What Not. Macaulay Rose

that he would instal this delightful and expensive being in a real house, have a real infant, and really settle down, albeit socially ostracised in Buckinghamshire because imperfectly married (that was the fault of Pansy's husband, Mr. Jimmie Jenks, who, though he didn't want her himself, selfishly refused to sever the connection irrevocably).

      "What's the afternoon news?" enquired Mr. Amherst, as they walked up to the village.

      "Haven't seen a paper for half an hour," replied Prideaux, who kept his finger on the pulse of the nation and liked his news up to date. "I've got two five o'clock ones with me, though. The Leeds strike is rather worse, the Sheffield one rather better. The aero bus men are coming out on Monday. Dangerous unrest among Sussex shepherds and Cotswold cowmen." (Agricultural labour was now controlled by the State.) "Lord Backwoods has been speaking to his constituents against the Bill for disfranchising Conscientious Obstructionists of the Mental Progress Acts. A thoroughly seditious speech, of course. Poor old chap, his eldest-son has just got engaged to be married, so there'll be another family of Backwoods babies who ought never to exist. It will hit them heavily financially.... And the International Police have found another underground gun-factory near Munich, under a band-stand. And it's confirmed that old Tommy Jackson is to be Drink Controller."

      "Another good butler spoilt," observed Anthony Grammont. "He was a jolly good butler once. And he'll be a jolly bad Drink Controller."

      "Dear old Tommy," murmured Miss Ponsonby absently, lifting the Cheeper out of his motor-pram with one strong white hand and balancing him on her ample shoulders. "He was vurry kind to me in the dear old days, when I spent week-ends at Surrey Towers. He used to give me tips on Correct Conduct. I didn't take them; Correct Conduct wasn't what the people there asked me for; but I was grateful to Tommy."

      "If," said Anthony, "there is any member of a government department, existing, fallen, or yet to come, who has not in the dear old days been vurry kind to you, my dear Pansy, I should be rather glad to know his name."

      "Why, certainly," returned Pansy, with cheerful readiness. "Nicky Chester, the Brains Minister who's making himself such an all-round eternal nuisance, doesn't even realise I exist, and if he did he'd think I oughtn't."

      "That's where you're wrong, Pansy," Kitty said. "He thinks everyone ought to exist who does anything as well as you do your things. You're Starred A, aren't you?"

      "I've gone and lost the silly old bus ticket," said Pansy indifferently, "but that's what it said, I think." Starred A meant (in the words of the official definition) first-class ability at a branch of work which would not appear to be a valuable contribution to the general efficiency of the State. The Cheeper, child of a starred A mother and a B3 father (Anthony's brains had been reduced by trench-life; he had been quite intelligent at Oxford), was subject neither to bonus nor tax.

      "Anyhow," went on Pansy, grinning her wide, sweet, leisurely grin, "I think I see Nicky Chester sendin' me round flowers or goodies after a show! He's seen me, you know: he was in a box the first night of 'Hullo, Peace!' He laughed at the political hits, but my turns left him cold; I guess they weren't brainy enough." She tossed the Cheeper in the air and caught him, strongly and easily. "Make him supple young," she observed, "an' by the time he's six he'll be a star Child Gamboller, fit for revue. He takes after me. Already he can put both his big toes in his little mouth at once."

      "Very unusual, surely," remarked Mr. Amherst, looking at the Cheeper through his pince-nez as if he were an insect under a microscope. Mr. Amherst was fellow of an Oxford college, and had the academic touch, and was not yet entirely used to Pansy, a type outside his previous studies, and at no time would he be really used to anyone under eighteen years of age, let alone six months. Possibly this was what his reviewers meant when they said that he lacked the touch of common humanity.

      His attention was diverted from the Cheeper by the parish church, which he inspected with the same curiosity and distaste.

      "Organised Religion, I presume," he commented. "If you've no objection, Anthony, I will attend morning service there to-morrow. It may provide me with some valuable subject matter for my article."

      "We'll all go," said Kitty. "The End House shall set an example to the village. We'll take Cyril, too. He can get a dispensation. It's Brains Sunday, you know, and all patriotic clergymen will be preaching about it. Vernon and I are officially bound to be there."

      "I don't suppose it will be amusing," said Anthony. "But we'll go if you all want to."

      "Church," said Pansy, meditatively regarding the Early Perpendicular tower. "I went one Sunday morning." She paused reminiscently, and added, without chagrin, "The vicar turned me down."

      "He could hardly," said Mr. Amherst civilly, "do otherwise. Your position is not one which is at present recognised by Organised Religion."

      "Oh, he recognised it all right," Pansy explained. "That was just the trouble; he didn't like it.... He's not a bad old sort. He came to call afterwards, and told me all about it. He was quite upset. So was I, wasn't I, old thing?"

      "Not in the least," returned Anthony placidly.

      "I'd only wanted to do the proper thing," Pansy continued her unperturbed narrative, in her singularly beautiful voice. "I was always brought up to go to church now and then. I was confirmed all right. I like to do the proper thing. It only seems fair to the Cheeper to bring him up in the way he should go. I wouldn't care for him to grow up an agnogger, like all you people. But Mr. Delmer said my way of life was too ambiguous to square with comin' to church. Rather a sweet word, don't you think? Because it isn't ambiguous really, you know; not a bit, I'm afraid.... So when the Cheeper turned up, it seemed to me he was a bit ambiguous, too, an' that's why I haven't had him made a little Christian yet. The vicar says he can square that up all right—he called on purpose to tell me—but somehow we've never had the time to fix it, have we, darlin'? Tottie O'Clare promised me she'd be godmother if ever I did have him done...."

      "Pansy," said Anthony, "you're boring Amherst and Prideaux. They're not interested in babies, or baptisms, or Tottie O'Clare."

      Pansy smiled at them all out of her serene violet eyes. She looked like some stately, supple Aphrodite; she might, but for the delicate soupçon of powder and over-red lips, have sat for a madonna.

      "Pansy," said Kitty, "it's the Sistine Madonna you're like; I've got it at last. You're the divine type. You might be from heaven. You're so restful. We all spin and buzz about, trying to get things done, and to be clever and fussy and efficient—and you just are. You happen, like spring, or music. You're not a bit like Chester, but you're ever so much more important. Isn't she, Vernon?"

      "They're both," said Prideaux tactfully, "of enormous importance. And certainly, as you say, not in the least alike. Chester is neither like spring nor music, and certainly one wouldn't call him restful. And I should be a bit surprised to learn that heaven is where he either began or will end his career.... But, I ask you, look at that."

      They were passing the little Town Hall, that stood in the village market place. Its face was plastered with an immense poster, which Prideaux and Kitty surveyed with proprietary pride, Amherst with cynical amusement, Anthony with bored resignation, and Pansy and the Cheeper with placid wonder at the world's folly.

      "Ours is a wonderful government," Kitty commented. "And we are a wonderful ministry. Think of rural England all plastered with that.... I don't believe Chester laughs when he sees it, Vernon. I'm sure he looks at it proudly, like a solemn, earnest little boy."

      "And quite right too," said Prideaux, screwing his glass into his eye the better to read. For this was a new Ministry of Brains poster; new this week. It read, in large type, "Improve your Brains! Go in for the Government Course of Mind Training! It will benefit you, it will benefit your country, it will benefit posterity. Old Age must come. But it need not be a Doddering Old Age. Lay up Good Mental Capacities to meet it, and make it a Fruitful and Happy Time. See what the Mind Training Course has done for others, and let it Do the Same for You."

      Then, in smaller type, "Here are a few reports from those who have benefited by it.

      "From