Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ Rupert broke the door in like a bandbox, and we fell into the sudden blackness of the sealed, unlighted room.
Rupert stood on the threshold, and called out like a man calling into an abyss:
"Whoever you are, come out. You are free. The people who held you captive are captives themselves. We heard you crying and we came to deliver you. We have bound your enemies up-stairs hand and foot. ”

“ Without another word Rupert lit the gas again. The little old lady turned her bird-like head as we all stumbled forward in the strong gaslight. Then, with a quickness that almost made me jump, she sprang up and swept a sort of old-fashioned courtesy or reverence. I looked quickly at Greenwood and Burrows, to whom it was natural to suppose this subservience had been offered. ”

“ Basil, somehow, had hold of the other. Burrows' huge fist and those of the footmen were battering Basil's sunken head like an anvil, but nothing could get the giant's ankle out of his sudden and savage grip. While his own head was forced slowly down in darkness and great pain, the right leg of his captor was being forced in the air. ”

“ Come along, Rupert."
"Basil," said Rupert, desperately, "for God's sake come and see what you can make of the woman down-stairs. I can't get the discomfort out of my mind. I admit that things look as if we had made a mistake. But these gentlemen won't mind, perhaps ..."
"No, no," cried Burrows, with a sort of Rabelaisian uproariousness. "No, no, look in the pantry, gentlemen. Examine the coal-hole. Make a tour of the chimneys. There are corpses all over the house, I assure you." ”

“ Of course we shall be near enough to hear if you yell, but these devils might do some thing—something sudden—or odd. I can't feel it's safe."
"I know of nothing that is safe," said Basil, composedly, "except, possibly—death," and he went up the steps and rang at the bell. When the massive, respectable door opened for an instant, cutting a square of gaslight in the gathering dark, and then closed with a bang, burying our friend inside, we could not repress a shudder. ”

“ Greenwood dashed to the bell and pulled it violently, sending peals through the great house. Before I could get panting to my feet, and before Rupert, who had been literally stunned for a few moments, could even lift his head from the floor, two footmen were in the room. Defeated even when we were in a majority, we were now outnumbered. Greenwood and one of the footmen flung themselves upon me, crushing me back into the corner upon the wreck of the paper-basket. The other two flew at Basil and pinned him against the wall. Rupert lifted himself on his elbow, but he was still dazed. ”

“ The black, glaring figure in the portico did not stir. I almost thought it was really a statue. In another moment the gray area was golden with gaslight as the basement door was opened suddenly and a small and decorous housemaid stood in it.
"Pray excuse me," said Rupert, in a voice which he contrived to make somehow or other at once affable and underbred, "but we thought perhaps that you might do some thing for the Waifs and Strays. We don't expect—"
"Not here," said the small servant, with the incomparable severity of the menial of the non-philanthropic, and slammed the door in our faces. ”

“ OLD LADY
The conversation of Rupert Grant had two great elements of interest—first, the long fantasias of detective deduction in which he was engaged, and, second, his genuine romantic interest in the life of London. His brother Basil said of him: "His reasoning is particularly cold and clear, and invariably leads him wrong. But his poetry comes in abruptly and leads him right." Whether this was true of Rupert as a whole, or no, it was certainly curiously supported by one story about him which I think worth telling. ”

“ Mr. Burrows was saying, lying on his back and arguing easily with Basil; "but we must consider the matter as it appears to our senses. The origin of morality ..."
"Basil," cried Rupert, gasping, "she won't come out."
"Who won't come out?" asked Basil, a little cross at being interrupted in an argument.
"The lady down-stairs," replied Rupert. "The lady who was locked up. She won't come out. And she says that all she wants is for us to let these fellows loose." ”

“ Basil Grant looked at us both seriously.
"Of course, if you feel like that," he said, "we'll investigate further. You'll find it's all right, though. They're only two young Oxford fellows. Extremely nice, too, though rather infected with this pseudo-Darwinian business. Ethics of evolution, and all that."
"I think," said Rupert, darkly, ringing the bell, "that we shall enlighten you further about their ethics." ”

