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THREE:"A hill between Han-kow and Han-yang rises about six hundred feet, and affords one of the finest views in the world, and, in some respects, one of the most remarkable. We climbed there yesterday a little before sunset, and remained as long as the fading daylight and the exigencies of our return permitted. At our feet lay the Yang-tse, rolling towards the sea after its junction with the Han, which we could trace afar, like a ribbon of silver winding through the green plain. Away to the west was a range of mountains, lighted by the setting sun, and overhung with golden and purple clouds; while to the south was an undulating country, whose foreground was filled with the walled city of Wo-chang. The crenelated walls enclose an enormous space, much of which is so desolate that foreigners are accustomed to hunt pheasants and hares within the limits. They say that at one time all this space was covered with buildings, and that the buildings were crowded with occupants. The three cities suffered terribly during the rebellion, and more than three fourths of their edifices were levelled. Looking from the hill, it is easy to see the traces of the destruction, although twenty years have passed since the insurrection was suppressed. The population of the three cities was said to have been four or five millions; but, even after making allowance for the density with which Chinese cities are crowded, I should think those figures were too high. However, there is no doubt that it was very great, and probably more people lived here than on any similar area anywhere else in the world."Keeling went out through his book department, where he nodded to Propert, into the bustle of the square, noticing, with a satisfaction that never failed him, as he walked by the various doors of his block of building, how busy was the traffic in and out of the Stores. It was still an hour to sunset: on the left the municipal offices and town-hall rose pretentious and hideous against the blue of the southern sky, while in front to{82} the west the gray Gothic glories of the Cathedral, separated from the square by a line of canonical houses, aspired high above the house-roofs and leaf-laden elm-towers in the Close. The fact struck him that the front of the town-hall, with its wealth of fussy adornment, its meaningless rows of polished marble pilasters, its foolish little pinnacles and finials, was somehow strangely like the drawing-room in his own house, with its decorations selected by the amazingly futile taste of his wife. There was a very similar confusion of detail about the two, a kindred ostentation of unnecessary objects. There was waste in them both, expense that was not represented on the other side of the ledger by a credit balance of efficiency. No one took pleasure in the little pink granite pilasters between the lights of the windows in the town-hall, and certainly they were entirely useless. The money spent on them was thrown away: whereas money spent ought to yield its dividend, producing either something that was useful or something that gave pleasure. If you liked a thing it was worth paying for it, if it was directly useful it was worth paying for it. But where was the return on the money spent on pink pilasters or on the lilies painted on the huge looking-glass above his wife’s drawing-room chimney-piece? Those lilies certainly were not useful, since they prevented the mirror exercising its proper function of reflecting what stood in front of it. Or did they yield{83} a dividend in pleasure to Emmeline? He did not believe that they did: he felt sure that she had just bought No. 1 drawing-room suite dining-room suite with extras, as set forth in his catalogue. He knew the catalogues well: with extras No. 1 suite came to ￡117. It had much in common with the front of the town-hall. So, too, if you came to consider it, had the crocodile with the calling-cards in the abominable hall.

THREE:

THREE:CHAPTER VI

THREE:"If I go to sleep," I said,--"you know how I dream. I shall have one of those dreams of mine to carry around in my memory for a year, like a bullet in my back." So there the dear fellow had sat all night to give me my hourly powders of reassurance that I could be a quartermaster's clerk without shame.

THREE:"Hydrophobia," flashed through the Doctor's mind, but he dismissed the idea immediately. He had lit a cigarette in order to soothe his nerves. He was trying so hard to rationalise the whole proceeding, to fit the Clockwork man into some remotely possible order of things; but it was a difficult process, for no sooner had he grouped certain ideas in his head than some fresh manifestation took place which rendered all previous theories futile. At the present moment, for instance, it was obvious that some new kind of structural alteration was taking place in the Clockwork man's physiognomy. The phenomenon could[Pg 151] hardly be classed in the same category as the sudden growth of beard, although there were points in common. Hair was again visible, this time spread all over the rounded face and on the jaw; the nose was receding and flattening out; the eyes were dwindling in size, and the expression in them changed into a dull stare. The bark was repeated and followed by an angry rumbling.