But now all those good things were ending. He saw the splitting up of all this common impulse into countless cliques, with interests not his own; and he felt that he must make one effort before the close. For Colonel Westcott was a brave man. He would sell everything for the comfort and assuagement of his soul. And so he founded the Pitt League. As an essay in the floating of a bogus company, it was a notable achievement. Never was such a web of words woven round such a dummy. Not that the Colonel spake one word that he did not believe. He was impeccably honest. He really valued the goods that he extolled. One evening in the theatre he laid his wares before us. With an unconscious skill, he began by an appeal to the vanity and the emotions of his hearers. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have been told by one of the padres that in the lesson for March 21st, the day on which most of us were captured, occurs the text, ‘Be thou a ruler even in the midst among thine enemies.’ That, gentlemen, is what I want to say to you to-night. Be rulers, I will tell you how.” The prospect of gaining the mastery over the generous supply of armed sentries was alluring. There was an instant and unanimous attention. “We can only do it in one way, gentlemen, and that is by combination. We must all work together, we must work not towards individual prosperity, but towards the prosperity of the community. No longer can we fight our enemies in the field, but we can wage a silent war, we can prepare ourselves so that afterwards we may be triumphant. We must work collectively: we must unite: the life of this camp should be like one machine, in which you are all cogs. And so, gentlemen, I have brought forward my scheme. I have called it the Pitt League, because, well, gentlemen, because it rhymes with _grit_.” And then followed an exposition worthy of the great Tartarin. But even the hero of Tarascon can hardly have brought to play in the account of his visionary Saharas such a fancy, such an overwhelming unreason, such a complete contempt for the bounds of probability. Slowly idea followed on idea, slowly the colossal fabric was raised. That Colonel Westcott was a caricature must always be kept in mind; but even so I think the excitement of the moment must have caught him up. Even he could not in cold blood have conceived such fabulous creations.