"Who and what is Mr. Brope?" demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly.
Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct roses,
and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to mental
attention. She was one of those old-fashioned hostesses who consider
that one ought to know something about one's guests, and that the
something ought to be to their credit.
"I believe he comes from Leighton Buzzard," she observed by way of
preliminary explanation.
"In these days of rapid and convenient travel," said Clovis, who was
dispersing a colony of green-fly with visitations of cigarette smoke,
"to come from Leighton Buzzard does not necessarily denote any great
strength of character. It might only mean mere restlessness. Now if
he had left it under a cloud, or as a protest against the incurable and
heartless frivolity of its inhabitants, that would tell us something
about the man and his mission in life."
"What does he do?" pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially.
"He edits the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY," said her hostess, "and he's
enormously learned about memorial brasses and transepts and the
influence of Byzantine worship on modern liturgy, and all those sort of
things. Perhaps he is just a little bit heavy and immersed in one
range of subjects, but it takes all sorts to make a good house-party,
you know. You don't find him TOO dull, do you?"
"Dullness I could overlook," said the aunt of Clovis; "what I cannot
forgive is his making love to my maid."
"My dear Mrs. Troyle," gasped the hostess, "what an extraordinary idea!
I assure you Mr. Brope would not dream of doing such a thing."
"His dreams are a matter of indifference to me; for all I care his
slumbers may be one long indiscretion of unsuitable erotic advances, in
which the entire servants' hall may be involved. But in his waking
hours he shall not make love to my maid. It's no use arguing about it,
I'm firm on the point."
"But you must be mistaken," persisted Mrs. Riversedge; "Mr. Brope would
be the last person to do such a thing."
"He is the first person to do such a thing, as far as my information
goes, and if I have any voice in the matter he certainly shall be the
last. Of course, I am not referring to respectably-intentioned lovers."
"I simply cannot think that a man who writes so charmingly and
informingly about transepts and Byzantine influences would behave in
such an unprincipled manner," said Mrs. Riversedge; "what evidence have
you that he's doing anything of the sort? I don't want to doubt your
word, of course, but we mustn't be too ready to condemn him unheard,
must we?"
"Whether we condemn him or not, he has certainly not been unheard. He
has the room next to my dressing-room, and on two occasions, when I
dare say he thought I was absent, I have plainly heard him announcing
through the wall, 'I love you, Florrie.' Those partition walls
upstairs are very thin; one can almost hear a watch ticking in the next
room."
"Is your maid called Florence?"
"Her name is Florinda."
"What an extraordinary name to give a maid!"
"I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already
christened."
"What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with
unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it."
"An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I
have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."
She cut short Mrs. Riversedge's flood of apologies by abruptly
remarking:
"The question is not whether I'm to call my maid Florinda, but whether
Mr. Brope is to be permitted to call her Florrie. I am strongly of
opinion than he shall not."
"He may have been repeating the words of some song," said Mrs.
Riversedge hopefully; "there are lots of those sorts of silly refrains
with girls' names," she continued, turning to Clovis as a possible
authority on the subject. "'You mustn't call me Mary--'"
"I shouldn't think of doing so," Clovis assured her; "in the first
place, I've always understood that your name was Henrietta; and then I
hardly know you well enough to take such a liberty."
"I mean there's a SONG with that refrain," hurriedly explained Mrs.
Riversedge, "and there's 'Rhoda, Rhoda kept a pagoda,' and 'Maisie is a
daisy,' and heaps of others. Certainly it doesn't sound like Mr. Brope
to be singing such songs, but I think we ought to give him the benefit
of the doubt."
"I had already done so," said Mrs. Troyle, "until further evidence came
my way."
She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the
blessed certainty of being implored to open them again.
"Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!"
"As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was just passing my
room. In the most natural way in the world a piece of paper dropped
out of a packet that he held in his hand and fluttered to the ground
just at my door. I was going to call out to him 'You've dropped
something,' and then for some reason I held back and didn't show myself
till he was safely in his room. You see it occurred to me that I was
very seldom in my room just at that hour, and that Florinda was almost
always there tidying up things about that time. So I picked up that
innocent-looking piece of paper."
Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has
detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.
Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush,
incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was just coming
into bloom.
"What was on the paper?" she asked.
"Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and then underneath,
crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain to read, 'Meet me in
the garden by the yew.'"
"There IS a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs.
Riversedge.
"At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis.
"To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my
roof!" said Mrs. Riversedge indignantly.
"I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under a roof,"
observed Clovis; "I've always regarded it as a proof of the superior
delicacy of the cat tribe that it conducts most of its scandals above
the slates."
"Now I come to think of it," resumed Mrs. Riversedge, "there are things
about Mr. Brope that I've never been able to account for. His income,
for instance: he only gets two hundred a year as editor of the
CATHEDRAL MONTHLY, and I know that his people are quite poor, and he
hasn't any private means. Yet he manages to afford a flat somewhere in
Westminster, and he goes abroad to Bruges and those sorts of places
every year, and always dresses well, and gives quite nice
luncheon-parties in the season. You can't do all that on two hundred a
year, can you?"
"Does he write for any other papers?" queried Mrs. Troyle.
"No, you see he specializes so entirely on liturgy and ecclesiastical
architecture that his field is rather restricted. He once tried the
SPORTING AND DRAMATIC with an article on church edifices in famous
fox-hunting centres, but it wasn't considered of sufficient general
interest to be accepted. No, I don't see how he can support himself in
his present style merely by what he writes."
"Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts,"
suggested Clovis.
"How could you sell a transept?" said Mrs. Riversedge; "such a thing
would be impossible."
"Whatever he may do to eke out his income," interrupted Mrs. Troyle,
"he is certainly not going to fill in his leisure moments by making
love to my maid."
"Of course not," agreed her hostess; "that must be put a stop to at
once. But I don't quite know what we ought to do."
"You might put a barbed wire entanglement round the yew tree as a
precautionary measure," said Clovis.
"I don't think that the disagreeable situation that has arisen is
improved by flippancy," said Mrs. Riversedge; "a good maid is a
treasure--"
"I am sure I don't know what I should do without Florinda," admitted
Mrs. Troyle; "she understands my hair. I've long ago given up trying
to do anything with it myself. I regard one's hair as I regard
husbands: as long as one is seen together in public one's private
divergences don't matter. Surely that was the luncheon gong."
Septimus Brope and Clovis had the smoking-room to themselves after
lunch. The former seemed restless and preoccupied, the latter quietly
observant.
"What is a lorry?" asked Septimus suddenly; "I don't mean the thing on
wheels, of course I know what that is, but isn't there a bird with a
name like that, the larger form of a lorikeet?"
"I fancy it's a lory, with one 'r,'" said Clovis lazily, "in which case
it's no good to you."
Septimus Brope stared in some astonishment.
"How do you mean, no good to me?" he asked, with more than a trace of
uneasiness in his voice.
"Won't rhyme with Florrie," explained Clovis briefly.
Septimus sat upright in his chair, with unmistakable alarm on his face.
"How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying to get a
rhyme to Florrie?" he asked sharply.
"I didn't know," said Clovis, "I only guessed. When you wanted to turn
the prosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flitting through
the verdure of a tropical forest, I knew you must be working up a
sonnet, and Florrie was the only female name that suggested itself as
rhyming with lorry."
Septimus still looked uneasy.
"I believe you know more," he said.
Clovis laughed quietly, but said nothing.
"How much do you know?" Septimus asked desperately.
"The yew tree in the garden," said Clovis.
"There! I felt certain I'd dropped it somewhere. But you must have
guessed something before. Look here, you have surprised my secret.
You won't give me away, will you? It is nothing to be ashamed of, but
it wouldn't do for the editor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY to go in openly
for that sort of thing, would it?"
"Well, I suppose not," admitted Clovis.
