Mr. Archer moved heavily in the direction of a plot of cabbages, where many monstrous contours and many colours were open to the eye; objects, perhaps, more worthy of the philosophic eye than is usually taken into account. Vegetables are curious-looking things and less trivial than they sound. If we called a cabbage a cactus, or some other exotic name, we might see it as an equally exotic thing.

The Colonel revealed these philosophical truths by dragging a great, green cabbage with its long root out of the earth, before the dubious Archer had time to do it. He then picked up a knife and cut short the long tail of the root. After that he cut out the inside leaves to create some empty space, and gravely reversing it, placed it on his head. Napoleon and other military princes have crowned themselves; and he, like the Caesars, wore a wreath that was, after all, made of green leaves or vegetation. There can be other historical parallels, of course, if the reader is ready to look at such a hat without judgement.

The people going to church certainly looked at it; but they did not look at it without judgement. They followed the Colonel as he walked almost cheerfully up the road, with feelings that no philosophy could for the moment describe. There seemed to be nothing to be said, except that one of the most respectable and respected of their neighbours, one who might even be called in a quiet way an example of good manners if not a leader of fashion, was walking solemnly up to church with a cabbage on the top of his head.

There was indeed no general action to meet the crisis. In their world a crowd could not gather to shout or to attack someone. No rotten eggs could be collected from their tidy breakfast-tables; and they were not those people who could throw old cabbage leaves at the cabbage. Each of these men lived alone and they could not create an angry crowd. For miles around there were no public houses[4] and no public opinion.

When the Colonel approached the church porch and prepared respectfully to remove his vegetarian hat, he was greeted in a tone a little more cheerful than the everyday friendly manners of his neighbours. He responded to the greeting without embarrassment, and paused for a moment when the man who had spoken to him decided to continue speeking. This was a young doctor named Horace Hunter, tall, handsomely dressed, and confident in manners. Though his face was rather ordinary and his hair rather red, he was considered to have a certain charm.

“Good morning, Colonel,” said the doctor more loudly than usual, “what a f… what a fine day it is.”

Stars turned from their courses like comets, so to speak, and the world moved towards wilder variants, at that crucial moment when Dr. Hunter corrected himself and said, “What a fine day!” instead of “What a funny hat!” The reason why he corrected himself, a true picture of what passed through his mind might sound rather exotic in itself. It would be less than enough to say he did so because of a long grey car waiting outside the Colonel’s house. It might not be a complete explanation to say it was because of a lady walking on stilts at a garden party. It might still not be clear, even if we said that it had something to do with a nickname; nevertheless all these things mixed together in the medical gentleman’s mind when he made his decision. Above all, it might or might not be sufficient explanation to say that Horace Hunter was a very ambitious young man, that the ring in his voice and the confidence in his manner came from a very simple resolution to rise in the world.