The Flying Inn | Page 3

the little old man with the fez was far from exhausted yet.
"In reply to this you will object--" he began.
"O no, no," breathed the young lady in a sort of dreamy rapture. "I don't object. I don't object the littlest bit!"
"In reply to this you will object--" proceeded her preceptor, "that some inns are actually named after the symbols of your national superstitions. You will hasten to point out to me that the Golden Cross is situated opposite Charing Cross, and you will expatiate at length on King's Cross, Gerrard's Cross and the many crosses that are to be found in or near London. But you must not forget," and here he wagged his green umbrella roguishly at the girl, as if he was going to poke her with it, "none of you, my friends, must forget what a large number of Crescents there are in London! Denmark Crescent; Mornington Crescent! St. Mark's Crescent! St. George's Crescent! Grosvenor Crescent! Regent's Park Crescent! Nay, Royal Crescent! And why should we forget Pelham Crescent? Why, indeed? Everywhere, I say, homage paid to the holy symbol of the religion of the Prophet! Compare with this network and pattern of crescents, this city almost consisting of crescents, the meagre array of crosses, which remain to attest the ephemeral superstition to which you were, for one weak moment, inclined."
The crowds on the beach were rapidly thinning as tea-time drew nearer. The west grew clearer and clearer with the evening, till the sunshine seemed to have got behind the pale green sea and be shining through, as through a wall of thin green glass. The very transparency of sky and sea might have to this girl, for whom the sea was the romance and the tragedy, the hint of a sort of radiant hopelessness. The flood made of a million emeralds was ebbing as slowly as the sun was sinking: but the river of human nonsense flowed on for ever.
"I will not for one moment maintain," said the old gentleman, "that there are no difficulties in my case; or that all the examples are as obviously true as those that I have just demonstrated. No-o. It is obvious, let us say, that the 'Saracen's Head' is a corruption of the historic truth 'The Saracen is Ahead'--I am far from saying it is equally obvious that the 'Green Dragon' was originally 'the Agreeing Dragoman'; though I hope to prove in my book that it is so. I will only say here that it is su-urely more probable that one poo-ooting himself forward to attract the wayfarer in the desert, would compare himself to a friendly and persuadable guide or courier, rather than to a voracious monster. Sometimes the true origin is very hard to trace; as in the inn that commemorates our great Moslem Warrior, Amir Ali Ben Bhoze, whom you have so quaintly abbreviated into Admiral Benbow. Sometimes it is even more difficult for the seeker after truth. There is a place of drink near to here called 'The Old Ship'--"
The eyes of the girl remained on the ring of the horizon as rigid as the ring itself; but her whole face had coloured and altered. The sands were almost emptied by now: the atheist was as non-existent as his God; and those who had hoped to know what was being done to the paper boxes had gone away to their tea without knowing it. But the young woman still leaned on the railing. Her face was suddenly alive; and it looked as if her body could not move.
"It shood be admitted--" bleated the old man with the green umbrella, "that there is no literally self-evident trace of the Asiatic nomenclature in the words 'the old ship.' But even here the see-eeker after Truth can poot himself in touch with facts. I questioned the proprietor of 'The Old Ship' who is, according to such notes as I have kept, a Mr. Pumph."
The girl's lip trembled.
"Poor old Hump!" she said. "Why, I'd forgotten about him. He must be very nearly as worried as I am! I hope this man won't be too silly about this! I'd rather it weren't about this!"
"And Mr. Pumph to-old me the inn was named by a vary intimate friend of his, an Irishman who had been a Captain in the Britannic Royal Navy, but had resigned his po-ost in anger at the treatment of Ireland. Though quitting the service, he retained joost enough of the superstition of your western sailors, to wish his friend's inn to be named after his old ship. But as the name of the ship was 'The United Kingdom--'"
His female pupil, if she could not exactly be said to be sitting at his feet, was undoubtedly leaning out very eagerly above his head. Amid the solitude of the