It was Friday morning, the 5th of June, 1915, and the young and popular
Prime Minister was busied in the Inaugural Ceremony of the Wardenship
of the Court of Dowry.
Repton or no Repton, the place must be filled. Demaine was back and
Demaine must be there on the front bench before there was an explosion.
The Inaugural Ceremony which introduces a Statesman to the Wardenship
of the Court of Dowry, technically called “L’Acceptance,” in strict
constitutional practice requires the presence of at least three
persons, the outgoing Warden (technically the Dischargee), the incoming
Warden (technically the Discoverer) and the Sovereign; but since
GHERKIN had, in spite of his eccentric Radicalism, raised the office
to its present position, the outgoing Warden could be represented by
proxy, though such a substitution was rarely made since it eliminated
the quaint custom of the “Braise”--one hundred pounds one hundred
shillings one hundred pence, and a new brass farthing specially minted
for the occasion, the whole in a silver-gilt case, and handed over to
the outgoer, to be regarded with historic respect and some one of its
coins to be kept as an heirloom.[5]
But Dolly, as he considered the situation on the Friday morning, Friday
the 5th of June, 1915, could see no way out of it; he must simply tell
Lady Repton briefly, and best by telephone, that she must not dream of
her husband’s appearing at Court, even with a keeper, and that it would
be necessary for the Repton household to forego the hundred sovereigns,
the hundred shillings, the hundred pence and the new brass farthing
specially minted for the occasion (the whole in a silver-gilt case),
rather than have a scandal.
It was Friday, and he was glad to remember it, a Private Members’ Day.
There were no questions. There was all Saturday and Sunday before
him. He would arrange for the Inauguration the very next week. He was
already advised that the officials had been permitted by the highest
authority, in view of Demaine’s recent privations when he was blown
out to sea in the little boat, treacherously abandoned by the foreign
vessel and rescued by the willing hands, etc., to omit the final
accolade with the ebony cudgel which had now for so many generations
formed the last and most picturesque feature of the ritual.
He took up his telephone and asked the next room to put him on to
the Reptons. He held the receiver while a servant told him that his
message should be immediately communicated, and then in a few seconds,
heard, to his great astonishment, not the tremulous tones of Maria, but
the masterly voice of Sir Charles, as incisive and direct as of old,
saying, “What is it?” in the tone of a man who must come at once to
business and has many things to do.
“Oh!” cried Dolly into the machine, quite taken aback. “That’s you,
Repton, is it?”
“Yes, of course,” came the answer shortly. “Well?”
“Oh nothing. Are you feeling better?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” This in restrained, quite unmistakable
tones. “My headache’s gone, if that’s what you mean.”
“Ye-es,” said the Prime Minister, wondering what on earth to say.
“Yes.... Oh it’s gone, has it?”
“Yes it has; I’ve told you that already.” Then after a pause, “Look
here, I’m really very busy. I’ve got three men here about that absurd
concession. You gave me a free hand, and I can’t wait. Hope I’m not
rude. It’s really very kind to ask after my health. You’ll be in the
House at twelve?” And the telephone suddenly rang off.
Dolly was in a stupor; he did what he always did, when things perplexed
him: he sent for Edward.
“Edward,” he said, “that cracked Dissenter has got three men in his
house and is talking about the oil concession to them! Oh lord!”
The Prime Minister was evidently frightened and troubled, but he did
not seem less frightened and more troubled than the occasion warranted.
He couldn’t make Repton out: there seemed to be another change.
Edward answered simply: “Why that makes three more who know,--that’s
all.”
“Do get a taxi,” said the Prime Minister, “and see what you can do.”
And he waited anxiously till Edward returned.
“Well?” said Dolly as he entered.
“Well!” said Edward. “He wasn’t very polite, but--but--are you quite
sure that you weren’t worried when you saw him on Tuesday?”
“Worried,” said Dolly, “I should think I was!”
“Well that’s what I mean,” said Edward a little uneasily. “Didn’t you
... didn’t you perhaps exaggerate a little?”
“_Exaggerate!_” said Dolly, jumping up with all his youthful vigour,
and looking for the moment less than forty-eight in his excitement,
“Why man alive, he was wearing a huge great Easter Lily in his
buttonhole, and he tried to wrestle with the butler in the hall!”
“Yes, but you know,” said Edward, “there’s gaiety in everybody, and it
comes out now and----”
“Oh gaiety be blasted!” interrupted Dolly. “The man was raving!”
“Well, they wouldn’t certify him anyhow,” said Edward, “and he’s
not raving _now_! He’s as sane as a waxen image, and as sharp as an
unexpected pin. I’m glad _I’m_ not doing business with him to-day.”
“Look here,” protested the Prime Minister. “If he wasn’t off, why
did he stay at home like a prisoner all Wednesday, with Lady Repton
preventing any one seeing him? And what was he doing all yesterday,
Thursday? Why didn’t he come down to the House, eh, if he wasn’t off?”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t ill,” said Edward blandly. “I only said there
might have been some exaggeration.”
