That was three years ago; all that time the great idea had grown. Lady Gwryth had taken it up with all her might and so had her sister. What an ideal to realize! Miniature ranges, swimming baths, large airy gymnasiums, acoustic theaters, Greek plays and, above all, Dromes!
A new life open (in relays) to the children of the poor, and that in the very core of London!
Only the Treasury blocked the way. It did not definitely oppose, but it looked askance at the proposed expenditure. For the County Council could not add more than 2d.
The Dæmon suddenly stirred that minor official with the sharp decisive conviction that his moment had come. And, indeed, it was Primrose Day.
Therefore, much at the same time that Mr. Petre was sitting there in his room, wrestling with gloom and consolation, before his flight to the isolation and refreshment of Southern England, that minor official had jogged the memory of a superior; that superior had determined to approach the Permanent Secretary once more with his mighty scheme; and the Permanent Secretary, before the office closed for the evening, had determined in his turn that the thing must be done now or never, and had gone himself (for all his glory) to the House of Commons, and had bearded the Secretary of State in his room.
Therefore it was that when, the next day, Mr. Petre was relaxing in the happy vacuity of his beloved Hampshire a brief note came by hand to the hard little man in spectacles in the dirty court off Broad Street, and that individual found himself summoned to the big palace in Whitehall; the Education Department had at last made up its mind to buy.
It had been told (as perhaps three hundred other possible purchasers had been told) that the site could be got for a song, the song being perhaps 2d., perhaps 2½., upon the insignificant rates; or, if the worst came to the worst, a mere pimple upon the Budget. And after all, they had delayed too long. They had heard it, as all those other possible gulls had heard it, in every form of approach—at dinner, in the street, by letter, by write-ups in the Press, even through the personal eloquence of Mr. Williams himself. No one can say as a rule what it is that moves a public department at last to act, or what power fixes the moment; but in this case we know the agent: it was the Playful Dæmon.
The hard little man in spectacles heard with impassible face the demand and the project of his Sovereign—for, as we all know, Ministers are but advisers to the Crown. And as the scheme unrolled before him, his accurate, well-trained mind, immeasurably experienced in such things, was running up figures and attaching to the sum upon which at last it settled, that happy margin which would fall to the office in Broad Street when all the rest of the pack had torn off their share.
Provisionally, very provisionally, protesting that he had no powers to act; protesting that he could not speak for his principals; protesting that it must be put before others; he stated—oh, so provisionally—a bedrock sum (in round figures, of course, only round figures); and the Department, which had been well salted, was astonished to hear that what it hardly expected much under three millions was obtainable—provisionally of course, it was a mere estimate, there was no authority—for not so very much more than two.