‘Yes, everywhere there is always a telegraph post in the foreground.’
‘Well, Mr. Macrae had them when he was here first, but he has had them all cut down, bless him, since he got the new dodge. He was explaining it all to Blake and me, and Blake only scoffed, would not understand, showed he was bored.’
‘I think it delightful! What did Mr. Blake say?’
‘Oh, his usual stuff. Science is an expensive and inadequate substitute for poetry and the poetic gifts of the natural man, who is still extant in Ireland. He can flash his thoughts, and any trifles of news he may pick up, across oceans and continents, with no machinery at all. What is done in Khartoum is known the same day in Cairo.’
‘What did Mr. Macrae say?’
‘He asked why the Cairo people did not make fortunes on the Stock Exchange.’
‘And Mr. Blake?’
‘He looked a great deal, but he said nothing. Then, as I said, he showed that he was bored when Macrae exhibited to us the machine and tried to teach us how it worked, and the philosophy of it. Blake did not understand it, nor do I, really, but of course I displayed an intelligent interest. He didn’t display any. He said that the telegraph thing only brought us nearer to all that a child of nature—’
‘He a child of nature, with his belladonna!’
‘To all that a child of nature wanted to forget. The machine emitted a serpent of tape, news of Surrey v. Yorkshire, and something about Kaffirs, and Macrae was enormously pleased, for such are the