"Lift," it was generally agreed, was a happier word than "elevator." Mrs. Chesterton thought that the scientific, technical, correct, or whatever you call them, words for things always took all the feeling of life out of them. "Aviator," for example, had no color at all. But how fine in the spirit of the thing was the popular term "flying-man," or "fly-man"! The conversation had got momentarily divided into groups. Mr. Chesterton was heard saying to Mr. Woollcott, "The time I mean was when Yeats was young--when mysticism was jazz." Just how he got started in on them I do not recall. He began with Belloc's most entertaining and highly vivacious ballad which has the refrain, "And Mrs. James will entertain the king"; a kind of a piece among friends, which unfortunately is not in any book. He recited with a kind of joyous unction, nodding his head forward and back from side to side, thus keeping time to the music of the verse, punctuating the close of each stanza with bubble of chuckles. On and on and on and on he went through goodness knows how many bits of rollicking literary fooling. It was half past eleven. I saw Mr. Chesterton, when someone else was speaking, yawn slightly now and then. The four callers arose to go. Some one of us asked Mr. Chesterton if he expected to be back in America soon. Through a wreath of smiles he replied that he was not getting a return ticket on the boat. The two of them were framed in their doorway as we got into the "foreigner's" car. Mrs. Chesterton called to us that she hoped to see us all in England, "singly or together." As the car dropped from their floor both were beaming a merry, friendly farewell. Suddenly it struck me that they were very like a pair of children--they were so happy, so natural, so innocent of guile, and obviously so fond of one another. CHAPTER XII NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM I think I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it's the same way with you. Anyhow, it's a mighty queer thing. And we ought to try to get some light on the matter--why there is, apparently, no reason or logic at all about our systems. You see, I go along a pretty fair amount of the time feeling all right; nothing wrong with my system; nothing, at any rate, that I can notice. Everybody says: "How well you're looking! Great color, you've got." And so on. Then, maybe, I see in the paper that there is an epidemic scheduled to devastate the city pretty soon. This news lays hold of me right off. The paper goes on to say that it behooves all citizens to take thought to fortify their systems against the ravages of this terrible disease which is rapidly approaching.