Yet they, because of their meanings, dominate the world. Little pieces of metal of the earth’s reluctant yield--for the highest symbolism always takes form in metal--they govern and command with a despotism that is all part of the chaos of nonsense in which we live. Only one form of metal there is, which is a meaning in itself; before which, without nonsense and without symbolism, a man must bow his head--the sword. The only thing in this world of ours in which nonsense plays no part; the only thing in this world of ours which needs no symbolism to give it power. Yet in times of peace, it lies idly in the scabbard and there are few to bring it reverence. For the present, nonsense must content us then. The greatest intellects must admit that it is still in the nature of them to sprawl upon the floor of the nursery, making belief with crowns, with crosses and with rings--making belief that in these fanciful toys lies all the vast business of life. Until we learn the whole riddle of it all, the highest profession will be that of the nonsense-maker. The man who can beat out of metal some symbolical form, earns the thankfulness of a complete world of children. For with baubles such as these, it is in the everlasting nature of us to play, until the hours slip by and the summons comes for sleep. So played the two--children in a world of children--in their stage-box on the third tier. She knew well what the gift of the little brass man must mean--the _Chevalier d’honneur_. John might have sworn a thousand times that he knew the great power of her understanding; yet such is the nature of the child, that in this little symbol of brass--as much a nonsense thing as any symbol of its kind--she understood far clearer the inner meaning of that word friendship. "Will you accept him?" said John gently. She looked back in his eyes. "On one condition." "What is that?" "That if ever we cease to be friends, he must be returned to you." CHAPTER XIX THE MR. CHESTERTON It was always a strain when July came round, for John to amass those seventeen odd pounds for the journey to Venice. But it was a greater strain when, having amassed it, he had some days before him in which to walk about the streets before he departed--it was a greater strain, then, not to spend it. For money, to those who have none, is merely water and it percolates through the toughest pigskin purse, finds it way somehow or other into the pocket and, once there, is in a sieve with as broad a mesh as you could need to find.