‘Many of my clients are soldiers nowadays, and a number of ‘em belong to the Craft,’ said Mr. Burges. ‘It breaks my heart to give them the tobaccos they ask for. On the other hand, not one man in five thousand has a tobacco-palate. Preference, yes. Palate, no. Here’s your pipe, again. It deserves better treatment than it’s had. There’s a procedure, a ritual, in all things. Any time you’re passing by again, I assure you, you will be welcome. I’ve one or two odds and ends that may interest you.’

  I left the shop with the rarest of all feelings on me-the sensation which is only youth’s right-that I might have made a friend. A little distance from the door I was accosted by a wounded man who asked for ‘Burges’s.’ The place seemed to be known in the neighbourhood.

  I found my way to it again, and often after that, but it was not till my third visit that I discovered Mr. Burges held a half interest in Ackerman and Pernit’s, the great cigar-importers, which had come to him through an uncle whose children now lived almost in the Cromwell Road, and said that the uncle had been on the Stock Exchange.

  ‘I’m a shopkeeper by instinct,’ said Mr. Burges. ‘I like the ritual of handling things. The shop has done me well. I like to do well by the shop.’

  It had been established by his grandfather in 1827, but the fittings and appointments must have been at least half a century older. The brown and red tobacco — and snuff-jars, with Crowns, Garters, and names of forgotten mixtures in gold leaf; the polished ‘Oronoque’ tobacco- barrels on which favoured customers sat; the cherry-black mahogany counter, the delicately moulded shelves, the reeded cigar-cabinets, the German-silver-mounted scales, and the Dutch brass roll — and cake- cutter, were things to covet.

  ‘They aren’t so bad,’ he admitted. ‘That large Bristol jar hasn’t any duplicate to my knowledge. Those eight snuff-jars on the third shelf- they’re Dollin’s ware; he used to work for Wimble in Seventeen-Forty- are absolutely unique. Is there any one in the trade now could tell you what “Romano’s Hollande” was? Or “Scholten’s”? Here’s a snuff-mull of George the First’s time; and here’s a Louis Quinze-what am I talking of? Treize, Treize, of course-grater for making bran-snuff. They were regular tools of the shop in my grandfather’s day. And who on earth to leave ‘em to outside the British Museum now, I can’t think!’

  His pipes-I would this were a tale for virtuosi-his amazing collection of pipes was kept in the parlour, and this gave me the privilege of making his wife’s acquaintance. One morning, as I was looking covetously at a jacaranda-wood ‘cigarro’-not cigar-cabinet with silver lock-plates and drawer-knobs of Spanish work, a wounded Canadian came into the shop and disturbed our happy little committee.

  ‘Say,’ he began loudly, ‘are you the right place?’

  ‘Who sent you?’ Mr. Burges demanded.

  ‘A man from Messines. But that ain’t the point! I’ve got no certificates, nor papers nothin’, you understand. I left my Lodge owin’ ‘em seventeen dollars back-dues. But this man at Messines told me it wouldn’t make any odds with you.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said Mr. Burges. ‘We meet to-night at 7 p.m.’

  The man’s face fell a yard. ‘Hell!’ said he. ‘But I’m in hospital-I can’t get leaf.’

  ‘And Tuesdays and Fridays at 3 p.m.,’ Mr. Burges added promptly. ‘You’ll have to be proved, of course.’

  ‘Guess I can get by that all right,’ was the cheery reply. ‘Toosday, then.’ He limped off, beaming.

  ‘Who might that be?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do-except he must be a Brother. London’s full of Masons now. Well! Well! We must do what we can these days. If you’ll come to tea this evening, I’ll take you on to Lodge afterwards. It’s a Lodge of Instruction.’

  ‘Delighted. Which is your Lodge?’ I said, for up till then he had not given me its name.

  ‘“Faith and Works 5837”-the third Saturday of every month. Our Lodge of Instruction meets nominally every Thursday, but we sit oftener than that now because there are so many Visiting Brothers in town. ‘Here another customer entered, and I went away much interested in the range of Brother Burgess hobbies.

  At tea-time he was dressed as for Church, and wore gold pince-nez in lieu of the silver spectacles. I blessed my stars that I had thought to change into decent clothes.

