“To think of that old hard-shell turning the theater into a church! Ye gods! It’s the most ironical thing I ever heard. Still, he can afford himself little luxuries of that kind. He’s making his soul no doubt.” “At any rate,” said Brandon, “he’ll deserve well of heaven if he can reform the Boche.” Before Pomfret could make suitable reply they walked into the arms of George Speke, who was augustly descending the steps of the stronghold of the Whigs. “What!” he cried. “You!” His eyes raked Brandon from top to toe. “I can’t believe it. And one hears people say that miracles don’t happen.” “I plead guilty to being among them,” said Pomfret; in the presence of Speke’s amazement he had a sense of intellectual relief. “Science won’t acknowledge it as a miracle,” said Brandon. “It has a theory which fully covers the case. It was explained to me last night by Bowood, the nerve man. I forget what he called it--but what the thing amounts to is that functional reaction has been induced by counter-shock--excuse the phraseology--but Bowood says the thing is constantly occurring.” “I affirm it as a miracle,” said Speke. “I, too,” said Brandon. “More has happened in my case than therapeutics can explain. I’ve been given a new soul as well as a new body. But we won’t go into that now. At this particular moment I want to talk to you about that fantastically absurd official, the Censor of Stage Plays.” But the subject was deferred until the following evening when the two men dined together. Even then George Speke was not very illuminating. After all, the censorship of stage plays was a departmental matter, and this habitual member of governments had the departmental mind. A harmless functionary had been much attacked in the public press by the kind of people who attack every kind of institution, but experience had proved him to be at once wise, necessary, and convenient. “Wise! Necessary! Convenient!” said Brandon, “to invest a single individual of cynical mediocrity with absolute power? It’s an insult to every pen in the realm.” Speke laughed at the vehemence but admitted the truth. Yet a threadbare controversy left him cold. To be quite candid, the theater was negligible, the art of dramatic writing equally so. Far better that both should perish than that either should sully the mind of the humblest citizen of Imperial Rome. XXXIX IN the course of the next few days Brandon interviewed various specialists, and then by their advice he went to Brighton for two months. The result was such a steady gain in physical force and mental equilibrium that he was able to resume his military duties. Not by his own request was he spared the boredom, the misery, the ghoulish horror of the trenches. The higher expediency was able to realize that men of Brandon’s age, particularly if they have once been badly knocked out, don’t pay for cartage to France. Therefore he was given a commission and sent to the north to train new units.