There was another flutter of excitement when Eric had his Chief Assistant down from London. At last, somebody else was allowed to go into the Bungalow¹.  
This extension of hospitality did not make the Bungalow seem more accessible, but distinctly less so. For the Chief Assistant lived altogether in the Bungalow; and he must have liked living there, for he never wanted to take walks, or do anything but just stay in the Bungalow. He cooked his own meals and washed his own dishes. His speech was like the rest of him, and the most forthcoming thing he ever said, according to Mrs. Klaus, was "Good-morning." So not even Hermione could pump the Invaluable³ Bootle, as Eric called him. Hermione called him the Beetle⁴, because he was a round-shouldered, brown young man, with goggle⁵ eyes and very long arms and legs.
 
Eric defended his Assistant. Hermione once made the slip of saying of Mr. Bootle that he[Pg 84] looked like the kind of person she could quite imagine taking a pleasure in doing innocent animals to death.
 
"I shouldn't have said Bootle was the least like you," Eric said, with a deadly suavity⁶. She saw he had not forgotten Babs' stories, but he seemed very willing not to pursue the subject.
 
"Everything comes to an end sometime. Even you, Lady Hermione—not to speak of the rest of us. And some of us would be content enough to know our way of dying had left the world a little more enlightened than we found it."
 
I minded none of Hermione's audacities⁷ so much as her speaking of Eric as "Babs' property." "Poor old Babs," she said behind her sister's back—the best the Ugly Duckling of the family could hope for was a parson, or some professor-person.
 
We noticed the professor-person never stayed long if the Helmstones came.
 
That pleased me more than anything.
 
He was quite different when he was alone with us three. He was patient, and took some pains, I think, to make us understand that feeling of his[Pg 85] about Scientific Research. He seemed to give us the key of the wonderful laboratory in London, where he "spent the greater part" of his life. I, too, came to feel it must be the most fascinating place in the world.
 
Not a place where men dealt only with dead matter, but where they "proved the spirit."
 
A friend of his had discovered things about X rays; a knowledge, Eric said, which had saved other men from death; and from what he thought was worse—long, hopeless suffering. His friend knew that he was running a risk with the X rays. He saw that the sores on his hands grew worse; they were eating in. A thumb and forefinger⁸ had to go, then the entire hand; presently, the other hand. His eyes—— Then he died.
 
Eric didn't seem sorry, though his voice changed and he looked away. "It was a fine way to die."
 
He said the self-discipline imposed by the pursuit of science had become the chief hope of the world. All the good that was in Militarism had been got out of it. It was a spent shell now, half-buried in the long grass of a fallow field. Still, it was no wonder the majority of the governing class, out of touch with the real work of the[Pg 86] world—no wonder they still groped after the military idea.
 
They saw the idle on the one hand and the overworked on the other, wallowing in a sickly wash of sentiment; they saw the dry rot in Government. He himself had small patience with politicians, or with those other "preachers"—in the pulpits. In old days, when the churches were in touch with the people, a man might feed his flock instead of merely living off the sheep of his pasture.
 
But the people who fared worst at Eric's hands were the professional politicians. They were "bedevilled" by the most intellect-deadening of all the opiates, the Soothing⁹ Syrup¹⁰ of Popularity. They must be excused from doing anything else because, forsooth, they did such a lot of talking.
 
We discovered an unexpected vein¹¹ of humour in him the day he travestied a certain distinguished¹² friend of Lord Helmstone's. We were shown the Great Man on the hustings¹³ at a Scottish election, and we laughed afresh over Eric's fury at his own evocation¹⁴. As though the distinguished personage were actually there, perorating on Duncombe lawn, Eric brushed up his moustache and[Pg 87] began to heckle him. What had he done—except to use his great position as a rostrum? What had been done by all the members of the Lords and Commons put together comparable to the achievements of—for instance, Sanitary¹⁵ Science? Ha, Science! No phrase-making. No flourish of fine feelings. Just Sanitation—the force that had done more in fifty years to improve the condition of the poor than all the philanthropy since the birth of Christ. And what had the Government done even for Science?
 
Then the Personage, magnificently superior, setting forth² the folly¹⁶, the sinful waste of getting him there, and not listening to his words of wisdom.
 
"When I ope my mouth let no dog bark."
 
No such ineptitudes from your man of science. The conditions of his work—humbleness of spirit, a patient tracking down of fact—these kept him sane¹⁷; kept him oriented. Woe¹⁸ to him if he fell into fustian¹⁹, or pretended to a wisdom he could not

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