When Sir Charles Repton woke upon the Tuesday morning he felt better
than he had felt at any moment since the loss of his youth. There
seemed something easy in the air about him, and within his mind a lack
of business and friction which he did not account for at the time, but
which perhaps in a vague manner he may have ascribed to the purity of
the air and the beauty of the day.
The sun was streaming into his windows from over the Park. It was
already warm, and as he dressed and shaved himself he allowed his
thoughts to wander with an unaccustomed freedom over the simple
things of life. He noted the colour of the trees; he was glad to see
the happiness of the passers-by in the streets below; he felt an
unaccountable sympathy with the human race, and he was even touched
with contempt as he gazed at the long procession of wealthy houses
which marked the line of Park Lane.
At breakfast he ate heartily, though he was alone; he looked at the
small batch of letters which awaited him, and when he opened his
newspaper he positively laughed at the opinions expressed in the
leading article. He nearly broke into another laugh as he read the news
from America, and then--with a gesture which horrified the two solemn
servants who had watched the unaccountable change in their master’s
manner, he tore the paper rapidly into four pieces and threw it on the
floor. Having done this he jumped up gaily, nodded to the menials, said
“You didn’t expect that,” walked briskly out, took his hat and coat
and with no conscious purpose but as habit moved him jumped into a
motor-bus going East.
The conductor, who had a respect for Sir Charles Repton’s clothes, and
especially for his spats, and who seemed to recognise his face, asked
him gently how much he desired to spend upon a ticket: to which he
answered in a breezy manner, “Penny of course. Never pay more than a
penny; then if the beastly thing breaks down you’re not out of pocket
... ’sides which,” he went on as though talking to himself, “if they
forget about you you can have tuppence-worth or thruppence-worth for
the same money!” And he chuckled.
The conductor looked at him first in terror, then smiled responsively
and went forward to deal with less fortunate people, while Sir Charles
hummed gently to himself,--a little out of tune but none the less
cheerfully on that account--an air of ribald associations.
The top of the bus was pretty full, and a workman who had occasion to
travel in the same direction as his betters saw fit to sit down in
the one empty place beside the Baronet. It would have been difficult
to decide upon what occupation this honest man had most recently
been engaged: but there had certainly entered into it oil, wet clay,
probably soot, and considerable masses of oxidised copper. It was not
remarkable, therefore, that, beside such a companion, especially as
that companion was a large man, Sir Charles should have found himself
considerably incommoded. What _was_ remarkable was the manner in which
the Baronet expressed his annoyance. He turned round upon the workman
with an irritated frown and said:
“I can’t make out why they allow people like you on omnibuses!”
“Yer carn’t wort?” said the breadwinner in a threatening voice.
“I say I · can’t · make · out,” answered Sir Charles, carefully picking
out each word--“I · can’t · make · out · why · they · allow · people ·
like · you on omnibuses,--dirty _brutes_ like you, I should say. Why
the devil....”
At this moment the workman seized Sir Charles by the collar. Sir
Charles, though an older man, was by no means weak; his tall body was
well-knit and active, and he felt unaccountably brawny that morning; he
got the thumb and forefinger of his left hand like a pitchfork under
his opponent’s chin, and there began what promised to be a very pretty
scuffle. Everybody on the top of the bus got up, a woman tittered, and
a large consequential fellow who attempted to interfere received a
violent backhander from the huge left hand of the Operative, the wrist
of which was firmly grasped by the right of the Politician and was
struggling in the air.
The bus stopped, a crowd gathered, the workman, as is customary with
hard-working people, was easily appeased; Sir Charles, a good deal
ruffled, got off the bus, and pressing two shillings into the hand of a
policeman who was preparing to take notes, said loudly:
“That’s all right! You can’t do anything against _me_, and of course I
can prevent the thing getting into the papers; but it’s always better
to give a policeman money,--safe rule!”
With that he wormed his way through the increasing mob and disappeared
into a taxi, the driver of which, with singular sagacity, drove off
rapidly without asking for any direction. When he was well out of it,
Repton put his head out of the window and addressed the driver in the
following remarkable words:
“I don’t really know where you’d better go: of course if you go to my
Club I could change there” (his collar was torn off him and his hat was
badly battered) “but on the whole you’d better take me to Guy’s--No
you hadn’t, go to the Club. Stop at a Boy Messenger’s on your way.”
