The vicarage slept. The vicar in his sleep had a puzzled frown, as if life was too much for him, as if he was struggling with forces above his comprehension and beyond his grasp, forces that should have revolutionised Little Chantreys, but, in his hands, wouldn't. The vicar's wife slept fitfully, waking to worry about the new cook, whose pastry was impossible. She wasn't clever enough to know that cooking shouldn't be done in this inefficient, wasteful way in the home, but co-operatively, in a village kitchen, and pastry should be turned out by a pastry machine. Mrs. Delmer had heard of this idea, but didn't like it, because it was new. She wasn't strong, and would die one day, worn out with domestic worries which could have been so easily obviated.... The young Delmers slept. They always did. They mostly ought not to have been born at all; they were, except Ivy, who was moderately intelligent, below standard. They slept the sleep of the unthinking. The vicarage girl slept. She would sleep for some time, because her alarum clock was smothered by a cushion; which would seem to indicate more brains on her part than were to be found in the other inmates of the vicarage. So Little Chantreys slept, and the world slept, governments and governed, forces of darkness and forces of light, industry and idleness, the sad and the gay; pathetic, untutored children of the moment looking neither behind nor ahead. The morning light, opening dimly, like a faintly-tinted flower, illumined the large red type of the poster in the Little Chantreys market place. "IMPROVE YOUR BRAINS!" So Brains Sunday dawned upon a world which did indeed seem to need it. CHAPTER III BRAINS SUNDAY 1