“Suppose,” I reflected, “an unsuccessful man laid siege to a balcony and wouldn’t let his rival come near it?”
“Move him on,” said Ewart, “by a special regulation. As one does organ-grinders. No difficulty about that. And you could forbid it—make it against the etiquette. No life is decent without etiquette.... And people obey etiquette sooner than laws...”
“H’m,” I said, and was struck by an idea that is remote in the world of a young man. “How about children?” I asked; “in the City? Girls are all very well. But boys, for example—grow up.”
“Ah!” said Ewart. “Yes. I forgot. They mustn’t grow up inside.... They’d turn out the boys when they were seven. The father must come with a little pony and a little gun and manly wear, and take the boy away. Then one could come afterwards to one’s mother’s balcony.... It must be fine to have a mother. The father and the son...”
“This is all very pretty in its way,” I said at last, “but it’s a dream. Let’s come back to reality. What I want to know is, what are you going to do in Brompton, let us say, or Walham Green now?”
“Oh! damn it!” he remarked, “Walham Green! What a chap you are, Ponderevo!” and he made an abrupt end to his discourse. He wouldn’t even reply to my tentatives for a time.
“While I was talking just now,” he remarked presently,
“I had a quite different idea.”
“What?”
“For a masterpiece. A series. Like the busts of the Cæsars. Only not heads, you know. We don’t see the people who do things to us nowadays...”