Evening star., 1938-12-23
BY H. G.. WELLS.
Chapter 13.
Making of a Revolutionary.

VAnhAlS Vi u AcVOluIlOnaTy.
The two years that followed his
encounter with Chiffan had been
crowded with experience for Rud.
He had come up again to Camford
with a greatly enhanced self-con-
fldence. Chiffan had inflated and
confirmed and strengthened him
enormously. A certain shyness in
making personal contacts had di-
minished. He began to expect
things from people. to demand them
and get them. His revolutionary
conviction increased. He knew the
world was in phase of revolution
and that inevitably he had to play
part in 1t. He talked now to fell
low undergraduates and even to
young dons, very much as Chiffan
had talked to him. He took a first
class in his stride though he did
not get a fellowship. Then for a
while he felt his progress checked
He came down, he found himself
at home for time without a job
and the vaguest of plans. He got
some lecturing in a London college
and took mean lodgings in a back
street in Bloomsbury. His assured
income, he found, was less than in
his scholarship days. and in Lon
don poverty is more obvious and
CALLING than at Camford. He added
to his income by writing a book for
a publisher fortunately affected by
the series mania, and by doing
little reviewing of sociological and
historical books For a better part
of a year his political prospects ran
along cramped, unpromising lines.
Sense of Reality.
But nevertheless he had support
ers now and sense of reality about
his activities. At first he had been
disposed to conceal Chiffan from
Camford; he did not want Camford
to notice how much he owed to
Chiffan; then he felt the need of
him and got him to come up for
a week end of talk with the new
associates. They had formed a dis
cussion circle and Chiffan came
as their common guest. He did
much to confirm and develop their
impression of a certain large flex-
ibility about Rud's imagination, his
capacity for political enterprise and
the political effectiveness of his
storms of passionate speech.
Now, after phase of loneliness
doubt and depression in Blooms
bury. Rud found his friends turn
ing up in London and resuming
their Camford conversations with
him. One of his most steadfast
supporters was a rich young man
named Steenhold. Steenhold was
half American and he was in his
middle twenties. He had come up
to 'Camford explaining himself ra-
ther copiously; he did not want a
degree. he had said; he did not
need a degree. but he wanted to
learn; he wanted to see what Cam
ford had for him. He wore strange
clothes. he drank excessively and
then took to living on carrots and
water, he tried poetry of a mystical
inaccurate sort: he got as far with
art as investing in a painters out
flt, he tried on purple shirt but
stuck at JeW-baiting, he was drawn
TO Guidance for awhile, he was
member of the Communist party
for fortnight, and then he decided
that what Camford had for him was
Rud. And he settled down to be
Rud's disciple with a quite unpre-
cedented steadfastness. He liked
in particular the idea of a common
revolutionary movement in Britain
and America. He displayed a
strange prophetic insight. 'Rud's
real,' he said. "Rud's going far"
Two Large Flats.
He established himself in two
large flats in Camborne Square just
out OF the Euston road In the up
per one he lived, in the lower he
set up a sort of headquarters for
Rud and such Rudites as were gath
ering around him. He refreshed
them with sideboard bearing bread,
which they cut for themselves;
cheese, carrots, plentiful carrots,
apples, bananas, cider, water and
beer. The cider and beer were in
casks, and there were blue chequered
earthenware mugs, but no plates.
The floor OF this lower fiat was COW
cred with cork carpet, bathroom and
kitchenette included, and the walls
OF its four rooms were adorned with
a disorderly collection of election
posters, caricatures and very mod
ern pictures with a political bias.
There were chairs, forms, settee
or so, two sofas, five or six folding
beds, a spinet and several tables