And at that, standing pinioned on the steps of his discredited Ministry, looking down on the crowd of the injured, contemptuous British public, who were out to wreck the things he cared for, he began to laugh himself. His laughter was naturally unheard, but they saw his face, which should have been downcast and ashamed, twist into his familiar, sad, cynical smile, which all who had heard him on platforms knew. "Laughing, are you," someone shouted thickly. "Laughing at the people you've tricked! You've ruined me and my missus--taken every penny we had, just because we had twins--and you--you stand there and laugh! You--you bloody married imbecile!" Lurching up the steps, he flung himself upon Chester and wrenched him from the relaxed hold of his captors. Struggling together, the Minister and his assailant stumbled down the steps, and then fell headlong among the public. 3 When the mounted police finally succeeded in dispersing the crowd, the Ministry of Brains was in flames, like Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked cities. Unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, the conflagration was at last quenched by a fire engine. But far into the night the red wreckage blazed, testimony to the wrath of a great people, to the failure of a great idea, to the downfall of him who, whatever the weakness he shared in common with the public who downed him, was yet a great man. CHAPTER XII DEBRIS 1 Chester lay with a broken head and three smashed ribs in his flat in Mount Street. He was nursed by his elder sister Maggie, a kind, silent, plain person with her brother's queer smile and more than his cynical patience. With her patience took the form of an infinite tolerance; the tolerance of one who looks upon all human things and sees that they are not much good, nor likely to be. (Chester had not his fair share of this patience: hence his hopes and his faiths, and hence his downfall.) She was kind to Kitty, whose acquaintance she now made. (The majority of the Ministry of Brains staff were having a short holiday, during the transference to other premises.) Maggie said to Kitty, "I'm not surprised. It was a lot to live up to. And it's not in our family, living up to that. Perhaps not in any family. I'm sorry for Nicky, because he'll mind." She did not reproach Kitty; she took her for granted. Such incidents as Kitty were liable to happen, even in the best regulated lives. When Kitty reproached herself, saying, "I've spoilt his life," she merely replied tranquilly, "Nicky lets no one but himself spoil his life. When he's determined to do a thing, he'll do it." Nor did she commit herself to any indication as to whether she thought that what Nicky had gained would be likely to compensate for what he had lost.