“What Club, sir?” asked the driver with the deference due to a man at
once wealthy and mad.
“You won’t know it,” said Sir Charles kindly and still craning in a
constrained manner out of the window. “By the way, why don’t they have
a speaking-tube or something from inside to you people? It’s awkward
turning one’s head outside like a snake. You won’t know it, but I’ll
shout to you when we get to the bottom of St. James’s Street.”
The driver, now convinced that he had to do with something quite out
of the ordinary, touched his cap in a manner almost military, and fled
through the streets of London. At a Boy Messenger’s office Sir Charles
sent home for clothes and for a change, got to his Club, informed the
astonished porter that it was a very fine day, that he had just had a
fight on the top of a bus, that by God the Johnnie didn’t know who he
was tackling! He, Sir Charles, was no longer a young man, but he would
have shown him what an upper cut was if he could have got a free swing!
He proceeded to illustrate the nature of this fence--then suddenly
asked for his letters, and for a dressing-room.
After this, which had all been acted in the most rapid and violent
manner, he ran up the steps, stood for a few moments with his hands
in his pockets gazing at the telegrams, and forgetful that he had no
collar on, that his coat was torn, that there was blood upon his hands,
and that half of his waistcoat was wide open with two buttons missing.
He found the telegrams of some interest; he did not notice the glances
directed towards him by those who passed in and out of the building,
nor the act of a page who in passing the porter’s box tapped his
forehead twice with his forefinger.
He stood for a moment in thought, then it suddenly occurred to him that
it would have been a wiser thing to have gone straight home. He got
another taxi and drove to his house. There, after a brief scene with
the footman in which he rehearsed all that he had already given them at
the Club, he ordered his clothes to be put out for him, and took a very
comfortable bath.
Luckily for him he found lying upon his table when he came down, a note
which he had left there the night before with regard to the Van Diemens
meeting.
“Forgot that,” he said, a little seriously. “Good thing I found it.”
He picked it up, folded it once or twice, unfolded it, re-read it
perhaps three times, and while he was so employed heard the grave voice
of his secretary begging him to go into town in the motor.
Repton did not for the moment see any connection between his recent
adventures and this request, but he was all compliance, and nodding
cheerfully he waited for the machine to come round. When it had come he
looked at it closely for a moment, confided to the chauffeur that he
intensely disliked its colour, but that it was a bargain and he wasn’t
going to spend any money on changing it, because he meant to sell it
to some fool at the end of the season--got in, and was driven to the
Cannon Street Hotel.
He was a little late. The platform was already occupied and his empty
chair was waiting for him.
At his entry there was some applause, such as would naturally greet
the man who was known to be the Directing Brain of all that interest.
None noticed a change in him. His clothes were perhaps a little less
spick and span: it was unusual to see him stretch his arms two or three
times before he sat down, and those who knew him best, in his immediate
neighbourhood upon the platform, were astonished to see him smile and
nod familiarly to several of the less important Directors; but on the
whole he behaved himself in a fairly consecutive manner, and if he did
whisper to a colleague upon his right that he looked as though he had
been drinking a little too much overnight, the unaccustomed jest was
allowed to pass without comment.
When the moment came for him to speak, he jumped up, perhaps a little
too briskly, faced his audience with less than his usual solemnity,
nay, with something very like a grin, and struck the first note of his
great speech in a manner which they had hitherto never heard from his
lips.
It was certainly calculated to compel their attention if not their
conviction, for the very first words which he shouted into the body of
the hall, were these:
“_WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR?_”
After that rhetorical question, delivered in a roar that would have
filled the largest railway station in London, he repeated it in a
somewhat lower tone, clenched his fists, struck them squarely on the
table, and answered as though he were delivering a final judgment:
“_MONEY!...._
Ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, raising his right hand and wagging
his forefinger at them--“we are here for money! And don’t you forget
it!”
He blew a great breath, watched them quizzically a moment and then
continued:
“What _most_ of you _most_ lack is the power of thinking clearly. I can
see it in your faces. I can see it in the way you sit. And people who
can’t think clearly don’t make _money_. No one can think clearly who
hasn’t got a good grip of his first principles and doesn’t know first
of all what he wants before he tries to get it. Well, I repeat it, and
I challenge any one to deny it: what we want is _money_! Let us make
that quite clear. Let us anchor ourselves to that ... and when we once
have that thoroughly fixed in our minds we can go on to the matter of
how we are to get it.”
