Like a moral vulture he leaned over and tortured his palpitating prey. Motionless in body, they writhed within, as he painted dramatically the penalties of Vice and Sin, drew pictures of Hell. But did he know? Did he know the hell they were going to within ten years, did he know _how_ soon most of their names would be on the Chapel wall? How he must have enjoyed composing that inscription to those “who went forth unfalteringly, and proudly laid down their lives for King and Country”! * * * * * One part of the mystery was called SMUT. If you were smutty you went mad and had to go into a lunatic asylum. Or you “contracted a loathsome disease” and your nose fell off. The pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. So it was wicked, like being smutty, to feel happy when you looked at things and read Keats? Perhaps you went mad that way too and your eyes fell out? “That’s what makes them lay eggs,” said the little girl, swinging her long golden hair and laughing, as the cock leaped on a hen. O dreadful, O wicked little girl, you’re talking smut to me. You’ll go mad, I shall go mad, our noses will drop off. O please don’t talk like that, please, please. * * * * * From fornication and all other deadly sins.... What is fornication? Have I committed fornication? Is that the holy word for smut? Why don’t they tell me what it means, why is it “the foulest thing a decent man can commit”? When that thing happened in the night it must have been fornication; I shall go mad and my nose will drop off. Hymn Number.... A few more years shall roll. How wicked I must be.