  ‘Yes, we owe that much to the Craft,’ he assented. ‘All Ritual is fortifying. Ritual’s a natural necessity for mankind. The more things are upset, the more they fly to it. I abhor slovenly Ritual anywhere. By the way, would you mind assisting at the examinations, if there are many Visiting Brothers to-night? You’ll find some of ‘em very rusty, but-it’s the Spirit, not the Letter, that giveth life. The question of Visiting Brethren is an important one. There are so many of them in London now, you see; and so few places where they can meet.’

  ‘You dear thing!’ said Mrs. Burges, and handed him his locked and initialed apron-case.

  ‘Our Lodge is only just round the corner,’ he went on. ‘You mustn’t be too critical of our appurtenances. The place was a garage once.’

  As far as I could make out in the humiliating darkness, we wandered up a mews and into a courtyard. Mr. Burges piloted me, murmuring apologies for everything in advance.

  ‘You mustn’t expect — ’ he was still saying when we stumbled up a porch and entered a carefully decorated ante-room hung round with Masonic prints. I noticed Peter Gilkes and Barton Wilson, fathers of ‘Emulation’ working, in the place of honour; Kneller’s Christopher Wren; Dunkerley, with his own Fitz-George book-plate below and the bend sinister on the Royal Arms; Hogarth’s caricature of Wilkes, also his disreputable ‘Night’; and a beautifully framed set of Grand Masters, from Anthony Sayer down.

  ‘Are these another hobby of yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Not this time,’ Mr. Burges smiled. ‘We have to thank Brother Lemming for them.’ He introduced me to the senior partner of Lemming and Orton, whose little shop is hard to find, but whose words and cheques in the matter of prints are widely circulated.

  ‘The frames are the best part of ‘em,’ said Brother Lemming after my compliments. ‘There are some more in the Lodge Room. Come and look. We’ve got the big Desaguliers there that nearly went to Iowa.’

  I had never seen a Lodge Room better fitted. From mosaicked floor to appropriate ceiling, from curtain to pillar, implements to seats, seats to lights, and little carved music-loft at one end, every detail was perfect in particular kind and general design. I said what I thought of them all, many times over.

  ‘I told you I was a Ritualist,’ said Mr. Burges. ‘Look at those carved corn-sheaves and grapes on the back of these Wardens’ chairs. That’s the old tradition-before Masonic furnishers spoilt it. I picked up that pair in Stepney ten years ago-the same time I got the gavel.’ It was of ancient, yellowed ivory, cut all in one piece out of some tremendous tusk. ‘That came from the Gold Coast,’ he said. ‘It belonged to a Military Lodge there in 1794. You can see the inscription.’

  ‘If it’s a fair question,’ I began, ‘how much — ’

  ‘It stood us,’ said Brother Lemming, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, ‘an appreciable sum of money when we built it in 1906, even with what Brother Anstruther-he was our contractor-cheated himself out of. By the way, that ashlar there is pure Carrara, he tells me. I don’t understand marbles myself. Since then I expect we’ve put in-oh, quite another little sum. Now we’ll go to the examination-room and take on the Brethren.’

  He led me back, not to the ante-room, but a convenient chamber flanked with what looked like confessional-boxes (I found out later that that was what they had been, when first picked up for a song near Oswestry). A few men in uniform were waiting at the far end. ‘That’s only the head of the procession. The rest are in the ante-room,’ said an officer of the Lodge.

  Brother Burges assigned me my discreet box, saying: ‘Don’t be surprised. They come all shapes.’

  ‘Shapes’ was not a bad description, for my first penitent was all head-bandages-escaped from an Officers’ Hospital, Pentonville way. He asked me in profane Scots how I expected a man with only six teeth and half a lower lip to speak to any purpose, so we compromised on the signs. The next-a New Zealander from Taranaki-reversed the process, for he was one-armed, and that in a sling. I mistrusted an enormous Sergeant-Major of Heavy Artillery, who struck me as much too glib, so I sent him on to Brother Lemming in the next box, who discovered he was a Past District Grand Officer. My last man nearly broke me down altogether. Everything seemed to have gone from him.

  ‘I don’t blame yer,’ he gulped at last. ‘I wouldn’t pass my own self on my answers, but I give yer my word that so far as I’ve had any religion, it’s been all the religion I’ve had. For God’s sake, let me sit in Lodge again, Brother!’