“Now ladies and gentlemen,” he proceeded in a more conversational
manner, rubbing his hands together, and smiling at them with excessive
freedom, “let us first of all take stock. Sitting here before me and
round me here upon this platform (he waved his right arm in a large
gesture) are four million pounds of Van Diemens stock. Four million
pounds, ladies and gentlemen! But wait a moment. At what price was
that stock bought? I am not asking at what price _I_ bought,”--here
he looked to the left and the right, sweeping the hundreds of faces
before him--“I am not asking at what price _I_ bought: my position
differs from yours, my hearties; I’m in the middle of things and my
official position obtains me even more knowledge than I should gather
with my own very excellent powers of observation: I’ve spent a whole
lifetime in watching markets, and I have never cared a _dump_--I
repeat, ladies and gentlemen, a DUMP, for anything except the profit. I
have never listened to any talk about the ‘development of a country’ or
‘possibilities’ or ‘the future,’ or any kid of that sort. I’ve bought
paper and sold paper ... and I’ve done uncommonly well out of it.”
He paused a moment, more for breath than for anything else, for he
had been speaking very rapidly; and in the terrified silence round
him Bingham was heard muttering as though in reply to some whispered
question: “You leave him _alone_! It may be unconventional, but....”
“The question is, ladies and gentlemen, at what price have you bought
... on the average? Many of you are country parsons, many of you ladies
with far more money than you have knowledge what to do with it. Not
a few of you stock-brokers--an exceptionally inexperienced class of
men--you are a fair average lot of British investors, and I ask _at
what price did you buy?_” He looked at them fixedly for a few moments,
then pulling out a scrap of paper he read it briefly:
“‘From figures that have been laid before me I find that the average
price at which the present shareholders bought was eight pounds sixteen
shillings and a few pence,’” and then added “We’ll call it eight
pounds. Always be on the Conservative side.”
At this remark, which was supposed to contain a political jest, two
old ladies in the second row tittered, but finding themselves alone,
stopped tittering.
“I say take it at eight pounds. Well, that four million of stock stands
for thirty-two million pounds. _Thirty-two million pounds!_” he said
with a rising voice--“THIRTY-TWO MILLION POUNDS!” he roared,--banging
the table with his fist and leaning forward with a determined jowl....
“And what’s left of it? _Nothing!_”
There was another dead silence at the end of this striking phrase, and
Bingham was again heard to mutter: “You leave him _alone_; he knows
what he’s at!” A certain uneasy shuffling of feet behind him caused
Repton to turn his head snappishly, then he looked round again and
resumed his great oration.
“I say _nothing_.... Oh! I know there are some of you stupid enough
to think that you have still got sixteen and thruppence a share.
That was the quotation in the paper this morning. Eugh!” he sniffed
sardonically, “You try and _sell_ at that and you’ll soon find what
you’ve got! No! you haven’t even got that sixteen and thruppence. You
haven’t got two shillings in the pound for what you put in. You’ve got
nothing! nothing! nothing!! Put that in your pipes and smoke it....”
“And so, gentlemen,” he added, leaning his body backwards and putting
his thumbs into his waistcoat, “the business before us is how to get
out of this hole. There are perhaps some of you,” he went on, frowning
intellectually, “there are perhaps some of you who imagine that the
Government is going to buy. Well, I’m a member of the Government and I
can tell you they are _not_.”
At this appalling remark the elements of revolution upon the platform
all but exploded, but the solid weight of Bingham was still there, and
if I may hint at a phrase with which the reader is already familiar,
he suggested that Sir Charles knew what he was about and should be let
_alone_.
“Even if they did buy,” Repton went on seriously and argumentatively,
“they could hardly buy at more than par. I’m the last man,” he
continued rapidly “to jaw about public opinion or things of that sort.
The real reason why they won’t buy is the Irish. But even if they did
buy they could hardly give more than par. And what’s par?” he said with
great disdain. “No, that cock won’t fight!... Mind you, I’m not saying
you couldn’t have got the Government to buy a little time ago. I think
you could. But you can’t now.”
