Herriard’s Confession

A Riot

Alexia’s Visitor

The End of the Interview

The Face in the Box

A Portent

The Last Meeting

[1]

THE MASTER SPIRIT

CHAPTER I A DWELLER IN DARKNESS

THE light on the Clock Tower, that cheerful beacon which assures Britons that good and picked men are kept from their beds to raise the standard of their liberties, and, incidentally, their taxes, had just gone out, sharply, as though glad to announce to yet-stirring London a respite from the babble of lawmaking; and the great workshop of Westminster where the artisans are so many and busy, and the results perhaps so meagre, discharged its crowd into the illuminated night. Out they came hurrying, for the hour was late: the sitting had been animated and prolonged, and even professional, to say nothing of casual, politicians are nowadays too busy in wasting the nation’s time not to set a high value on their own. Out they streamed, still chattering and arguing, as became the priests in that great Temple of the Tongue, those of them whose voices were seldom heard and never listened to in the House talking the loudest outside; a varied crew typifying the component parts of their country’s greatness. Ministers, bent, fine-drawn and unkempt, as men whose ceaseless rolling of Sisyphian stones gave no time to spare for the clothes-brush, superior Under-Secretaries, some dapper, others[2] affecting a soul and a mission above the niceties of costume, all far more important than any Prime Minister who ever lived, and displaying a pretty contempt for those of the rank and file who took upon 

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