“Brother Burges started it. He used to talk to the men who dropped into his shop when the war began. He told us sleepy old chaps in Lodge that what men wanted more than anything else was Lodges where they could sit--just sit and be happy like we are now. He was right too. We’re learning things in the war. A man’s Lodge means more to him than people imagine. As our friend on your right said just now, very often Masonry’s the only practical creed we’ve ever listened to since we were children. Platitudes or no platitudes, it squares with what everybody knows ought to be done.” He sighed. “And if this war hasn’t brought home the Brotherhood of Man to us all, I’m--a Hun!” “How did you get your visitors?” I went on. “Oh, I told a few fellows in hospital near here, at Burges’s suggestion, that we had a Lodge of Instruction and they’d be welcome. And they came. And they told their friends. And _they_ came! That was two years ago!--and now we’ve Lodge of Instruction two nights a week, and a matinée nearly every Tuesday and Friday for the men who can’t get evening leave. Yes, it’s all very curious. I’d no notion what the Craft meant--and means--till this war.” “Nor I, till this evening,” I replied. “Yet it’s quite natural if you think. Here’s London--all England--packed with the Craft from all over the world, and nowhere for them to go. Why, our weekly visiting attendance for the last four months averaged just under a hundred and forty. Divide by four--call it thirty-five Visiting Brethren a time. Our record’s seventy-one, but we have packed in as many as eighty-four at Banquets. You can see for yourself what a potty little hole we are!” “Banquets too!” I cried. “It must cost like anything. May the Visiting Brethren----” The Doctor--his name was Keede--laughed. “No, a Visiting Brother may _not_.” “But when a man has had an evening like this, he wants to----” “That’s what they all say. That makes our difficulty. They do exactly what you were going to suggest, and they’re offended if we don’t take it.” “Don’t you?” I asked. “My dear man--what _does_ it come to? They can’t all stay to Banquet. Say one hundred suppers a week--fifteen quid--sixty a month--seven hundred and twenty a year. How much are Lemming and Orton worth? And Ellis and McKnight--that long big man over yonder--the provision dealers? How much d’you suppose could Burges write a cheque for and not feel? ’Tisn’t as if he had to save for any one now. I assure you we have no scruple in calling on the Visiting Brethren when we want anything. We couldn’t do the work otherwise. Have you noticed how the Lodge is kept--brass-work, jewels, furniture, and so on?” “I have indeed,” I said. “It’s like a ship. You could eat your dinner off the floor.”