jolly drunken fellow with his tales of the sea, the twisty turn-his-head-both-ways fellow with his gold watches and silver chains, the red wizard with his fortunes in envelopes, his magic on strings of coloured paper, his mysterious signs and countersigns whispered into blushing ears. And then the children that should have been in bed hours ago—little children, large children, young children, old children, fat children, thin children, children clinging-to-mother's-skirts, children running in and out, like mice, between legs and trousers, children riding on father's shoulder, children sticky with sweets and sucking their thumbs, children screaming with pleasure, shrieking with terror, howling with weariness—and one child all by itself on the steps of the town hall, curled up and fast asleep. Away, to one side of the place, just as he had been there fifteen years ago when Maradick had been present, was a preacher, aloft on an overturned box, singing with hand raised, his thin earnest face illumined with the lights, his scant hair blowing in the breeze. Around him a thin scattering of people singing just as fifteen years ago they had sung: So like little candles We shall shine, You in your small corner And I in mine. The same recipé, the same cure, the same key offered to the unlocking of the same mysterious door—and so it will be to the end of created life—Amen! The hymn was over. The preacher's voice was raised. Children step to the edge of the circle, looking up with wondering eyes, their fingers in their mouths. "And so, dear friends, we have offered to us here the Blood of the Lamb for our salvation. Can we refuse it? What right have we to disregard our salvation? I tell you, my dear friends, that Judgment is upon us even now. There cometh the night when no man may work. How shall we be found? Sleeping? With our sins heavy upon us? There is yet time. The hour is not yet. Let us remember that God is merciful—there is still time given us for repentance——" The Town Hall clock stridently, with clanging reverberation, heard clearly above all the din, struck nine. IV Even as the strokes sounded in the air the wide doors of the Town Hall unfolded and a tall stout man, dressed in the cocked hat and the cape and cloak of a
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