Down went the pen, and Richard Holderness stood up at his desk with outstretched hands. Macheson grasped them heartily and seated himself on the edge of the table.
"It's good to see you, Dick," he declared, "like coming back to the primitive forces of nature, unchanged, unchanging. The sight of you's enough to stop a revolution."
"You're feeling like that, are you?" his friend answered, his eyes fixed upon Macheson's face. "Yes, I see you are. Go ahead! Or will you smoke first?"
Macheson produced his pipe, and his host a great tin of honeydew. Macheson helped himself slowly. He seemed to be trying to gain time.
"Blessed compact, ours," the giant remarked, leaning back in his chair. "No probing for confidences, no silly questions. Out with it!"
"I've started wrong," Macheson said. "I'll have to go back on my tracks a bit anyway."
"Nothing like mistakes," he remarked. "Best discipline in the world."
"I started on a theory," Macheson continued thoughtfully. "It didn't pan out. The people I have been trying to get at are better left alone."
"I'll tell you," Macheson answered. "You know I've seen a bit of what we call village life. Their standard isn't high enough, of course. Things come too easily, their noses are too close to the ground. They are moderately sober, moderately industrious, but the sameness of life is at work all the time. It makes machines of the factory hands, animals of the country folk. I knew that before I started. I thought I could lift their heads a little. It's too big a task for me, Dick."
"Of course," Holderness assented. "You can't graft on to dead wood."
"They live decent lives--most of them," Macheson continued thoughtfully. "They can't understand that any change is needed, no more can their landlords, or their clergy. A mechanical performance of the Christian code seems all that any one expects from them. Dick, it's all they're capable of. You can't alter laws. You can't create intelligence. You can't teach these people spirituality."
"As well try to teach 'em to fly," Holderness answered. "I could have told you so before, if it had been of any use. What about these Welshmen, though?"
"It's hysteria," Macheson declared. "If you can get through the hide, you can make the emotions run riot, stir them into a frenzy. It's a debauch. I've been there to see. The true spiritual life is partly intellectual."