"You see," continued Septimus, "I get quite a decent lot of money out
of it. I could never live in the style I do on what I get as editor of
the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY."
Clovis was even more startled than Septimus had been earlier in the
conversation, but he was better skilled in repressing surprise.
"Do you mean to say you get money out of--Florrie?" he asked.
"Not out of Florrie, as yet," said Septimus; "in fact, I don't mind
saying that I'm having a good deal of trouble over Florrie. But there
are a lot of others."
Clovis's cigarette went out.
"This is VERY interesting," he said slowly. And then, with Septimus
Brope's next words, illumination dawned on him.
"There are heaps of others; for instance:
'Cora with the lips of coral,
You and I will never quarrel.'
That was one of my earliest successes, and it still brings me in
royalties. And then there is--'Esmeralda, when I first beheld her,'
and 'Fair Teresa, how I love to please her,' both of those have been
fairly popular. And there is one rather dreadful one," continued
Septimus, flushing deep carmine, "which has brought me in more money
than any of the others:
'Lively little Lucie
With her naughty nez retroussé.'
Of course, I loathe the whole lot of them; in fact, I'm rapidly
becoming something of a woman-hater under their influence, but I can't
afford to disregard the financial aspect of the matter. And at the
same time you can understand that my position as an authority on
ecclesiastical architecture and liturgical subjects would be weakened,
if not altogether ruined, if it once got about that I was the author of
'Cora with the lips of coral' and all the rest of them."
Clovis had recovered sufficiently to ask in a sympathetic, if rather
unsteady, voice what was the special trouble with "Florrie."
"I can't get her into lyric shape, try as I will," said Septimus
mournfully. "You see, one has to work in a lot of sentimental, sugary
compliment with a catchy rhyme, and a certain amount of personal
biography or prophecy. They've all of them got to have a long string
of past successes recorded about them, or else you've got to foretell
blissful things about them and yourself in the future. For instance,
there is:
'Dainty little girlie Mavis,
She is such a rara avis,
All the money I can save is
All to be for Mavis mine.'
It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for months nothing
else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and other popular centres."
This time Clovis's self-control broke down badly.
"Please excuse me," he gurgled, "but I can't help it when I remember
the awful solemnity of that article of yours that you so kindly read us
last night, on the Coptic Church in its relation to early Christian
worship."
Septimus groaned.
"You see how it would be," he said; "as soon as people knew me to be
the author of that miserable sentimental twaddle, all respect for the
serious labours of my life would be gone. I dare say I know more about
memorial brasses than anyone living, in fact I hope one day to publish
a monograph on the subject, but I should be pointed out everywhere as
the man whose ditties were in the mouths of nigger minstrels along the
entire coast-line of our Island home. Can you wonder that I positively
hate Florrie all the time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated
rhapsodies about her."
"Why not give free play to your emotions, and be brutally abusive? An
uncomplimentary refrain would have an instant success as a novelty if
you were sufficiently outspoken."
"I've never thought of that," said Septimus, "and I'm afraid I couldn't
break away from the habit of fulsome adulation and suddenly change my
style."
"You needn't change your style in the least," said Clovis; "merely
reverse the sentiment and keep to the inane phraseology of the thing.
If you'll do the body of the song I'll knock off the refrain, which is
the thing that principally matters, I believe. I shall charge
half-shares in the royalties, and throw in my silence as to your guilty
secret. In the eyes of the world you shall still be the man who has
devoted his life to the study of transepts and Byzantine ritual; only
sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when the wind howls drearily
down the chimney and the rain beats against the windows, I shall think
of you as the author of 'Cora with the lips of coral.' Of course, if
in sheer gratitude at my silence you like to take me for a much-needed
holiday to the Adriatic or somewhere equally interesting, paying all
expenses, I shouldn't dream of refusing."
Later in the afternoon Clovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedge
indulging in gentle exercise in the Jacobean garden.
"I've spoken to Mr. Brope about F.," he announced.
