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What actually happened was that Preston Eustace, exactly on time as was his habit, had been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy's hearth-rug when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities of a casual motor-bus engine, and frantic with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon him.
"What is it?" the old man croaked. "It is," said the acolyte, "the heart of the toad that dwelt once in Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany." The old man's crooked fingers closed on it, and he blessed the acolyte with his rasping voice and claw-like hand uplifted; the motor-bus rumbled above on its endless journey; far off the train shook Sloane Street.
There was this big harmony in little Minks that he envied. Minks had an outlet. Sydenham, and even the City, for him were fairyland; a motor-bus fed his inspiration as surely as a starlit sky; moon always rhymed with June, and forget with regret. But the inner world of Henry Rogers was not yet properly connected with the outer.
Magda felt herself pitched violently forward off the seat, striking her head as she fell, and while the car yet rocked with the force of its collision with the motor-bus another vehicle drove blindly into it from the rear. It lurched sickeningly and jammed at a precarious angle, canted up on two wheels.
The conductor who took her penny in the motor-bus never suspected that on the pane before her, where some Agency had caused to be printed in colour the words "Seek ye the Lord" she saw, in addition to the amazing oddness of the Anglo-Saxon race, a dangerous incitement to unfaith.
The members of the crowd follow their noses, and during the course of the day remark to acquaintances: "Saw a dog run over by a motor-bus in the Fulham Road this morning! Killed dead!" And that is all they do remark. That is all they have witnessed. They have watched a dog run over. They analyse neither their sensations nor the phenomenon.
These were civilian volunteers, they had not even trenches to shelter them, and it took a rather unforeseen and difficult sort of courage to leave that fairly safe masonry building and sit smiling and helpful on top of a motor-bus during a wait of half an hour or so, any second of which might be one's last.
And betwixt the pedestrian and the motor-bus, there are many chances of safety that I could not foresee. The old gentleman was perhaps more spry than he looked. The nursemaids and the butcher's boy must assuredly have perished unless they happened to have their wits about them. But in all probability they did have their wits about them, and so did the driver of the motor-bus.
They'll lick your boots, and ask humbly if you can suggest any suitable person to represent you. I shall want all your energies, and my factory will be worth more to this country in the war than all the barracks under heaven. Now just bend your eye to these." He took some papers from his tail-pocket. The discussion grew technical. George sailed down Piccadilly westwards on the top of a motor-bus.
He explained the details to us all there, and pointed out on the maps as many of the geographical features of the forthcoming "show" as he could, after which he told us that, that very afternoon, we were all to go on a motor-bus, that would come for us, down to the allotted site for the "scrap," to have a look at the ground.
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