“I don’t think there’s a single man on either front bench--” this was
said meditatively and tapping off the fingers of one hand with the
forefinger of the other--“who’s personally interested, and I don’t
_think_ there’s any direct connection since Cooke died between the
Cabinet and any one who is--except me. No, that’s not the way out. What
you’ve got to do, ladies and gentlemen, is to throw a sprat to catch a
whale.”
“A sprat,” he meditatively repeated, “to catch a whale: a great Whale
full o’ blubber! ... an’ how are you going to do that?”
“Now listen”--his tone had become very earnest and he was leaning
forward, bent and fixed and holding them with his fine strong eyes,
“listen, there are three steps. You’ve got first of all to show the
public that you _believe_ in the future of the Company; next you’ve
got to decide upon a dodge to show that: something that’ll make every
one think that you the shareholders do really believe in that future.
What’s the third step? Why up goes the price--real price--money
offered--_then you can sell_. That’s my opinion,” he concluded,
clapping his hands together and laying them upon the table before him:
and he let it sink in.
“Now you’ll notice,” he went on, “in the prospectus you have received,
some talk of a railway. We’re asking money from you to build a railway.
Now why are we doing that? Please follow me carefully.”
The hundreds of heads bent forward and the intelligences they contained
were prepared to follow him carefully. He was a great man.
“We have asked you to build a railway,” he pronounced, leaving a little
space of time between each word, “because a railway still catches
on. I don’t know why, but it _does_. Mines don’t. You might discover
ore all over the place and they wouldn’t go: I’ve got two men of
my own, engineers, _experts_, who’ll discover ore anywhere; they’d
discover tons before three o’clock this afternoon and you might swear
your dying oath to them, but the public wouldn’t believe you. As for
agriculture,--Piff! And as for climate, Boo! But _railways_ still work.”
“Very well. You raise your capital for your railway. What that railway
may be imagined to do is set out in full before you and I won’t go into
it. But I will ask you especially to note the passage in which it is
described as giving a strategical supremacy to the Empire. You know
what the Empire is. You _may_ know, some o’ you, what strategy is.
Looks as if there were a fleecy general or two among you! But that’s
as may be--just note the phrase. It’s safety! That’s what it is! No
odds. No blighter to run any risk of having to fight any one anywhere!
Grand!”... “I _think_ also,” he mused, “something could be done with
the tourist side ... there are falls and mountains and things ... but
no matter: the point is the railway.”
He drank from a glass of water on the table, turned round angrily and
said: “Good lord what water! It’s bad enough to have to drink water
in public for a show, but it needn’t be tepid! If the place wasn’t
so public I’d spit it out again!” Then facing the audience again:
“However.... About that railway. First understand clearly, ladies
and gentlemen, _that railway is not going to be built_! There is no
intention of building it. There is no intention of surveying it.”
Two or three voices rose in protest at the back of the hall. Sir
Charles leaned forward and put out his hand appealingly:--
“One moment, one moment pray! Hear me out! I don’t mean that _no_ one
will build it. That’s not our funeral. I mean that _we_ won’t. The
‘Company’ may, whatever that means. But you and I--the people who have
got into this hole--_we_ won’t. It won’t be _our_ money. Seize that!
Get a hold of that! It’s the key to the whole business.”
Little gasps and one profound sigh, but no interruptions followed this
explanation, and Sir Charles with perfect coolness continued:
“What we want is five shillings a share--only five shillings a share.
Five shillings where most of you have already given a hundred and
sixty! Five shillings a share ... four million shares ... that’s a
million. And mind you, only a nominal million. We don’t want your two
half-crowns; bless you no. All we want in cash is a shilling. For the
rest, you’ll see in a moment. Well, there you are then, a shilling, a
miserable shilling. Now just see what that shilling will do!”
“In the first place it’ll give publicity and plenty of it. Breath
of public life, publicity! Breath o’ finance too! We’ll have that
railway marked in a dotted line on the maps: all the maps: school
maps: office maps. We’ll have leaders on it and speeches on it. And
good hearty attacks on it. And th-e-n....” He lowered his voice to a
very confidential wheedle,--“the price’ll begin to creep up--Oh ... o
... oh! the _real_ price, my beloved fellow-shareholders, the price
at which one can really _sell_, the price at which one can handle the
_stuff_.”