"How splendid of you! What did he say?" came in a quick chorus from
the two ladies.
"He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that I knew
his secret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentions were quite
serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the
impracticability of the course that he was following. He said he
wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florinda would
excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were probably
dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English girls who
would be capable of understanding him, while Florinda was the only
person in the world who understood my aunt's hair. That rather weighed
with him, for he's not really a selfish animal, if you take him in the
right way, and when I appealed to the memory of his happy childish
days, spent amid the daisied fields of Leighton Buzzard (I suppose
daisies do grow there), he was obviously affected. Anyhow, he gave me
his word that he would put Florinda absolutely out of his mind, and he
has agreed to go for a short trip abroad as the best distraction for
his thoughts. I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should
wish to give me a really nice scarf-pin (to be chosen by myself), as a
small recognition of the very considerable service I have done her, I
shouldn't dream of refusing. I'm not one of those who think that
because one is abroad one can go about dressed anyhow."
A few weeks later in Blackpool and places where they sing, the
following refrain held undisputed sway:
"How you bore me, Florrie,
With those eyes of vacant blue;
You'll be very sorry, Florrie,
If I marry you.
Though I'm easygoin', Florrie,
This I swear is true,
I'll throw you down a quarry, Florrie,
If I marry you."
"MINISTERS OF GRACE"
Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Scaw was
already marked out as a personality widely differing from others of his
caste and period. Not in externals; therein he conformed correctly to
type. His hair was faintly reminiscent of Houbigant, and at the other
end of him his shoes exhaled the right SOUPÇON of harness-room; his
socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect; and his
attitude in repose had just that suggestion of Whistler's mother, so
becoming in the really young. It was within that the trouble lay, if
trouble it could be accounted, which marked him apart from his fellows.
The Duke was religious. Not in any of the ordinary senses of the word;
he took small heed of High Church or Evangelical standpoints, he stood
outside of all the movements and missions and cults and crusades of the
day, uncaring and uninterested. Yet in a mystical-practical way of his
own, which had served him unscathed and unshaken through the fickle
years of boyhood, he was intensely and intensively religious. His
family were naturally, though unobtrusively, distressed about it. "I
am so afraid it may affect his bridge," said his mother.
The Duke sat in a pennyworth of chair in St. James's Park, listening to
the pessimisms of Belturbet, who reviewed the existing political
situation from the gloomiest of standpoints.
"Where I think you political spade-workers are so silly," said the
Duke, "is in the misdirection of your efforts. You spend thousands of
pounds of money, and Heaven knows how much dynamic force of brain power
and personal energy, in trying to elect or displace this or that man,
whereas you could gain your ends so much more simply by making use of
the men as you find them. If they don't suit your purpose as they are,
transform them into something more satisfactory."
"Do you refer to hypnotic suggestion?" asked Belturbet, with the air of
one who is being trifled with.
"Nothing of the sort. Do you understand what I mean by the verb to
koepenick? That is to say, to replace an authority by a spurious
imitation that would carry just as much weight for the moment as the
displaced original; the advantage, of course, being that the koepenick
replica would do what you wanted, whereas the original does what seems
best in its own eyes."
"I suppose every public man has a double, if not two or three," said
Belturbet; "but it would be a pretty hard task to koepenick a whole
bunch of them and keep the originals out of the way."
"There have been instances in European history of highly successful
koepenickery," said the Duke dreamily.
"Oh, of course, there have been False Dimitris and Perkin Warbecks, who
imposed on the world for a time," assented Belturbet, "but they
personated people who were dead or safely out of the way. That was a
comparatively simple matter. It would be far easier to pass oneself of
as dead Hannibal than as living Haldane, for instance."
"I was thinking," said the Duke, "of the most famous case of all, the
angel who koepenicked King Robert of Sicily with such brilliant
results. Just imagine what an advantage it would be to have angels
deputizing, to use a horrible but convenient word, for Quinston and
Lord Hugo Sizzle, for example. How much smoother the Parliamentary
machine would work than at present!"
