The Flying Inn | Page 3

heaven. The young lady, looking at the
sea-green horizon with a smile, clapped her grey gloved hands softly
together as if at a peroration. But 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