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backs of my books in the bookcase, reading the titles, as one always does in a strange house. I woke up suddenly from my abstraction to hear him say, “I see you’ve got Rutherford’s book there.” And he indicated
The Aryan Flow
stuck in among the novels.
    When I was at college I was interested for a very short time in the movements of the races of peoples about the world, and this volume was a relic of that passing enthusiasm. I had not opened it for at least ten years, but it was there still. I said idly, “I think it’s very good.”
    He got up and picked the book out of the shelf, and turned the pages. “Sharon Turner covers much of the same ground,” he said. “But it’s Rutherford who identifies the ten tribes with the Scythians. And after all, that must have been the most difficult part, mustn’t it?”
    I was a little at a loss. “I’ve really rather forgotten,” I said. “It’s a long time since I read it.”
    “You ought to look it over again,” he said earnestly. “It was the most wonderful migration in the world.” He stared at me through his thick glasses. “The ten tribes, led away into captivity by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria—that’s all in the Second Book of Esdras. The Persians called them Sakae—our word Saxon, of course, and Rutherford proves their identity with the Scythians. And then, from his end, Sharon Turner traces back the Anglo-Saxons all through Europe to the Scythians. It’s fascinating.”
    I was completely out of my depth. “Absolutely,” I said.
    He went on, “It explains so much. The Druidic forms of worship, that were nothing but the old religion of Israel brought here in its entirety.” He paused and then said, “That’s what impressed Joseph of Arimathea so much when first he came to England on his tin business. That’s why he brought his nephew here when He was a little boy, because he saw the Child was something quite unusual, and he wanted Him to come in contact with the priests of England. That’swhy Our Lord came back to Glastonbury as a young man and lived here for years before His ministry, because he had to live in the precepts of the old Israel which the Druid priests had kept here undebased. That’s why Joseph came back to Glastonbury with Martha and Mary and Lazarus after the death of Christ, because they wanted to settle down and found His church in the place that He had loved so well.”
    The Reindeer tail, he said, would come to bits in 1,440 hours. “I’m not very well up in all this, I’m afraid,” I said.
    He put the book back carefully upon the shelf. “It’s the most fascinating story in the world,” he said quietly. “It explains so much. That’s why Simon Zelotes, His apostle, came here as soon as he could. That’s why St. Paul came here.” He drew himself up, a short, earnest, spectacled figure, not unimpressive. “That’s why the English are the greatest people in the world and always will be, because in the beginning we were blessed by the advice and the example and the teaching of the greatest people who have ever lived.”
    Elspeth came running into the room, and saved me from the necessity of commenting on that. Her father took off his thick glasses and wiped them, and said, “Finished the washing up?”
    She nodded. “Daddy, Mrs. Scott washes up with a little mop so that you never have to put your hands into the water at all! Isn’t that a good idea? May we have a little mop like that?”
    He blinked at her without his glasses. “Mop?”
    She pulled him by the sleeve. “Daddy, come and see. And they’ve got hot water all the time, made by the electricity!” She drew him away into our little kitchenette to see these wonders for himself.
    They went away soon after that, absurdly grateful for the trivial hospitality that we had shown to them. We closed the front door behind them and went back to the sitting-room. “I rather like your Mr. Honey,” Shirley said. “But he does look a mess.”
    “That’s just