"Now you're talking nonsense," said Belturbet; "angels don't exist
nowadays, at least, not in that way, so what is the use of dragging
them into a serious discussion? It's merely silly."
"If you talk to me like that I shall just DO it," said the Duke.
"Do what?" asked Belturbet. There were times when his young friend's
uncanny remarks rather frightened him.
"I shall summon angelic forces to take over some of the more
troublesome personalities of our public life, and I shall send the
ousted originals into temporary retirement in suitable animal
organisms. It's not every one who would have the knowledge or the
power necessary to bring such a thing off--"
"Oh, stop that inane rubbish," said Belturbet angrily; "it's getting
wearisome. Here's Quinston coming," he added, as there approached
along the almost deserted path the well-known figure of a young Cabinet
Minister, whose personality evoked a curious mixture of public interest
and unpopularity.
"Hurry along, my dear man," said the young Duke to the Minister, who
had given him a condescending nod; "your time is running short," he
continued in a provocative strain; "the whole inept crowd of you will
shortly be swept away into the world's waste-paper basket."
"You poor little strawberry-leafed nonentity," said the Minister,
checking himself for a moment in his stride and rolling out his words
spasmodically; "who is going to sweep us away, I should like to know?
The voting masses are on our side, and all the ability and
administrative talent is on our side too. No power of earth or Heaven
is going to move us from our place till we choose to quit it. No power
of earth or--"
Belturbet saw, with bulging eyes, a sudden void where a moment earlier
had been a Cabinet Minister; a void emphasized rather than relieved by
the presence of a puffed-out bewildered-looking sparrow, which hopped
about for a moment in a dazed fashion and then fell to a violent
cheeping and scolding.
"If we could understand sparrow-language," said the Duke serenely, "I
fancy we should hear something infinitely worse than 'strawberry-leafed
nonentity.'"
"But good Heavens, Eugène," said Belturbet hoarsely, "what has become
of-- Why, there he is! How on earth did he get there?" And he pointed
with a shaking finger towards a semblance of the vanished Minister,
which approached once more along the unfrequented path.
The Duke laughed.
"It is Quinston to all outward appearance," he said composedly, "but I
fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an angel
understudy of the real article."
The Angel-Quinston greeted them with a friendly smile.
"How beastly happy you two look sitting there!" he said wistfully.
"I don't suppose you'd care to change places with poor little us,"
replied the Duke chaffingly.
"How about poor little me?" said the Angel modestly. "I've got to run
about behind the wheels of popularity, like a spotted dog behind a
carriage, getting all the dust and trying to look as if I was an
important part of the machine. I must seem a perfect fool to you
onlookers sometimes."
"I think you are a perfect angel," said the Duke.
The Angel-that-had-been-Quinston smiled and passed on his way, pursued
across the breadth of the Horse Guards Parade by a tiresome little
sparrow that cheeped incessantly and furiously at him.
"That's only the beginning," said the Duke complacently; "I've made it
operative with all of them, irrespective of parties."
Belturbet made no coherent reply; he was engaged in feeling his pulse.
The Duke fixed his attention with some interest on a black swan that
was swimming with haughty, stiff-necked aloofness amid the crowd of
lesser water-fowl that dotted the ornamental water. For all its pride
of bearing, something was evidently ruffling and enraging it; in its
way it seemed as angry and amazed as the sparrow had been.
At the same moment a human figure came along the pathway. Belturbet
looked up apprehensively.
"Kedzon," he whispered briefly.
"An Angel-Kedzon, if I am not mistaken," said the Duke. "Look, he is
talking affably to a human being. That settles it."
A shabbily dressed lounger had accosted the man who had been Viceroy in
the splendid East, and who still reflected in his mien some of the cold
dignity of the Himalayan snow-peaks.
"Could you tell me, sir, if them white birds is storks or halbatrosses?
I had an argyment--"
The cold dignity thawed at once into genial friendliness.
