidly. “The missing word is `solicitor.’ What he means is that the police took liberties with him because they knew he would not have a lawyer. And he is perfectly right; for when I took the matter up on his behalf, I soon found that they had put themselves on the wrong side of the law at least as much as he had. In short, I was able to extricate him from this police business; hence his hearty if not lucid gratitude. But he goes on to talk about something rather more personal; and I think it really has been a rather interesting case, if he does not exactly shine as a narrator of it. As I dare say you noticed, I did know something of the lady whom our eccentric friend went courting years ago, rather in the spirit of Sir Roger de Coverly when he went courting the widow. She is a Miss Julia Drake, daughter of a country gentleman. I hope you won’t misunderstand me if I say that she is a rather formidable lady. She is really a thoroughly good sort; but that air of the black-browed Juno she has about her does correspond to some real qualities. She is one of those people who can manage big enterprises, and the bigger they are the happier she is. When that sort of force functions within the limits of a village or a small valley, the impact is sometimes rather overpowering. You saw her managing the White Elephant Sale at Ponder’s End. Well, if it had been literally an army of wild elephants, it would hardly have been on too large a scale for her tastes. In that sense, I may say that our friend’s white elephant was not so much of a white elephant. I mean that in that sense it was not so much of an irrelevancy and hardly even a surprise. But in another way, it was a very great relief.”

  “You’re getting nearly as obscure as he is,” remonstrated Pierce. “What is all this mysterious introduction leading up to? What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” replied the lawyer, “that experience has taught me a little secret about very practical public characters like that lady. It sounds a paradox; but those practical people are often more morbid than theoretical people. They are capable of acting; but they are also capable of brooding when they are not acting. Their very stoicism makes too sentimental a secret of their sentimentalism. They misunderstand those they love; and make a mystery of the misunderstanding. They suffer in silence; a horrid habit. In short, they can do everything; but they don’t know how to do nothing. Theorists, happy people who do nothing, like our friend Pierce—”

  “Look here,” cried the indignant Pierce. “I should like to know what the devil you mean? I’ve broken more law than you ever read in your life. If this psychological lecture is the new lucidity, give me Mr. White.”

  “Oh, very well,” replied Hood, “if you prefer his text to my exposition, he describes the same situation as follows: `I ought to be grateful, being perfectly happy after all this muddle; I suppose one ought to be careful about nomenclature; but it never even occurred to me that her nose would be out of joint. Rather funny to be talking about noses, isn’t it, for I suppose really it was her rival’s nose that figured most prominently. Think of having a rival with a nose like that to turn up at you! Talk about a spire pointing to the stars—’”

  “I think,” said Crane, interposing mildly, “that it would be better if you resumed your duties as official interpreter. What was it that you were going to say about the lady who brooded over misunderstandings?”

  “I was going to say,” replied the lawyer, “that when I first came upon that crowd in the village, and saw that tall figure and dark strong face dominating it in the old way, my mind went back to a score of things I remembered about her in the past. Though we have not met for ten years, I knew from the first glimpse of her face that she had been worrying, in a powerful secretive sort of way; worrying about something she didn’t understand and would not inquire about. I remember long ago, when she was an ordinary fox-hunting squire’s daughter and White was one of Sydney Smith’s wild curates, how she sulked for two months over a mistake about a post-card that could have been explained in two minutes. At least it could have been explained by anybody except White. But you will understand that if he tried to explain the post-card on another post-card, the results may not have been luminous, let alone radiant.”

  “But what has all this to do with noses?” inquired Pierce.

  “Don’t you understand yet?” asked Hood with a smile. “Don’t you know who was the rival with the long nose?”

  He paused for a moment and then continued, “It occurred to me as soon as I had guessed at the nature of the nose which may certainly be called the main feature of the story. An elusive, flexible and insinuating nose, the serpent of their Eden. Well, they seem to have returned to their Eden now; and I have no doubt it will be all right; for it is when people are separated that these sort of secrets spring up between them. After all, it was a mystery to us and we cannot be surprised if it was a mystery to her.”

  “A good deal of this talk is still rather a mystery to me,” remarked Pierce, “though I admit it is getting a little clearer. You mean that the point that has just been cleared up is—”

  “The point about Snowdrop,” replied Hood. “We thought of a pony, and a monkey, and a baby, and a good many other things that Snowdrop might possibly be. But we never thought of the interpretation which was the first to occur to the lady.”

  There was silence, and then Crane laughed in an internal fashion.

  “Well, I don’t blame her,” he said. “One could hardly expect a lady of any delicacy to deduce an elephant.”

  “It’s an extraordinary business, when you come to think of it,” said Pierce. “Where did he get the elephant?”