He gave a great breath of satisfaction. “Now d’ye see? It’ll go to
forty shillings right off, it ought to go to forty-five, it may go
to sixty!... And then,” he said briskly, suddenly changing his tone,
“then, my hearties, you blasted well sell out: you unload ... you dump
’em. Plenty more fools where your lot came from. I won’t advise,--sell
out just when you see fit. Every man for himself, and every woman
too,” he said, bowing politely to the two old ladies in the second
row,--“and the devil take the hindmost. But you’ll all have something,
you’ll none of you lose it all as it looked like last week. Most of
you’ll lose on your first price: late comers least: a few o’ ye’ll make
if you bought under two pounds. Anyhow _I_ shall.... There! if that
isn’t finance I don’t know what is!”
And with a large happy, final, satisfactory and conclusive smile, the
Builder of Empire, to the astonishment of every one, looked at his
watch, called upon his Creator as a witness to the lateness of the
hour, and suddenly went out.
It would be delicious to describe what happened in the vast body of
that hall when the Chief had left it: how the shareholders made a noise
like angry bees swarming; how a curate who had done no man any harm was
squashed against a wall and broke two ribs; how five or six excited
and almost tearful men surrounded the reporters and fought for their
notebooks; how Bingham continued to reiterate that Charles Repton knew
what he was at; and how a certain quiet little man with a bronzed face
and very humorous eyes, slunk out and got rid of his block of shares
within the hour, to a young hearty Colonial gentleman who was wealthy
and had come to London to learn the business ways of our City.[2]
But I must follow Sir Charles in his rapid drive to the House of
Commons. I must mention his unconventional remark to the policeman to
the effect that he hoped that old fool Pottle hadn’t come in yet; and
his taking his place on the front bench just after prayers with a look
so merry and free that it illumined the faces opposite like a sun.
The questions to which he had to reply came somewhat late on the paper,
and he caused not a little scandal by suggesting in a low tone such
answers to his colleagues for _their_ questions as seemed to him at
once humorous and apposite.
The aged Home Secretary especially afforded him fine sport, and when a
question was asked with regard to the new Admiralty docks at Bosham,
he went to the length of chucking a cocked-hat note to the principal
contractor who sat solemnly upon the benches behind him, nodding
cheerfully over his shoulder and whispering loudly: “It’s all up!”
All this boded ill for what might happen when his own turn came; and
indeed the scene that followed was of a kind entirely novel in the long
history of the House of Commons.
It was a simple question; Question 63. Not ten minutes of question-time
were left when it was asked. It was put by a gentle little man who had
put it down for the sake of a friend who lived on the South Coast, and
it was simply to ask the right honourable Baronet, the Warden of the
Court of Dowry, whether his attention had been called to the presence
upon the Royal Sovereign shoals of a wreck which endangered navigation,
and what he intended to do in the matter.
Charles Repton jumped up like a bird; he jovially and rapidly read the
typewritten answer which his permanent officials had given him--to the
effect that he had nothing to add to the reply given three years before
with regard to the same wreck, which was then, they were careful to
point out, far more dangerous than at the present day.
But when he had finished reading the official reply, he looked up
genially at his interlocutor and said:
“We don’t want to interfere with that wreck: it’s full of gin!”
An angry fanatic hearing the word “gin” rose at once and put the
supplementary question: “May I ask whether that gin was destined for
the unfortunate natives of the Lagos Hinterland?”
“Yes,” said the Warden of the Court of Dowry politely, “Yes sir, you
may: but they will never get it. However, several thousand tons of gin
I am glad to say have gone out to the negroes of our colonies since
the ship was lost, to the no small advantage,” he added, “of my friend
Mr. Garey; whom, by the way,” he continued with conversational ease,
“we all hope to see in this House shortly, for old Southwick who’s up
against him hasn’t got a dog’s chance, and you probably know that we
are forcing Pipps to resign. Bound to be an election!”
He sat down. It was a quarter to four and the House was saved. But
though the decorum of that great assembly prevented one word from
being uttered as to what had passed, the Lobbies were full of it, and
when the first division was taken men who ordinarily filed past the
Treasury bench avoided it, while from distant and dark corners where
one cannot be observed, long and intent looks were darted at the happy
Warden of the Court of Dowry.
He sat there gay and quite unconscious of the effect he had produced,
passed with his Party into the Lobbies for the division, greeting with
familiar joy men who appeared rather anxious to avoid his eye, and
making, I regret to say, such unseemly jests upon the Party system as
had never been heard within those walls before.
