“But come and sit down, sir. Never mind them shirts, I’ll chuck ’em on the floor. No, my boy, we’ve had enough teachin’ for the moment. ’E’s got an astonishin’ appetite for learnin’, that dog, but only a limited intelligence.” Maradick could see that Punch didn’t want to say any more about Toby, so he asked no questions, but he could see that he felt the loss terribly. “Well, Garrick,” he said, “I’ve come to say good-bye. We all go back to-morrow, and, on the whole, I don’t know that I’m sorry. Things have happened here a bit too fast for my liking, and I’m glad to get out of it with my life, so to speak.” Punch, looked at him a moment, and then he said: “What’s happened about young Gale, sir? There are all sorts of stories afloat this morning.” Maradick told him everything. “Well, that’s all for the best. I’m damned glad of it. That girl’s well away, and they’ll make the prettiest married couple for many a mile. They’ll be happy enough. And now, you see for yourself that I wasn’t so far out about Morelli after all.” Maradick thought for a moment and then he said: “But look here, Garrick, if Morelli’s what you say, if, after all, there’s something supernatural about him, he must have known that those two were going to run away; well, if he knew and minded so much, why didn’t he stop them?” “I’m not saying that he did know,” said Punch slowly, “and I’m not saying that he wanted to stop them. Morelli’s not a man, nor anything real at all. ’E’s just a kind of vessel through which emotions pass, if you understand me. The reason, in a way, that ’e expresses Nature is because nothing stays with him. ’E’s cruel, ’e’s loving, ’e’s sad, ’e’s happy, just like Nature, because the wind blows, or the rivers run, or the rains fall. ’E’s got influence over everything human because ’e isn’t ’uman ’imself. ’E isn’t a person at all, ’e’s just an influence, a current of atmosphere in a man’s form. “There are things, believe me, sir, all about this world that take shape one day like this and another day like that, but they have no soul, no personal identity, that is, because they have no beginning or end, no destiny or conclusion, any more than the winds or the sea. And you look out for yourself when that’s near you—it’s mighty dangerous.” Maradick said nothing. Punch went on— “You can’t see these things in cities, or in places where you’re for ever doing things. You’ve got to have your mind like an empty room and your eyes must be blind and your ears must be closed, and then, slowly, you’ll begin to hear and see.” Maradick shook his head. “No, I don’t understand,” he said. “And when I get back to my regular work again I shall begin to think it’s all bunkum. But I do know that I’ve been near something that I’ve never touched before. There’s something in the place that’s changed us all for a moment. We’ll all go back and be all the same again; but things can’t ever be quite the same again for me, thank God.”