  “He says something about that too,” said Hood, referring to the letter. “He says, `I may be a quarrelsome fellow. But quarrels sometimes do good. And though it wasn’t actually one of Captain Pierce’s caravans—’”

  “No, hang it all!” cried Pierce. “This is really too much! To see one’s own name entangled in such hieroglyphics — it reminds me of seeing it in a Dutch paper during the war; and wondering whether all the other words were terms of abuse.”

  “I think I can explain,” answered Hood patiently. “I assure you the reverend gentleman is not taking liberties with your name in a merely irresponsible spirit. As I told you before, he is strictly truthful when you get at the facts, though they may be difficult to get at. Curiously enough, there really is a connexion. I sometimes think there is a connexion beyond coincidence running through all our adventures; a purpose in these unconscious practical jokes. It seems rather eccentric to make friends with a white elephant—”

  “Rather eccentric to make friends with us,” said the Colonel. “We are a set of white elephants.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said the lawyer, “this particular last prank of the parson really did arise out of the last prank of our friend Pierce.”

  “Me!” said Pierce in surprise. “Have I been producing elephants without knowing it?”

  “Yes,” replied Hood. “You remember when you were smuggling pigs in defiance of the regulations, you indulged (I regret to say) in a deception of putting them in cages and pretending you were travelling with a menagerie of dangerous animals. The consequence was, you remember, that the authorities forbade menageries altogether. Our friend White took up the case of a travelling circus being stopped in his town as a case of gross oppression; and when they had to break it up, he took over the elephant.”

  “Sort of small payment for his services, I suppose,” said Crane. “Curious idea, taking a tip in the form of an elephant.”

  “He might not have done it if he’d known what it involved,” said Hood. “As I say, he was a quarrelsome fellow, with all his good points.”

  There was a silence, and then Pierce said in a musing manner: “It’s odd it should be the sequel of my little pig adventure. A sort of reversal of the ~parturiunt montes~; I put in a little pig and it brought forth an elephant.”

  “It will bring forth more monsters yet,” said Owen Hood. “We have not see all the sequels of your adventures as a swineherd.”

  But touching the other monsters or monstrous events so produced the reader has already been warned — nay, threatened — that they are involved in the narrative called the Exclusive Luxury of Enoch Oates, and for the moment the threat must hang like thunder in the air.

  The Exclusive Luxury of Enoch Oates

  “Since the Colonel ate his hat the Lunatic Asylum has lacked a background.”

  The conscientious scribe cannot but be aware that the above sentence, standing alone and without reference to previous matters, may not entirely explain itself. Anyone trying the experiment of using that sentence for practical social purposes; tossing that sentence lightly as a greeting to a passer-by; sending that sentence as a telegram to a total stranger; whispering that sentence hoarsely into the ear of the nearest policeman, and so on, will find that its insufficiency as a full and final statement is generally felt. With no morbid curiosity, with no exaggerated appetite for omniscience, men will want to know more about this statement before acting upon it. And the only way of explaining it, and the unusual circumstances in which it came to be said, is to pursue the doubling and devious course of these narratives, and return to a date very much earlier, when men now more than middle-aged were quite young.

  It was in the days when the Colonel was not the Colonel, but only Jimmy Crane, a restless youth tossed about by every wind of adventure, but as yet as incapable of discipline as of dressing for dinner. It was in days before Robert Owen Hood, the lawyer, had ever begun to study the law and had only got so far as to abolish it; coming down to the club every night with a new plan for a revolution to turn all earthly tribunals upside down. It was in days before Wilding White settled down as a country parson, returning to the creed though not the conventions of his class and country; when he was still ready to change his religion once a week, turning up sometimes in the costume of a monk and sometimes of a mufti, and sometimes in what he declared to be the original vestments of a Druid, whose religion was shortly to be resumed by the whole British people. It was in days when their young friend Hilary Pierce, the aviator, was still anticipating aviation by flying a small kite. In short, it was early in the lives even of the elders of the group that they had founded a small social club, in which their long friendships had flourished. The club had to have some sort of name, and the more thoughtful and detached among them, who saw the club steadily and saw it as a whole, considered the point with ripe reflection, and finally called their little society the Lunatic Asylum.

  “We might all stick straws in our hair for dinner, as the Romans crowned themselves with roses for the banquet,” observed Hood. “It would correspond to dressing for dinner; I don’t know what else we could do to vary the vulgar society trick of all wearing the same sort of white waistcoats.”

  “All wearing strait waistcoats, I suppose,” said Crane.

  “We might each dine separately in a padded cell, if it comes to that,” said Hood; “but there seems to be something lacking in it considered as a social evening.”