“ I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now that they talk about the survival of the fittest they think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean. ”

“ I want to get a paper before the omnibus comes."
"Oh, curse the paper!" cried Rupert, in a fury, "Do you mean to tell me, Basil Grant, that you are going to leave a fellow-creature in pitch darkness in a private dungeon, because you've had ten minutes talk with the keepers of it and thought them rather good men?"
"Good men do commit crimes sometimes," said Basil, taking the ticket out of his mouth. "But this kind of good man doesn't commit that kind of crime. ”

“ What are we going to do, I mean!" cried Rupert. "What about the poor woman locked up in that house? Shall I go for the police?"
Basil's face cleared with immediate comprehension, and he laughed.
"Oh, that," he said. "I'd forgotten that. That's all right. Some mistake, possibly. Or some quite trifling private affair. But I'm sorry those fellows couldn't come with us. Shall we take one of these green omibuses? There is a restaurant in Sloane Square."
"I sometimes think you play the fool to frighten us," I said, irritably. "How can we leave that woman locked up? ”

“ Then to our great surprise the old lady walked slowly back to her seat by the window.
"Do I understand," she said, with the air of a person about to begin knitting, "that you have knocked down Mr. Burrows and tied him up?"
"We have," said Rupert, proudly; "we have resisted their oppression and conquered it." ”

“ The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science."
"That is all very well," said the big young man, whose name appeared to be Burrows. "Of course, in a sense, science, like mathematics or the violin, can only be perfectly understood by specialists. Still, the rudiments may be of public use. Greenwood here," indicating the little man in the blazer, "doesn't know one note of music from another. ”

“ When he did listen, he listened attentively, walking between us up and down the lamp-lit street, while we told him in a rather feverish duet of the great house in South Kensington, of the equivocal milkman, of the lady imprisoned in the basement and the man staring from the porch. At length he said:
"If you're thinking of going back to look the thing up, you must be careful what you do. It's no good you two going there. To go twice on the same pretext would look dubious. To go on a different pretext would look worse. ”

“ Burrows," he said, settling himself sociably in the chair, "there's no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument. I'm sorry that you have to express yourself lying on your back on the floor, and, as I told you before, I've no more notion why you are there than the man in the moon. A conversationalist like yourself, however, can scarcely be seriously handicapped by any bodily posture. You were saying, if I remember right, when this incidental fracas occurred, that the rudiments of science might with advantage be made public." ”

“ Greenwood."
In a dazed and automatic way I released the little gentleman in the purple jacket, who did not seem to regard any of the proceedings as particularly sensible or brilliant. The gigantic Burrows, on the other hand, was heaving with herculean laughter.
"Well," said Basil, in his cheeriest way, "I think we must be getting away. We've so much enjoyed our evening. Far too much regard for you to stand on ceremony. If I may so express myself, we've made ourselves at home. ”

“ Still one must side with one's old friends against the most fascinating new ones. Permit me, therefore, in tying you up in this antimacassar, to make it as commodious as handcuffs can reasonably be while ..."
I had staggered to my feet. The gigantic Burrows was toiling in the garrote of Rupert, while Basil was striving to master his mighty hands. Rupert and Basil were both particularly strong, but so was Mr. Burrows; how strong, we knew a second afterwards. His head was held back by Rupert's arm, but a convulsive heave went over his whole frame. ”

“ Rupert Grant was staring at his brother, his mouth fallen agape. So, for the matter of that, I expect, was I. This, then, was the explanation of the old lady's strange discontent and her still stranger content with her lot. She was one of the culprits of his Voluntary Criminal Court. She was one of the clients of his Queer Trade.
We were still dazed when we drank, amid a crash of glasses, the health of Basil's new judiciary. We had only a confused sense of everything having been put right, the sense men will have when they come into the presence of God. We dimly heard Basil say:
"Mr. ”

“ Montmorency, the Arboreal House-Agent, seated between the two brisk young men who were occasionally vicars and always Professional Detainers. There was Mr. P. G. Northover, founder of the Adventure and Romance Agency. There was Professor Chadd, who invented the Dancing Language. ”