“The guests, then, are three in number. Firstly, James Alcock, who, they tell me, is the most secular and scientific member of all the Australian Legislative Assemblies——”
“Go on,” said Maddock.
“Doctor,” Gildea said, “he reads Haeckel and swears by no other prophet of Science. Pause before it is too late. They say too that he sleeps every saturday and sunday with Mill “On Liberty” under his pillow, and all Spencer’s “Principles” strewed about the counterpane. He knew my father years ago in England, and his heart warms towards me as towards an incipient disciple.”
“Secondly—”
“Secondly, Francis Fitzgerald, a young man learned with all the learning of the Egyptians; a pilgrim and devotee at that simple west-England shrine which holds the Catholic pearl beyond all price, John Henry Newman; a scholar of the Parisian seminaries; a pupil of the inner Jesuit circle—”
“Thirdly—”
“Frank Hawkesbury, the young Australian poet; a Socialist, delighting in Trades-Unions, Religious Revivals (the Salvation Army is a hobby of his), and Secular Organizations with a grand impartiality! Nay, it is even whispered that he had dealings with Holden and the Irish and Continental Nihilists two years ago in London. Our friend Mrs. Medwin almost fainted when Sydney Medwin asked her if she would care to know him.”
“I have looked through one of the young man’s books of poems,” Maddock said, serenely, “and rather liked them. He is in earnest. Your lunch will be amusing.—It smacks to me,” he added, with a touch of grimness in his humour, “a little of those shows one sees now and then at the street-corners. They call them, I believe, happy families.”
Gildea laughed.