  When the examinations were ended, a Lodge Officer came round with our aprons-no tinsel or silver-gilt confections, but heavily-corded silk with tassels and-where a man could prove he was entitled to them- levels, of decent plate. Some one in front of me tightened a belt on a stiffly silent person in civil clothes with dischargebadge. ‘‘Strewth! This is comfort again,’ I heard him say. The companion nodded. The man went on suddenly: ‘Here! What’re you doing? Leave off! You promised not to Chuck it!’ and dabbed at his companion’s streaming eyes.

  ‘Let him leak,’ said an Australian signaller. ‘Can’t you see how happy the beggar is?’

  It appeared that the silent Brother was a ‘shell-shocker’ whom Brother Lemming had passed, on the guarantee of his friend and-what moved Lemming more-the threat that, were he refused, he would have fits from pure disappointment. So the ‘shocker’ went happily and silently among Brethren evidently accustomed to these displays.

  We fell in, two by two, according to tradition, fifty of us at least, and were played into Lodge by what I thought was an harmonium, but which I discovered to be an organ of repute. It took time to settle us down, for ten or twelve were cripples and had to be helped into long or easy chairs. I sat between a one-footed R.A.M.C. Corporal and a Captain of Territorials, who, he told me, had ‘had a brawl’ with a bomb, which had bent him in two directions. ‘But that’s first-class Bach the organist is giving us now,’ he said delightedly. ‘I’d like to know him. I used to be a piano-thumper of sorts.’

  ‘I’ll introduce you after Lodge,’ said one of the regular Brethren behind us-a plump, torpedo-bearded man, who turned out to be a doctor. ‘After all, there’s nobody to touch Bach, is there?’ Those two plunged at once into musical talk, which to outsiders is as fascinating as trigonometry.

  Now a Lodge of Instruction is mainly a parade-ground for Ritual. It cannot initiate or confer degrees, but is limited to rehearsals and lectures. Worshipful Brother Burges, resplendent in Solomon’s Chair (I found out later where that, too, had been picked up), briefly told the Visiting Brethren how welcome they were and always would be, and asked them to vote what ceremony should be rendered for their instruction.

  When the decision was announced he wanted to know whether any Visiting Brothers would take the duties of Lodge Officers. They protested bashfully that they were too rusty. ‘The very reason why,’ said Brother Surges, while the organ Bached softly. My musical Captain wriggled in his chair.

  ‘One moment, Worshipful Sir.’ The plump Doctor rose. ‘We have here a musician for whom place and opportunity are needed. Only,’ he went on colloquially, ‘those organ-loft steps are a bit steep.’

  ‘How much,’ said Brother Burges with the solemnity of an initiation, ‘does our Brother weigh?’

  ‘Very little over eight stone,’ said the Brother. ‘Weighed this morning, Worshipful Sir.’

  The Past District Grand Officer, who was also a Battery-Sergeant- Major, waddled across, lifted the slight weight in his arms and bore it to the loft, where, the regular organist pumping, it played joyously as a soul caught up to Heaven by surprise.

  When the visitors had been coaxed to supply the necessary officers, a ceremony was rehearsed. Brother Burges forbade the regular members to prompt. The visitors had to work entirely by themselves, but, on the Battery-Sergeant-Major taking a hand, he was ruled out as of too exalted rank. They floundered badly after that support was withdrawn.

  The one-footed R.A.M.C. on my right chuckled.

  ‘D’you like it?’ said the Doctor to him.

  ‘Do I? It’s Heaven to me, sittin’ in Lodge again. It’s all comin’ back now, watching their mistakes. I haven’t much religion, but all I had I learnt in Lodge.’ Recognising me, he flushed a little as one does when one says a thing twice over in another’s hearing. ‘Yes, “veiled in all’gory and illustrated in symbols”-the Fatherhood of God, an’ the Brotherhood of Man; an’ what more in Hell do you want?...Look at ‘em!’ He broke off giggling. ‘See! See! They’ve tied the whole thing into knots. I could ha’ done it better myself-my one foot in France. Yes, I should think they ought to do it again!’

  The new organist covered the little confusion that had arisen with what sounded like the wings of angels.

  When the amateurs, rather red and hot, had finished, they demanded an exhibition-working of their bungled ceremony by Regular Brethren of the Lodge. Then I realised for the first time what word-and-gesture- perfect Ritual can be brought to mean. We all applauded, the one- footed Corporal most of all.

  ‘We are rather proud of our working, and this is an audience worth playing up to,’ the Doctor said.

  Next the Master delivered a little lecture on the meanings of some pictured symbols and diagrams. His theme was a well-worn one, but his deep holding voice made it fresh.