"Those are pelicans, my dear sir. Are you interested in birds? If you
would join me in a bun and a glass of milk at the stall yonder, I could
tell you some interesting things about Indian birds. Right oh! Now
the hill-mynah, for instance--"
The two men disappeared in the direction of the bun stall, chatting
volubly as they went, and shadowed from the other side of the railed
enclosure by a black swan, whose temper seemed to have reached the
limit of inarticulate rage.
Belturbet gazed in an open-mouthed wonder after the retreating couple,
then transferred his attention to the infuriated swan, and finally
turned with a look of scared comprehension at his young friend lolling
unconcernedly in his chair. There was no longer any room to doubt what
was happening. The "silly talk" had been translated into terrifying
action.
"I think a prairie oyster on the top of a stiffish brandy-and-soda
might save my reason," said Belturbet weakly, as he limped towards his
club.
It was late in the day before he could steady his nerves sufficiently
to glance at the evening papers. The Parliamentary report proved
significant reading, and confirmed the fears that he had been trying to
shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively controversial
style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him, politically
speaking, to his opponents, had risen in his place to make an
unprovoked apology for having alluded in a recent speech to certain
protesting taxpayers as "skulkers." He had realized on reflection that
they were in all probability perfectly honest in their inability to
understand certain legal technicalities of the new finance laws. The
House had scarcely recovered from this sensation when Lord Hugo Sizzle
caused a further flutter of astonishment by going out of his way to
indulge in an outspoken appreciation of the fairness, loyalty, and
straightforwardness not only of the Chancellor, but of all the members
of the Cabinet. A wit had gravely suggested moving the adjournment of
the House in view of the unexpected circumstances that had arisen.
Belturbet anxiously skimmed over a further item of news printed
immediately below the Parliamentary report: "Wild cat found in an
exhausted condition in Palace Yard."
"Now I wonder which of them--" he mused, and then an appalling idea
came to him. "Supposing he's put them both into the same beast!" He
hurriedly ordered another prairie oyster.
Belturbet was known in his club as a strictly moderate drinker; his
consumption of alcoholic stimulants that day gave rise to considerable
comment.
The events of the next few days were piquantly bewildering to the world
at large; to Belturbet, who knew dimly what was happening, the
situation was fraught with recurring alarms. The old saying that in
politics it's the unexpected that always happens received a
justification that it had hitherto somewhat lacked, and the epidemic of
startling personal changes of front was not wholly confined to the
realm of actual politics. The eminent chocolate magnate, Sadbury,
whose antipathy to the Turf and everything connected with it was a
matter of general knowledge, had evidently been replaced by an
Angel-Sadbury, who proceeded to electrify the public by blossoming
forth as an owner of race-horses, giving as a reason his matured
conviction that the sport was, after all, one which gave healthy
open-air recreation to large numbers of people drawn from all classes
of the community, and incidentally stimulated the important industry of
horse-breeding. His colours, chocolate and cream hoops spangled with
pink stars, promised to become as popular as any on the Turf. At the
same time, in order to give effect to his condemnation of the evils
resulting from the spread of the gambling habit among wage-earning
classes, who lived for the most part from hand to mouth, he suppressed
all betting news and tipsters' forecasts in the popular evening paper
that was under his control. His action received instant recognition
and support from the Angel-proprietor of the EVENING VIEWS, the
principal rival evening halfpenny paper, who forthwith issued an ukase
decreeing a similar ban on betting news, and in a short while the
regular evening Press was purged of all mention of starting prices and
probable winners. A considerable drop in the circulation of all these
papers was the immediate result, accompanied, of course, by a
falling-off in advertisement value, while a crop of special betting
broadsheets sprang up to supply the newly-created want. Under their
influence the betting habit became if anything rather more widely
diffused than before. The Duke had possibly overlooked the futility of
koepenicking the leaders of the nation with excellently intentioned
angel under-studies, while leaving the mass of the people in its
original condition.
