Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/32



HE Green Box, as we have just seen, had arrived in London, and was now established in Southwark. Ursus had been tempted by the bowling-green, which had one great recommendation,—it was always fair-day there, even in winter.

The dome of St. Paul's was a delight to Ursus. London, take it all in all, has some good in it. It was a brave thing to dedicate a cathedral to Saint Paul. The real cathedral saint is Saint Peter. Saint Paul is suspected of imagination, and in matters ecclesiastical imagination means heresy. Saint Paul is a saint only by virtue of extenuating circumstances. He entered heaven only through the artists' door. A cathedral is a sign. St. Peter is the sign of Rome, the city of dogma; St. Paul that of London, the city of schism.

Ursus, whose philosophy had arms so long that it embraced everything, was a man who appreciated these shades of difference; and his attraction towards London arose, perhaps, from a certain admiration for Saint Paul.

The yard of the Tadcaster Inn had taken Ursus' fancy. It might have been made for the Green Box. It was a theatre ready-made. It was square, enclosed by the inn on three sides and on the fourth by a wall. Against this wall was placed the Green Box, which they had been able to draw into the yard, owing to the height of the gate.