The
UNDEFEATED
BY
J. C. SNAITH
AUTHOR OF “THE SAILOR,” “BROKE OF COVENDEN,” ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK 1919
Copyright, 1919, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America.
DEDICATED RESPECTFULLY
TO
“A DECENT AND A DAUNTLESS PEOPLE”
IT was hot.
It was so hot that a certain Mr. William Hollissitting on an old bacon box in the lee of a summerhousein his lock-up garden had removed coat andwaistcoat tie and collar, rolled up the sleeves of hisshirt and loosened his braces. The presence of aneighbor’s elbows on the party hedge forbade a completereturn to nature, but the freedom of Old ManAdam from the restraints imposed by society was enviedjust now by one at least of his heirs.
By the side of Bill Hollis was a stone jar of Blackhamptonale, a famous brew, but even this could notsave him from gasping like a carp. It was a scorcherand no mistake—thick, slab and hazy, the sort of heatyou can almost cut with a knife.
Leaning gracefully across from the next plot wasa large, rotund gentleman with the face of a well-nourishedferret. Draped in an artful festoon beneathan old straw hat, a wreath of burdock leavesdefended him from the weather. “Mr. Hollis”—headdressed the man on the bacon box with conversational[Pg 2] charm—“ifyou want my opinion they’re puttingin a bit of overtime in Hell.”
“Mr. Goldman, you’ve got it.” His neighbor, a manof somber imagination, was struck by the force ofthe image. First he glanced up to a sky of burnishedcopper and then he glanced down over the edge ofsheer hillside upon which he and his friend werepoised like a couple of black ants on the face of a hayrick.Below he saw a cauldron in which seethed morethan a quarter of a million souls. Floating above thecauldron and its many thousands of chimneys was ahaze of soot thick enough to conceal what in point ofmere size was the fourteenth city of Great Britain.But speaking geographically, and Blackhampton’s inhabitantswere prone to do that, it was the exact centerof England, of the United Kingdom, of the BritishEmpire, and therefore—
Somewhere in the mind of William Hollis lurkeda poet, a philosopher and an artist. He pointed overthe dip of the hill into the middle of the cauldron.“Reminds me,” he said, half to himself, for he wasnot consciously an artist, “of the Inferno of Dant,with Lustrations by Door.”
Mr. Goldman frowned at the simile. What elsecould he do? He was a solid citizen, of a solid city,of a solid empire: he was n