Further sensation and dislocation was caused in the Press world by the
sudden and dramatic RAPPROCHEMENT which took place between the
Angel-Editor of the SCRUTATOR and the Angel-Editor of the ANGLIAN
REVIEW, who not only ceased to criticize and disparage the tone and
tendencies of each other's publication, but agreed to exchange
editorships for alternating periods. Here again public support was not
on the side of the angels; constant readers of the SCRUTATOR complained
bitterly of the strong meat which was thrust upon them at fitful
intervals in place of the almost vegetarian diet to which they had
become confidently accustomed; even those who were not mentally averse
to strong meat as a separate course were pardonably annoyed at being
supplied with it in the pages of the SCRUTATOR. To be suddenly
confronted with a pungent herring salad when one had attuned oneself to
tea and toast, or to discover a richly truffled segment of PATÉ DE FOIE
dissembled in a bowl of bread and milk, would be an experience that
might upset the equanimity of the most placidly disposed mortal. An
equally vehement outcry arose from the regular subscribers of the
ANGLIAN REVIEW who protested against being served from time to time
with literary fare which no young person of sixteen could possibly want
to devour in secret. To take infinite precautions, they complained,
against the juvenile perusal of such eminently innocuous literature was
like reading the Riot Act on an uninhabited island. Both reviews
suffered a serious falling-off in circulation and influence. Peace
hath its devastations as well as war.
The wives of noted public men formed another element of discomfiture
which the young Duke had almost entirely left out of his calculations.
It is sufficiently embarrassing to keep abreast of the possible
wobblings and veerings-round of a human husband, who, from the strength
or weakness of his personal character, may leap over or slip through
the barriers which divide the parties; for this reason a merciful
politician usually marries late in life, when he has definitely made up
his mind on which side he wishes his wife to be socially valuable. But
these trials were as nothing compared to the bewilderment caused by the
Angel-husbands who seemed in some cases to have revolutionized their
outlook on life in the interval between breakfast and dinner, without
premonition or preparation of any kind, and apparently without
realizing the least need for subsequent explanation. The temporary
peace which brooded over the Parliamentary situation was by no means
reproduced in the home circles of the leading statesmen and
politicians. It had been frequently and extensively remarked of Mrs.
Exe that she would try the patience of an angel; now the tables were
reversed, and she unwittingly had an opportunity for discovering that
the capacity for exasperating behaviour was not all on one side.
And then, with the introduction of the Navy Estimates, Parliamentary
peace suddenly dissolved. It was the old quarrel between Ministers and
the Opposition as to the adequacy or the reverse of the Government's
naval programme. The Angel-Quinston and the Angel-Hugo-Sizzle
contrived to keep the debates free from personalities and pinpricks,
but an enormous sensation was created when the elegant lackadaisical
Halfan Halfour threatened to bring up fifty thousand stalwarts to wreck
the House if the Estimates were not forthwith revised on a Two-Power
basis. It was a memorable scene when he rose in his place, in response
to the scandalized shouts of his opponents, and thundered forth,
"Gentlemen, I glory in the name of Apache."
Belturbet, who had made several fruitless attempts to ring up his young
friend since the fateful morning in St. James's Park, ran him to earth
one afternoon at his club, smooth and spruce and unruffled as ever.
"Tell me, what on earth have you turned Cocksley Coxon into?" Belturbet
asked anxiously, mentioning the name of one of the pillars of
unorthodoxy in the Anglican Church. "I don't fancy he BELIEVES in
angels, and if he finds an angel preaching orthodox sermons from his
pulpit while he's been turned into a fox-terrier, he'll develop rabies
in less than no time."
"I rather think it was a fox-terrier," said the Duke lazily.
Belturbet groaned heavily, and sank into a chair.
"Look here, Eugène," he whispered hoarsely, having first looked well
round to see that no one was within hearing range, "you've got to stop
it. Consols are jumping up and down like bronchos, and that speech of
Halfour's in the House last night has simply startled everybody out of
their wits. And then on the top of it, Thistlebery--"
"What has he been saying?" asked the Duke quickly.
