His bull’s bellow of laughter followed them into the lift.
The provision merchant’s establishment of Mr. Bolsover proved to be a euphemism for an old-fashioned grocer’s shop in the most crowded part of Hammersmith. The neighbouring church was chiming out the three-quarters as the taxi drove up, and the shop was full of people. So Enid and Malone walked up and down outside. As they were so engaged another taxi drove up and a large, untidy-looking, ungainly bearded man in a suit of Harris tweed stepped out of it. He glanced at his watch and then began to pace the pavement. Presently he noted the others and came up to them.
“May I ask if you are the journalists who are going to attend the séance?… I thought so. Old Bolsover is terribly busy so you were wise to wait. Bless him, he is one of God’s saints in his way.”
“You are Mr. Algernon Mailey, I presume?”
“Yes. I am the gentleman whose credulity is giving rise to considerable anxiety upon the part of my friends, as one of the rags remarked the other day.” His laugh was so infectious that the others were bound to laugh also. Certainly, with his athletic proportions, which had run a little to seed but were still notable, and with his virile voice and strong if homely face, he gave no impression of instability.
“We are all labelled with some stigma by our opponents,” said he. “I wonder what yours will be.”
“We must not sail under false colours, Mr. Mailey,” said Enid. “We are not yet among the believers.”
“Quite right. You should take your time over it. It is infinitely the most important thing in the world, so it is worth taking time over. I took many years myself. Folk can be blamed for neglecting it, but no one can be blamed for being cautious in examination. Now I am all out for it, as you are aware, because I know it is true. There is such a difference between believing and knowing. I lecture a good deal. But I never want to convert my audience. I don’t believe in sudden conversions. They are shallow, superficial things. All I want is to put the thing before the people as clearly as I can. I just tell them the truth and why we know it is the truth. Then my job is done. They can take it or leave it. If they are wise they will explore along the paths that I indicate. If they are unwise they miss their ch
ance. I don’t want to press them or to proselytize. It’s their affair, not mine.”
“Well, that seems a reasonable view,” said Enid, who was attracted by the frank manner of their new acquaintance. They were standing now in the full flood of light cast by Bolsover’s big plate-glass window. She had a good look at him, his broad forehead, his curious grey eyes, thoughtful and yet eager, his straw-coloured beard which indicated the outline of an aggressive chin. He was solidity personified—the very opposite of the fanatic whom she had imagined. His name had been a good deal in the papers lately as a protagonist in the long battle, and she remembered that it had never been mentioned without an answering snort from her father.
“I wonder,” she said to Malone, “what would happen if Mr. Mailey were locked up in a room with Dad!”
Malone laughed. “There used to be a schoolboy question as to what would occur if an irresistible force were to strike an invincible obstacle.”
“Oh, you are the daughter of Professor Challenger,” said Mailey with interest. “He is a big figure in the scientific world. What a grand world it would be if it would only realize its own limitations.”
“I don’t quite follow you.”
“It is this scientific world which is at the bottom of much of our materialism. It has helped us in comfort—if comfort is any use to us. Otherwise it has usually been a curse to us, for it has called itself progress and given us a false impression that we are making progress, whereas we are really drifting very steadily backwards.”
“Really, I can’t quite agree with you there, Mr. Mailey,” said Malone, who was getting restive under what seemed to him dogmatic assertion. “Look at wireless. Look at the S.O.S. call at sea. Is that not a benefit to mankind?”
“Oh, it works out all right sometimes. I value my electric reading-lamp, and that is a product of science. It gives us, as I said before, comfort and occasionally safety.”
“Why, then, do you depreciate it?”
“Because it obscures the vital thing—the object of life. We were not put into this planet in order that we should go fifty miles an hour in a motor-car, or cross the Atlantic in an airship, or send messages either with or without wires. These are the mere trimmings and fringes of life. But these men of science have so riveted our attention on these fringes that we forget the central object.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“It is not how fast you go that matters, it is the object of your journey. It is not how you send a message, it is what the value of the message may be. At every stage this so-called progress may be a curse, and yet as long as we use the word we confuse it with real progress and imagine that we are doing that for which God sent us into the world.”
“Which is?”
“To prepare ourselves for the next phase of life. There is mental preparation and spiritual preparation, and we are neglecting both. To be in an old age better men and women, more unselfish, more broadminded, more genial and tolerant, that is what we are for. It is a soul factory, and it is turning out a bad article. But—Hullo!” he burst into his infectious laugh. “Here I am delivering my lecture in the street. Force of habit, you see. My son says that if you press the third button of my waistcoat I automatically deliver a lecture. But here is the good Bolsover to your rescue.”
The worthy grocer had caught sight of them through the window and came bustling out, untying his white apron.
“Good evening, all! I won’t have you waiting in the cold. Besides, there’s the clock, and time’s up. It does not do to keep them waiting. Punctuality for all—that’s my motto and theirs. My lads will shut up the shop. This way, and mind the sugar-barrel.”
They threaded their way amid boxes of dried fruits and piles of cheese, finally passing between two great casks which hardly left room for the grocer’s portly form. A narrow door beyond opened into the residential part of the establishment. Ascending the narrow stair, Bolsover threw open a door and the visitors found themselves in a considerable room in which a number of people were seated round a large table. There was Mrs. Bolsover herself, large, cheerful and buxom like her husband. Three daughters were all of the same pleasing type. There was an elderly woman who seemed to be some relation, and two other colourless females who were described as neighbours and Spiritualists. The only other man was a little grey-headed fellow with a pleasant face and quick, twinkling eyes, who sat at a harmonium in the corner.
“Mr. Smiley, our musician,” said Bolsover. “I don’t know what we could do without Mr. Smiley. It’s vibrations, you know. Mr. Mailey could tell you about that. Ladies, you know Mr. Mailey, our very good friend. And these are the two inquirers—Miss Challenger and Mr. Malone.”
The Bolsover family all smiled genially, but the nondescript elderly person rose to her feet and surveyed them with an austere face.
“You’re very welcome here, you two strangers,” she said. “But we would say to you that we want outward reverence. We respect the shining ones and we will not have them insulted.”
“I assure you we are very earnest and fair-minded,” said Malone.