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It was night when Hogarth broke into the presence of Loveday at Cheyne Gardens with a glad face, crying: "Forgive me, my friend, for being a boor!"
"You are forgiven", Loveday answered with his smile, hastening to meet him: "the broken picture, you see, is in a better frame, and so are we. What could have made us invent a quarrel about—land, of all things!"
"Come, let us talk", said Hogarth: "not long—all about land, and sea, too. I suppose you have nothing to tell about my sister? Never mind—we shall find her. Come, sit and give me all your intelligence. You are not interested in land, then? You will be in ten minutes—it is interesting. Listen: all the land of the earth is mine , and all the sea especially—a good thing, for, for a hundred years Europe, especially England, has wanted a master: the anarchy of our modern life is too terrible! it cannot arrange itself; and now the hour has struck, though none has heard the bell".
"Hogarth! but you gabble like a mad god", cried Loveday. "I am all in the dark—"
"I will tell you".
And he spoke, first going into his discovery at Colmoor, frowning upon Loveday, ploughing the truth into his brow; proving how modern misery, in its complexity, had its cause in one simple old fault, sure as the fact that smoke ascends, or apples fall. And when he saw conviction beam in Loveday's face, he next told what had happened at the elm-tree, and what would happen-soon; whereat Loveday, like a frightened child, clung to his arm, and once gasped: "Oh no—my God!" and once felt a gory ghost raise horror in his hairs.
An hour afterwards they were bending over a sheet of paper, Hogarth in his shirt-sleeves, writing, Loveday overlooking, suggesting, when two men were announced, and in stepped O'Hara with bows and polished hesitations, followed by his shadow, Harris; and, "Ah, O'Hara…" cried Hogarth, still writing, "who is that with you?"
"A friend of mine", said Loveday, for O'Hara had introduced Harris to him, and he had adopted Harris as a human study, horrid, but amusing.
The moment O'Hara saw the face of Hogarth, he started, muttering:
"He has the diamonds back! God! is he a magician?"
And Harris drawled nasally: "Of course, you wouldn't know me now, Mr. 76! Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine, it is ".
Hogarth was silent—had not yet decided what to do with Harris.
"This is my tenth call here, Hogarth", said O'Hara, "in the hope of seeing you, and the streets, you know, are no small risk. You see how I am muffled up, and this gentleman, too. By the bye, I have selected a cargo of books for you—"
"No study for a month", said Hogarth, "but I shall want you all the same. Just come over here and watch me write this thing. You, Harris, sit right over there".
Harris cursed, but obeyed, while O'Hara came and bent under the golden glow of the silk shade a brow puckered with a care of puzzlement, as he read.
Then he fell into the work, and was soon the director of it— invaluable! knew everything! remembered forgotten points; explained technicalities; the proper person in each little State to whom the document must be directed, the style of addressing him. Of one sentence he said: "That will never do—lacks formality"; and of another: "Tut, they will laugh at that—it is provincial and insolent", distracted between the work and his brandy glass. At last, about eleven, the three brains had produced a letter.
Hogarth laid claim to the sea as his private property, and warned the nations.