He formed one of a platform party of whom it might safely have been said that every man was a crank, and every woman a faddist. He was somewhat astonished and a little perplexed when he looked around him, and realised that his fellow-protestants were not of the sort wherewith he usually foregathered; but he speedily became interested in the audience. It had been intended to restrict admission to those well-intentioned folk who desired peace at any price, but the man in the street had placed a veto upon that, and had come in large numbers, and with a definite resolve to take part in the proceedings. The meeting began in a cheerful and vivacious fashion, and ended in one dear to the English heart. The chairman was listened to with some forbearance and patience; a lady was allowed to have her say because she was a woman. It was a sad inspiration that led the chairman to put Lucian up next; a still sadder one to refer to his poetical exhortations to the people. The sight of Lucian, the fashionably attired, dilettante, dreamy-eyed poet, who had lashed and pricked the nation whose blood was being poured out like water, and whose coffers were being depleted at a rapid rate, was too much for the folk he essayed to address. They knew him and his recent record. At the first word they rose as one man, and made for the platform. Lucian and the seekers after peace were obliged to run, as rabbits run to their warrens, and the enemy occupied the position. Somebody unfurled a large flag, and the entire assemblage joined in singing Mr. Kipling’s invitation to contribute to the tambourine fund. In the school of life the teacher may write many lessons with the whitest chalk upon the blackest blackboard, and there will always be a child in the corner who will swear that he cannot see the writing. Lucian could not see the lesson of the stormed platform, and he continued his rhyming crusade and made enemies by the million. He walked with closed eyes along a road literally bristling with bayonets: it was nothing but the good-natured English tolerance of a poet as being more or less of a lunatic that kept the small boys of the Strand from going for him. Men at street corners made remarks upon him which were delightful to overhear: it was never Lucian’s good fortune to overhear them. His nose was in the air. He heard the truth at last from that always truthful person, the man in liquor. In the smoking-room of his club he was encountered one night by a gentleman who had dined in too generous fashion, and whose natural patriotism glowed and scintillated around him with equal generosity. He met Lucian face to face, and he stopped and looked him up and down with a fine and eminently natural scorn. ‘Mr. Lucian Damerel,’ he said, with an only slightly interrupted articulation; ‘Mr. Lucian Damerel--the gentleman who spills ink while better men spend blood.’ Then he spat on the ground at Lucian’s feet, and moved away with a sneer and a laugh.