“But I don’t think I know any history much.” “That doesn’t matter; it’s quite easy to read your stuff up if you confine yourself to a particular period or a particular kind of history. For the beginner, Church history may be confidently recommended. Public interest in the subject is so small that it is very unlikely any one will take the trouble to contradict you. If the worst comes to the worst, you can always fall back upon literary criticism, and there you are on perfectly safe ground. A man with a documentary hypothesis can defy the rudest assaults of common sense.” “How does one do that, exactly?” “You have to start out by saying, ‘This document consists of three parts. One part is genuine, one part is spurious, the third part is faked evidence put in to make the spurious stuff look as if it was genuine!’ Then, you see, you are on velvet. You reject altogether the parts of the document which you don’t like. Then you take the remaining part, and find that it still contains a certain sort of dross—evidence which still conflicts with your theory. That dross you purge away by calling it a deliberate fake. The watch says 4.54—that is proof positive that, in the first place, the murder took place at 3.54, and, in the second place, the murderer tried to pretend it didn’t. You see the idea? Now, the more of that business you do, the more ingenious your theory becomes, and the more ingenious your theory becomes, the more easily will people accept it as true. Half the statements which we regard as facts in history and criticism are statements made by critics, which are so ingenious that nobody has the heart to doubt them. And so the silly old world goes on. What if our forefathers are misjudged? We keep our mouths, not our ears, to the metaphone, and the honourable gentlemen get no opportunity to reply: and it doesn’t matter much to them, because, like sensible people, they’ve dropped their end of the tube, and left us to talk into empty air.” “Do you know, Gordon, I believe you talk an awful lot of rot.” “I know. But it isn’t all rot. Well, what are you proposing to do?” “I am proposing to devote myself in future to the Game—the Game, the whole Game, and nothing but the Game.” Chapter XXV. The Dull Facts The Dormy-house, Paston Oatvile, Binver My dear Gordon, Reeves has just been in to inform me that Davenant has been hung. A laughable misconception, of course; he has not been hung, he has been hanged.