  ‘Marvellous how these old copybook-headings persist,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘That’s all right!’ the one-footed man spoke cautiously out of the side of his mouth like a boy in form. ‘But they’re the kind o’ copybook-headin’s we shall find burnin’ round our bunks in Hell. Believe me-ee! I’ve broke enough of ‘em to know. Now, hsh!’ He leaned forward, drinking it all in.

  Presently Brother Burges touched on a point which had given rise to some diversity of Ritual. He asked for information. ‘Well, in Jamaica, Worshipful Sir,’ a Visiting Brother began, and explained how they worked that detail in his parts. Another and another joined in from different quarters of the Lodge (and the world), and when they were well warmed the Doctor sidled softly round the walls and, over our shoulders, passed us cigarettes.

  ‘A shocking innovation,’ he said, as he returned to the Captain- musician’s vacant seat on my left. ‘But men can’t really talk without tobacco, and we’re only a Lodge of Instruction.’

  ‘An’ I’ve learned more in one evenin’ here than ten years.’ The one- footed man turned round for an instant from a dark, sour-looking Yeoman in spurs who was laying down the law on Dutch Ritual. The blue haze and the talk increased, while the organ from the loft blessed us all.

  ‘But this is delightful,’ said I to the Doctor. ‘How did it all happen?’

  ‘Brother Burges started it. He used to talk to the men who dropped into his shop when the war began. He told us sleepy old chaps in Lodge that what men wanted more than anything else was Lodges where they could sit-just sit and be happy like we are now. He was right too. We’re learning things in the war. A man’s Lodge means more to him than people imagine. As our friend on your right said just now, very often Masonry’s the only practical creed we’ve ever listened to since we were children. Platitudes or no platitudes, it squares with what everybody knows ought to be done.’ He sighed. ‘And if this war hasn’t brought home the Brotherhood of Man to us all, I’m-a Hun!’

  ‘How did you get your visitors?’ I went on.

  ‘Oh, I told a few fellows in hospital near here, at Burgess suggestion, that we had a Lodge of Instruction and they’d be welcome. And they came. And they told their friends. And they came! That was two years ago-and now we’ve Lodge of Instruction two nights a week, and a matinee nearly every Tuesday and Friday for the men who can’t get evening leave. Yes, it’s all very curious. I’d no notion what the Craft meant-and means-till this war.’

  ‘Nor I, till this evening,’ I replied.

  ‘Yet it’s quite natural if you think. Here’s London-all England-packed with the Craft from all over the world, and nowhere for them to go. Why, our weekly visiting attendance for the last four months averaged just under a hundred and forty. Divide by four-call it thirty-five Visiting Brethren a time. Our record’s seventy-one, but we have packed in as many as eighty-four at Banquets. You can see for yourself what a potty little hole we are!’

  ‘Banquets too!’ I cried. ‘It must cost like anything. May the Visiting Brethren — ’

  The Doctor-his name was Keede-laughed. ‘No, a Visiting Brother may not.’

  ‘But when a man has had an evening like this, he wants to — ’

  ‘That’s what they all say. That makes our difficulty. They do exactly what you were going to suggest, and they’re offended if we don’t take it.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘My dear man-what does it come to? They can’t all stay to Banquet. Say one hundred suppers a week-fifteen quid-sixty a month-seven hundred and twenty a year. How much are Lemming and Orton worth? And Ellis and McKnight-that long big man over yonder-the provision dealers? How much d’you suppose could Burges write a cheque for and not feel?’Tisn’t as if he had to save for any one now. I assure you we have no scruple in calling on the Visiting Brethren when we want anything. We couldn’t do the work otherwise. Have you noticed how the Lodge is kept-brass-work, jewels, furniture, and so on?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ I said. ‘It’s like a ship. You could eat your dinner off the floor.’

  ‘Well, come here on a bye-day and you’ll often find half-a-dozen Brethren, with eight legs between ‘em, polishing and ronuking and sweeping everything they can get at. I cured a shell-shocker this spring by giving him our jewels to look after. He pretty well polished the numbers off ‘em, but-it kept him from fighting Huns in his sleep. And when we need Masters to take our duties-two matinees a week is rather a tax-we’ve the choice of P.M.’s from all over the world. The Dominions are much keener on Ritual than an average English Lodge. Besides that — Oh, we’re going to adjourn. Listen to the greetings. They’ll be interesting.’