All Captains to regions infernal
I consign with both gusto and zest:
To Subalterns blankly uncivil,
I pronounce as my final belief,
That the man most akin to the "divvle"
Is that fiend—the Commander-in-Chief.
I could manage to be amused by that sort of artless
intolerance; but when "about the second hour" he
became disposed to speak disparagingly of Rivers, I
realized that he was exceeding the limit. How much
he knew about Rivers I didn't enquire. What he did
was to imply that a subtly disintegrating influence was
at work on my pacifist zealotry, and after these pre-
liminaries he disclosed the plan which he had formu-
lated for my liberation from the machinations of that
uniformed pathologist. With all the goodwill in the
world. Doctor Macamble advised me to abscond from
Slateford. I had only to take a train to London, and
once I was there he would arrange for me to be ex-
amined by an "eminent alienist35 who would infalli-
bly certify that I was completely normal and entirely
responsible for my actions. The word "alienist55 was
one of many whose exact meaning I had never iden-
tified in the dictionary. (I dimly associated it with a
celebrated Italian named Lombroso who probably
wasn't an alienist at all.) Macamble's man, he ex-
plained, was well known through his articles in the
Press; but unfortunately it transpired that it was the
popular rather than the pathological Press—the Daily
Mail, in fact. I suppose I ought to have waxed indig-
nant, but all I thought was, "Good Lord, he's trying
to persuade me to do the dirty on Rivers!" Keeping
this thought to myself, I remained reticent and parted
from him with the heartiest of handshakes. Did I ever
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