The young Prime Minister, though suffering so considerably from the
left lung, was never at a loss where tact, and especially tact combined
with rapid action, was necessary. A horrified servant called him from
his room and described what was passing. He did not stop to ask why
or how the thing had happened. He came in rapidly through the door
behind the Speaker’s chair, and beckoned to Sir Charles Repton who was
at that moment occupied in drawing a large caricature of the Leader
of the Opposition, with his hands deep into the pocket of an amiable
farmer-like gentleman in top-boots and whiskers, who made a presentable
image of John Bull.
Charles Repton got up at once and went out to his Chief. “What d’you
think of this?” he said, showing his picture.
The young Prime Minister smiled as death would smile. “It’s very good,
it’s very good,” he said hurriedly. “Have it coloured ... colour it
yourself. Oh, do what you like with it.... Come with me. Come into my
room, do. No, I’ll tell you what, I want to speak to you. Let’s get out
into the air.”
He walked his subordinate away rapidly arm in arm across Parliament
Square towards St. James’s Park, talking about a thousand things and
never giving Repton time for a word. Then he said suddenly: “What I
really want to say to you, Repton, is ...” He abruptly broke off. “Is
Lady Repton at home?”
“Yes,” said Repton a little puzzled, “or she will be by this time. I
make her show me her plan for the afternoon at lunch, and she’s got to
suit me, or there’s a row.”
“Well now,” said the Prime Minister, “will you do me a great favour?”
He put his hand on Repton’s shoulder and looked candidly into his eyes.
“Certainly my dear fellow,” answered the Warden of the Court of Dowry
in the utmost good humour. “After all my position depends upon you, and
a good deal of my income depends upon my position. It isn’t likely I
should put your back up, even if I didn’t like you, which is far from
being the case, though I must say I don’t think you’re a man of very
exceptional talent. I think you owe most of your position to birth.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Prime Minister hurriedly, “I understand. Now what
I want you to do is this: jump into the first thing you see and _go
straight home_. You will see why when you get there. It’s absolutely
urgent. Will you?”
“Certainly,” said Repton more puzzled than ever. “All you politicians
are such liars that I make a point of believing the exact opposite
of what you say: but if you tell me it’s of any service to you, it
certainly does _me_ no harm.” And whistling gaily he walked off towards
a cab that was meandering across the Parade.
When the Prime Minster had seen him well off he went as rapidly as
dignity would allow into Downing Street, took the telephone from his
secretary and in an agony of apprehension lest he should be too late,
at last heard Lady Repton’s voice. He told her that her husband was
the victim of a most distressing malady; she would understand it when
she saw him. He implored her to save so valuable a man for the country
by managing in some way or other to confine him to the house until he
should be medically examined.
It was a great relief to the young fellow to have got this duty done.
His fifty-four years seemed to weigh less upon him: for the ten minutes
between leaving the House and seeing Repton off he had been on a grill:
there was still ridicule to be faced, but he had a sentiment of having
achieved his end and of having just saved as difficult a situation as
ever the chief of a State had had to meet.
* * * * *
It was an anxious moment, but many moments are necessarily anxious
in the life of a man who holds in his hands the destinies of Great
Britain, and the young and popular Prime Minister had the stuff in
him to stand worse scenes than that, but he was exhausted and he was
slightly troubled. The full consequences of the dreadful affair had not
yet shaped themselves in his mind.
He walked back to his room in the House of Commons, ruminating during
those few steps upon the developments that might arise from Repton’s
terrible accident, and beginning to plan how he should arrange matters
with Demaine. It would want caution, for Demaine was slow to understand
... but then there was a corresponding advantage to that, for like all
slow men, Dimmy could hold his tongue.... In fact he couldn’t help it.
The Prime Minister was pleased to think that he had that second
string to his bow, and that opinion had been sufficiently prepared
for the change. Repton would be certified of course, the sooner the
better,--that would prevent any necessity for a peerage. Demaine’s
taking the place would seem more natural, and those gadflies, the
_Moon_ and the _Capon_, would not fall into a fever about the
appointment.... Perhaps after all the Repton business would be an
advantage in the long run!
