Let us gather together in the great cities, and light huge bonfires of a
million gas-jets, and shout and sing together, and feel brave.
Harris asked me if I'd ever been in the maze at Hampton Court. He said
he went in once to show somebody else the way. He had studied it up in a
map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish - hardly worth the
twopence charged for admission. Harris said he thought that map must
have been got up as a practical joke, because it wasn't a bit like the
real thing, and only misleading. It was a country cousin that Harris
took in. He said:
"We'll just go in here, so that you can say you've been, but it's very
simple. It's absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first
turning to the right. We'll just walk round for ten minutes, and then go
and get some lunch."
They met some people soon after they had got inside, who said they had
been there for three-quarters of an hour, and had had about enough of it.
Harris told them they could follow him, if they liked; he was just going
in, and then should turn round and come out again. They said it was very
kind of him, and fell behind, and followed.
They picked up various other people who wanted to get it over, as they
went along, until they had absorbed all the persons in the maze. People
who had given up all hopes of ever getting either in or out, or of ever
seeing their home and friends again, plucked up courage at the sight of
Harris and his party, and joined the procession, blessing him. Harris
said he should judge there must have been twenty people, following him,
in all; and one woman with a baby, who had been there all the morning,
insisted on taking his arm, for fear of losing him.
Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed a long way, and his
cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze.
"Oh, one of the largest in Europe," said Harris.
"Yes, it must be," replied the cousin, "because we've walked a good two
miles already."
Harris began to think it rather strange himself, but he held on until, at
last, they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that Harris's
cousin swore he had noticed there seven minutes ago. Harris said: "Oh,
impossible!" but the woman with the baby said, "Not at all," as she
herself had taken it from the child, and thrown it down there, just
before she met Harris. She also added that she wished she never had met
Harris, and expressed an opinion that he was an impostor.
