Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/303

 loyally with the powers of the future, though I wanted no share in the inheritance of the earth. Only, I was going to push into the future. One of the great carts got into motion amidst a shower of sounds that whirled upward round and round the well. The black hood swayed like the shoulders of an elephant as it passed beneath my feet under the arch. It disappeared—it was co-operating too; in a few hours people at the other end of the country—of the world—would be raising their hands. Oh, yes, it was co-operating loyally.

I closed the window. Soane was holding a champagne bottle in one hand. In the other he had a paper knife of Fox's—a metal thing, a Japanese dagger or a Deccan knife. He sliced the neck off the bottle.

"Thought you were going to throw yourself out," he said; "I wouldn't stop you. I'm sick of it . . . sick."

"Look at this . . . to-night . . . this infernal trick of Fox's . . . And I helped too . . . Why? . . . I must eat." He paused ". . . and drink," he added. "But there is starvation for no end of fools in this little