“Oh very well,” ended the Prime Minister wearily, “oh very well!”
Edward came to a swift decision and telephoned first to the _Moon_ then
to the _Capon_ privately that “it was all right about Repton; there’d
been a mistake.” His chief went out on the duties of the day.
Yet _another_ change of plan! More bother! He would have to go through
with the peerage now! He went gloomily down to the House of Commons and
learned that Charles Repton was already in his place, stiff, groomed
and regular upon the Treasury bench.
Dolly came in nervously and shook hands with him.
Sir Charles took his hand rather coldly; he did not see why a couple
of days’ headache which no one had heard about should be made the
excuse for so much public affection. It emphasised the thing. And he
sat through the first hour of the debate looking as if he would have
been just as well pleased to be made less fuss about. “Anyhow,” he
thought to himself by way of consolation, “I shall be rid of it next
week,” and his mind turned in an equable fashion to his taking his seat
in the Upper House and to what his first business there might be.
As he was so thinking George Mulross Demaine came in quietly by one of
the side doors. As he entered there was a little subdued cheering from
those who remembered the announcement of his approaching appointment.
It flurried him a little. He sat down and tried to forget it, while the
debate maundered on.
In the Lobbies Repton continued to suffer somewhat from occasional
congratulations on his return to health. He did not easily understand
them, and he was a trifle gruff in his replies. He was going into the
library for a little peace when a messenger put a note into his hand;
it was from the Duke of Battersea.
“More fuss!” he thought, but he went immediately with his stiff,
upright gait to where that great Financier was waiting for him, and he
greeted him warmly enough.
The Duke, like the business man he was, was very brief and to the
point. He congratulated Charles Repton not (thank heaven!) on having
got rid of the slight headache which seemed to have filled the thoughts
of too many people, but upon the great accession the Upper House was
to receive, and then the Duke having said so much went on to what he
really had to say, his pronunciation marred only by that slight lisp
which ill-natured reports so constantly exaggerated. Sir Charles Repton
(he said) would remember the very disgraceful case of the editor of the
_Islington Hebdomadal Review_?
Charles Repton tried to remember, but could not.
Well, it wath the cathe of the man who had very properly got twenty
yearth of the betht for thaying that he could reveal how old
Ballymulrock had got his peerage ... a dithgratheful cathe! There wath
blackmail behind it!
Yes, Charles Repton could remember now, and he smiled a grim smile as
he considered the peculiar ineptitude of that particular convict. Why
old Ballymulrock was the seventh in the title, he had nothing a year,
he was a doddering old bachelor of eighty-seven, he had got it by a
fluke from a half-nephew, and it was only an Irish elective peerage at
that! The convict had pleaded a misprint! What a fool! Yes, Sir Charles
Repton could remember the case. What about it? “I’m not going to take
any action to save him,” he said sharply, “if that’s what you want: he
deserved all he got! If you want some one get Birdwhistlethorpe; Isaacs
that was: he knows North London.”
“Noh, noh, noh,” said the aged Duke of Battersea in alarm, “you
mithunderthand me!” And he went on to tell the outgoing Warden that
they were determined to bring this sort of thing before the House of
Lords in a Resolution. Would he move?
“I don’t see what I’ve got to do with it,” said Repton shortly.
The Duke smiled as he had smiled years ago, when he produced Lord
Benthorpe’s paper and brought that now forgotten personage to heel. Had
Sir Charles seen what the _Moon_ had been saying that very day?
No, Sir Charles hadn’t. He supposed it was about the oil concessions.
He paid no attention to the _Moon_. But Edward’s telephone to the
_Moon_ and the _Capon_ had borne dreadful fruit. Each editor had
thought to have regained his freedom.
The Duke of Battersea’s smile grew more portentous; he discovered a
cutting in the inner pocket of a coat which somehow or other always
looked greasy upon him, and as Sir Charles read it, his face darkened.
“It’s pretty scandalous,” he said as he laid it down. For the leader
in the _Moon_ gave it to be understood in no very roundabout way that
there had been a deal over Repton’s peerage.
“The _Capon’th_ worth, _far_ worth!” insinuated the Duke of Battersea.
“Is it?” said Sir Charles, “indeed!”
“Yeth, indeed yeth,” said the aged Duke, putting the paper forward as
though over a counter; and Sir Charles Repton could not forbear to
read it. It certainly _was_ worse; it simply said point blank that the
Burmah Oil Concession was the price of Repton’s promotion to the Upper
House. And the passage ended with these words:
“We have no desire to add to a domestic affliction which no friend
of the Government regrets more sincerely than we do ourselves, and
we are willing to believe that the unfortunate gentleman, who we
fear can never again take his old place in public life, was himself
quite innocent of any such dealing; but ambitions other than his own
may have been concerned in this matter, and the giving of permanent
legislative power to a man who now notoriously can no longer take
part in active public life, does but add to the scandal.”