"Nothing. That's just what's so disturbing. Every one thought it was
simply inevitable that he should come out with a great epoch-making
speech at this juncture, and I've just seen on the tape that he has
refused to address any meetings at present, giving as a reason his
opinion that something more than mere speech-making was wanted."
The young Duke said nothing, but his eyes shone with quiet exultation.
"It's so unlike Thistlebery," continued Belturbet; "at least," he said
suspiciously, "it's unlike the REAL Thistlebery--"
"The real Thistlebery is flying about somewhere as a
vocally-industrious lapwing," said the Duke calmly; "I expect great
things of the Angel-Thistlebery," he added.
At this moment there was a magnetic stampede of members towards the
lobby, where the tape-machines were ticking out some news of more than
ordinary import.
"COUP D'ÉTAT in the North. Thistlebery seizes Edinburgh Castle.
Threatens civil war unless Government expands naval programme."
In the babel which ensued Belturbet lost sight of his young friend.
For the best part of the afternoon he searched one likely haunt after
another, spurred on by the sensational posters which the evening papers
were displaying broadcast over the West End. "General Baden-Baden
mobilizes Boy-Scouts. Another COUP D'ÉTAT feared. Is Windsor Castle
safe?" This was one of the earlier posters, and was followed by one of
even more sinister purport: "Will the Test-match have to be postponed?"
It was this disquietening question which brought home the real
seriousness of the situation to the London public, and made people
wonder whether one might not pay too high a price for the advantages of
party government. Belturbet, questing round in the hope of finding the
originator of the trouble, with a vague idea of being able to induce
him to restore matters to their normal human footing, came across an
elderly club acquaintance who dabbled extensively in some of the more
sensitive market securities. He was pale with indignation, and his
pallor deepened as a breathless newsboy dashed past with a poster
inscribed: "Premier's constituency harried by moss-troopers. Halfour
sends encouraging telegram to rioters. Letchworth Garden City
threatens reprisals. Foreigners taking refuge in Embassies and
National Liberal Club."
"This is devils' work!" he said angrily.
Belturbet knew otherwise.
At the bottom of St. James's Street a newspaper motor-cart, which had
just come rapidly along Pall Mall, was surrounded by a knot of eagerly
talking people, and for the first time that afternoon Belturbet heard
expressions of relief and congratulation.
It displayed a placard with the welcome announcement: "Crisis ended.
Government gives way. Important expansion of naval programme."
There seemed to be no immediate necessity for pursuing the quest of the
errant Duke, and Belturbet turned to make his way homeward through St.
James's Park. His mind, attuned to the alarums and excursions of the
afternoon, became dimly aware that some excitement of a detached nature
was going on around him. In spite of the political ferment which
reigned in the streets, quite a large crowd had gathered to watch the
unfolding of a tragedy that had taken place on the shore of the
ornamental water. A large black swan, which had recently shown signs
of a savage and dangerous disposition, had suddenly attacked a young
gentleman who was walking by the water's edge, dragged him down under
the surface, and drowned him before anyone could come to his
assistance. At the moment when Belturbet arrived on the spot several
park-keepers were engaged in lifting the corpse into a punt. Belturbet
stooped to pick up a hat that lay near the scene of the struggle. It
was a smart soft felt hat, faintly reminiscent of Houbigant.
More than a month elapsed before Belturbet had sufficiently recovered
from his attack of nervous prostration to take an interest once more in
what was going on in the world of politics. The Parliamentary Session
was still in full swing, and a General Election was looming in the near
future. He called for a batch of morning papers and skimmed rapidly
through the speeches of the Chancellor, Quinston, and other Ministerial
leaders, as well as those of the principal Opposition champions, and
then sank back in his chair with a sigh of relief. Evidently the spell
had ceased to act after the tragedy which had overtaken its invoker.
There was no trace of angel anywhere.