The more he thought of his choice of Demaine the more pleased he was,
and he had almost persuaded himself that the appointment was due to
some extreme cunning upon his own part, when, coming round from his
room into the Lobbies, he casually asked a colleague where Demaine was
at the moment.
The colleague didn’t know. “I have my back turned to the benches behind
us you know,” he explained elaborately.
The Prime Minister cast upon him a look of contempt, and asked the
doorkeeper whether he had seen Mr. Demaine.
“G. M. Demaine,” said the doorkeeper solemnly, running his finger down
a list.
The Prime Minister was almost moved to reprove him, but dignity forbade.
“Not in the House!” said the man curtly, addressing as an equal the
chief power in England; for his post was secure, the Prime Minister’s
precarious.
“You mean not on the benches: I can see that for myself!” said the
Prime Minister sharply.
“I mean he hasn’t passed this door, sir,” said the official with quiet
dignity, and Dolly went off considerably nettled, and looked into the
tea-room and the libraries, and even wasted a little time in going
round by the smoking-room. The policemen in the central hall had
not seen Demaine, nay, a constituent with an exceedingly long black
moustache and fierce eyes had been waiting by appointment with Demaine
for two hours, and Demaine had not been found. The Prime Minister
condescended so much as to speak to this man, and the man, not knowing
whom he might be addressing, told him plainly that “if Mr. Demaine
interpreted his duties in this fashion, he couldn’t answer for his
seat, that was all!”
The Prime Minister further condescended to go out of the House in the
ordinary way, and the policeman who guarded the ordinary portal had not
seen Mr. Demaine.
It was really very awkward and exasperating, though it was only a
detail. He must see Demaine that afternoon: it was imperative. But
it was also important that he should see him as soon as possible. He
wanted to keep him out of the way till he was coached.
There is nothing in this happy English life of ours more soothing to
the brain in moments of anxiety, than the perusal of any one of those
great Organs of Opinion which are the characteristic of our people and
the envy of Europe, and of these it must be admitted none stand on
quite the same intellectual and moral plane as the best two or three
of our London evening papers. One of these the Prime Minister had
always found particularly soothing. He bought it of the newsman at the
corner of Parliament Square and opened it as he walked along at leisure
towards Downing Street.
There was one corner of this sheet which was always a recreation to
Dolly in the few moments he could spare from the House: it was the
corner in which prizes were offered for the best pun, on condition of
course that nothing coarse or personally offensive should be sent in
by the competitors. To this he had turned an indifferent eye, when for
the second time that day he received a shock which was almost like a
blow in the face....
There, in great letters, with a flamboyance surely unworthy of a paper
that professed to support his own Party, was the headline:
“DISAPPEARANCE OF A MINISTER ELECT.”
And his forebodings did not deceive him.... It was ... it was ... the
permanently unlucky Demaine!
He cursed the crass imbecility by which such a thing could have got
into the papers at all. He strode to his house and to his room,
crumpled the paper which he was still holding, unfolded it, and then
read the news again. There were but a few lines of it: Demaine had
disappeared, and the full detective power of London was attempting to
solve the mystery of his disappearance.
What madness to let such things get out!
Why, twenty things might have happened! He might simply have stopped in
the house of a friend and not bothered to tell his wife that he was not
coming home; he might simply have fallen ill and have been taken to a
hospital or to a hotel. What a piece of idiocy to put it into the Press
at all!
Much as he hated the exercise, he rang to be put through to Demaine
House, and heard from Sudie herself, whom he knew but distantly, that
her fears had done all.
She had sat up for George till nearly five o’clock in the morning;
underrating perhaps her husband’s talents, and notably his ability to
find his way home, she thought it possible he had fallen a victim to
an unscrupulous taxi driver or that any one of a thousand other fates
might have befallen him.
With too little comprehension of the social forces that build up
the society of the Mother Land, Sudie had communicated at once with
Scotland Yard, and on learning that her husband had last been seen
leaving the House of Commons and walking towards the river, she had
taken the unpardonable step of sending messages to all the evening
papers in the hope that such publicity would advance the solution of
the mystery.
It was perfectly damnable! As though the cares of his office were not
enough, the Prime Minister found himself upon this Tuesday afternoon
with a doubtful and anxious division awaiting him in the evening, with
one of his Ministers gone mad, and his successor the subject at the
best of a vulgar mystery, and at the worst of a hopeless disappearance.