Everyone uses the bell, thought Burton, except policemen. They knock.
Moments later, Burton heard Mrs. Angell's voice and the piping tones of Algernon, footsteps on the stairs, and the staccato rap of a cane on his study door.
He turned from the window and called, "Come in, Algy!"
Swinburne bounced in and enthusiastically announced, "Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things."
"And what's prompted that declaration?" enquired Burton.
"I just saw one of the new rotorships! It was huge! How godlike we have become that we can send tons of metal gliding through the air! My hat! You've acquired new bruises! Was it Jack again? I saw in the evening edition that he pounced on a girl in the early hours."
"A rotorship? What did it look like? I haven't seen one yet."
Swinburne threw himself into an armchair, hooking a leg over one arm. He placed his top hat onto the end of his cane, held up the stick, and made the hat spin.
"A vast platform, Richard, flat and oval shaped, with a great many pylons extending horizontally from its edge, and, at their ends, vertical shafts at the tip of which great wings were spinning so fast that only a circular blur was visible. It was leaving an enormous trail of steam. Did he beat you up again?"
"On its way to India, perhaps," mused Burton.
"Yes, I should think so. But listen to this: it had propaganda painted on its keel. Enormous words!"
"Saying what?"
"Saying: `Citizen! The Society of Friends of the Air Force summons you to its ranks! Help to build more ships like this!"'
Burton raised an eyebrow. "The Technologists are certainly on the up as far as public opinion is concerned. It seems they intend to make the most of it!"
"What a sight it was," enthused Swinburne. "I expect it could circle the globe without landing once! So tell me about the pummelling."
"I'm surprised at your enthusiasm," commented Burton, ignoring the question. "I thought you Libertines were dead set against such machines. You know they'll be used to conquer the so-called uncivilised."
"Well, yes, of course," responded Swinburne, airily. "But one can't help but be impressed by such impossibilities as flying ships of metal! Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron shall a nation be moulded to last! Anyway, old chap, answer my confounded question! How come the new bruises?"
"Oh," said Burton. "Just a tumble or two. I was clobbered by a werewolf, then, a few hours later, Spring Heeled Jack dragged my rotorchair out of the sky and sent me crashing through some treetops."
Swinburne grinned. "Yes, but really, what happened?"
"Exactly that."
The young poet threw his topper at the explorer in exasperation. Burton caught it and tossed it back.
Swinburne sighed, and said, "If you don't want to explain, jolly good, but at least tell me what's on the menu for tonight. Alcoholic excesses? Or maybe something different for a change? I've been thinking it might be fun to try opium."
Blake slipped out of his jubbah and reached for his jacket, which he'd thrown carelessly over the back of a chair.
"You'll stay well away from that stuff, Algernon. Your self-destructive streak is dangerous enough as it is. Alcohol is going to kill you slowly, I have no doubt. Opium will do the job with far greater efficiency!" He buttoned up his jacket. "Why you want to do away with yourself, I cannot fathom," he continued.
"Pshaw!" objected Swinburne, jumping up and pressing his topper down over his wild carroty hair. "I have no intention of killing myself. I'm just bored, Richard. Terribly, terribly bored. The ennui of this pointless existence gnaws at my bones."
He began to dance crazily around the room.
"I'm a poet! I need stimulation! I need danger! I need to tread that thin line 'twixt life and death, else I have no experience worth writing about!"
Burton gazed at the capering little slope-shouldered man. "You are serious?"
"Of course! You yourself write poetry. You know that the form is but a container. What have I, a twenty-four year old, to pour into that container but the pathetic dribblings of an immature dilettante? Do you know what they wrote about me in the Spectator? They said: `He has some literary talent but it is decidedly not of a poetical kind. We do not believe any criticism will help to improve Mr. Swinburne.'
"I want to improve! I want to be a great poet or I am nothing, Richard! To do that I must truly live. And a man can only truly live when Death is his permanent companion. Did I ever tell you about the time I climbed Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight?"
Burton shook his head. Swinburne stopped his bizarre hopping and they crossed to the door, went out, and started down the stairs.
"It was Christmas, 1854," said his friend. "I was seventeen and my father had refused to buy me a commission as a cavalry officer. Denied a role in the war, how could I tell whether I possessed courage or not? It was all very well to dream of forlorn hopes and cavalry charges but for all I knew, when faced with the reality of war, I might be a coward! I had to test myself, Richard; so that Christmas I walked to the eastern headland of the island."
They exited the house and turned up their collars. It was getting colder.
"Where are we going?" asked Swinburne.
"Battersea."
"Battersea? Why, what's there?"
"The Tremors."
"Is that an affliction?"
"It's a public house. This way. I want to find my local paperboy first."
"Why all the way to Battersea just for a drink?"
"I'll tell you when we get there! Continue your story."
"You know Culver Cliff? It's a great face of chalk cut through with bands of flint. Very sheer. So I decided to climb it as a test of my mettle. On the first attempt, I came to an impassable overhang and had to make my way down again to choose a different route. I started back up, setting my teeth and swearing to myself that I would not come down alive again-if I did return to the foot of that blessed cliff, it would be in a fragmentary condition! So I edged my way up and the wind blew into the crevasses and hollows and made a sound like an anthem from the Eton Chapel organ. Then, as I edged ever higher, a cloud of seagulls burst from a cave and wheeled around me and for a moment I feared they would peck my eyes out. But still I ascended, though every muscle complained. I had almost reached the top when the chalk beneath my footholds crumbled away and I was left dangling by my hands from a ledge which just gave my fingers room enough to cling and hold on while I swung my feet sideways until I found purchase. I was able to pull myself up and over the lip of the cliff and there I lay so exhausted that I began to lose consciousness. It was only the thought that I might roll back over the edge that roused me."
"And thus you proved your courage to your satisfaction?" asked Burton.
"Yes, but I learned more than that. I learned that I can only truly live when Death threatens, and I can only write great poems when I feel Life coursing through my veins. My enemy is ennui, Richard. It will kill me more surely and more foully than either alcohol or opium, of that I am certain."
Burton pondered this until, a few minutes later, they caught up with young Oscar in Portman Square.
"I say, Quips!"
"What ho, Captain! You'll be taking an evening edition?" The youngster smiled.
"No, lad-I need information that I won't find in the newspaper. It's worth a bob or two."
"A couple of years ago, Captain, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I'm older, I know that it is! You have yourself a deal. What is it that you're after knowing?"