"They had dinner," she cried enthusiastically. "And do you know what they did after dinner?"
"I don't."
"They went on the Front to see the fire-escape."
It seemed to me now that the conception was mellow, rounded and complete. It had all the haunting mystery and romance of the sea about it. It was reminiscent of the Ancient Mariner. It savoured of the books of Mr. Conrad. It reminded me not a little of those strange visitations which come to quiet watering-places in the novels of Mr. H.G. Wells. When I thought of those seven men—one, alas, disembodied—so strangely attired yet so careful of elementary hygiene, driven by that fierce typhoon, with that bird of portent in the skies, arriving suddenly with the salt of their Odyssey upon their brows at the beach of the genteel and respectable Sussex town, and visiting a perhaps slightly perturbed Auntie Isabel, and afterwards the fire-escape, I felt that here was the glimpse of the wild exotic adventure for which the hearts of all of us yearn. It left the cinema standing. It beat the magazine story to a frazzle.
"And who is the picture for, Priscilla?" I asked, when I had thoroughly steeped myself in the atmosphere.
"It's for you," she said, presenting it with a motley-coloured hand; "it's for you to take to London town and not to drop it."
I was careful to do as I was told, because I have a friend who paints Expressionist pictures, and I wished to deliver it at his studio. It seems to me that Priscilla, half-unconsciously perhaps, is founding a new school of art which demands serious study. One might call it, I think, the Pookin School.
Evoe.