When asked by Moon what was all his eye, he banged down behind the books again and answered with considerable excitement, throwing his papers about. “All those fairy-tales you’ve been reading out,” he said. “Oh! don’t talk to me! I ain’t littery and that, but I know fairy-tales when I hear ’em. I got a bit stumped in some of the philosophical bits and felt inclined to go out for a B. and S. But we’re living in West ’Ampstead and not in ’Ell; and the long and the short of it is that some things ’appen and some things don’t ’appen. Those are the things that don’t ’appen.” “I thought,” said Moon gravely, “that we quite clearly explained—” “Oh yes, old chap, you quite clearly explained,” assented Mr. Gould with extraordinary volubility. “You’d explain an elephant off the doorstep, you would. I ain’t a clever chap like you; but I ain’t a born natural, Michael Moon, and when there’s an elephant on my doorstep I don’t listen to no explanations. ‘It’s got a trunk,’ I says.—‘My trunk,’ you says: ‘I’m fond of travellin’, and a change does me good.’—‘But the blasted thing’s got tusks,’ I says.—‘Don’t look a gift ’orse in the mouth,’ you says, ‘but thank the goodness and the graice that on your birth ’as smiled.’—‘But it’s nearly as big as the ’ouse,’ I says.—‘That’s the bloomin’ perspective,’ you says, ‘and the sacred magic of distance.’—‘Why, the elephant’s trumpetin’ like the Day of Judgement,’ I says.—‘That’s your own conscience a-talking to you, Moses Gould,’ you says in a grive and tender voice. Well, I ’ave got a conscience as much as you. I don’t believe most of the things they tell you in church on Sundays; and I don’t believe these ’ere things any more because you goes on about ’em as if you was in church. I believe an elephant’s a great big ugly dingerous beast— and I believe Smith’s another.” “Do you mean to say,” asked Inglewood, “that you still doubt the evidence of exculpation we have brought forward?” “Yes, I do still doubt it,” said Gould warmly. “It’s all a bit too far-fetched, and some of it a bit too far off. ’Ow can we test all those tales? ’Ow can we drop in and buy the ‘Pink ’Un’ at the railway station at Kosky Wosky or whatever it was? ’Ow can we go and do a gargle at the saloon-bar on top of the Sierra Mountains? But anybody can go and see Bunting’s boarding-house at Worthing.” Moon regarded him with an expression of real or assumed surprise. “Any one,” continued Gould, “can call on Mr. Trip.” “It is a comforting thought,” replied Michael with restraint; “but why should any one call on Mr. Trip?” “For just exactly the sime reason,” cried the excited Moses, hammering on the table with both hands, “for just exactly the sime reason that he should communicate with Messrs. ’Anbury and Bootle of Paternoster Row and with Miss Gridley’s ’igh class Academy at ’Endon, and with old Lady Bullingdon who lives at Penge.”