That decided him! He would nip off that headache legend at once, and
sharply!
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll move as soon as you like, and the sooner the
better.” He did not say it as though he was granting a favour; and it
was easy to see that the Duke was a little afraid of him:--
After a pause during which the two men rose to part, the old gentleman
suggested that Methlinghamhurst should speak after him.
“Messlingham _who_?” said Repton, puzzled. The name was unfamiliar to
him.
“No, not Methlinghamhurtht! _Meth_linghamhurtht,” said the Duke of
Battersea, rather too loud. “_Meth_linghamhurtht!”
Sir Charles shook his head, still puzzled. “I daresay he’s all right,”
he said all starch.
“_You_ know,” said the Duke of Battersea, craning forward in a
confidential way, “Clutterbuck that wath.”
“Oh! Clutterbuck! Yes, I remember. Well? Can he speak?”
“Not very well,” hesitated the Duke of Battersea, “but you know he
wanted....”
“I really don’t care,” said Sir Charles moving away. “Anyhow I’ll do
it.”
The Duke was profuse in his thanks.
* * * * *
Charles Repton returned to the House of Commons. Another message!
“The Prime Minister begged to see Sir Charles Repton:” really there was
no end to the number of people wanting to see him that day! Charles
Repton went towards Dolly’s room with such muscles showing upon his
face as would have made any one afraid to say another word about
the headache,--but it was not of the headache, at least not of that
directly, that Dolly had to speak.
“Repton,” he said apologetically and in some dread, “I’m afraid I made
arrangements for a proxy next week--I mean for L’Acceptance you know.”
“Oh you did!” said Sir Charles, really nettled. “You might have asked
me first I think!”
“Well, you see,” began his unfortunate chief,--
“As a fact I don’t see,” said Repton drily, “but I suppose you’ve put
it right. I’ve written to say I should be there.”
“Oh yes, certainly, certainly,” said Dolly hurriedly, “I’ve changed
it.” As a fact he’d done nothing of the kind and was wondering what he
should say to the proxy. “Certainly!”
“All right,” said Charles Repton moving towards the door. “That’s all,
I suppose?”
“Yes, that’s all,” said Dolly, with perhaps a hundred more things to
say. “I’ll see that you get notice of the exact hour.”
“Of course,” said Charles Repton briefly, and he shut the door quietly
but firmly behind him.
* * * * *
The inaugural ceremony, though shorn for some years of the backward
entrance which was its most picturesque feature, and now (though not
as a precedent) of the accost with the ebony cudgel, was impressive
enough. The silver-gilt case with the Three Hundred and One specially
minted Coins had been put into Charles Repton’s Seisin by the Symbol
of the Flask of Palm Oil, and was already on its way to his house; the
tinkling shoes had been rapidly put on and off, and Demaine had sworn
fealty for sergeanty in Ponthieu and the Seniory of Lucq, and all the
embroglio was done.
Lord Repton (for he was content with that simple title--in the Manor
of Giggleswick) was present for the first time upon the red benches,
awaiting the moment for the debate upon the Resolution in which he was
to open and move.
In the House of Commons George Mulross Demaine, who for the last
few days had been coaching steadily in the duties of his post, and
especially in the really difficult technicalities of replying to
questions, was reading his notes for the last time in the comfortable
room assigned to his office, and repeating to himself in a low tone the
words he had so carefully committed to memory. Edward was with him to
give him courage; and he needed such companionship.
At last he was summoned.
The House was very full for question-time, for it was known or
suspected that something of importance would take place that day. The
full nature of the crisis had been understood by very few, but the
disappearance of Demaine and his return, his terrible adventures in the
fishing-boat, his night at sea, the dastardly action of the foreign
crew, and the heroic succour which had ultimately reached him were
public property.
The silent and little known young member whose disappearance from the
benches under the gallery would never have been noticed, was half a
hero already in the popular mind, and had become particularly dear to
his colleagues during the anxious moments when he was believed to be
lost, and when the press of London had worked that mystery for all it
was worth.
The House of Commons knows a _Man_.
There was, therefore, loud and hearty cheering, which, according to the
beautiful tradition of our public life, was confined to no one part of
the assembly, when, that happy Friday, George Mulross entered rapidly
from behind the Speaker’s chair, stumbled over the outstretched foot of
the Admiralty, his second uncle by marriage, and took his seat for the
first time among his new colleagues upon the Treasury Bench.
The Prime Minister accompanied him. Congratulations suitable to the
occasion were to be seen in the gestures of those in his immediate
neighbourhood, and he himself wore the blest but sickly smile of a man
who is about to be hanged but who is possessed of a fixed faith in a
happy eternity.
Only one question was set down to him; he had read it and re-read it;
he had read and re-read the typewritten answer which Mr. Sorrel had
furnished him and which he had now got by heart beyond, he hoped,
the possibility of error. The questioner had chivalrously offered
to withdraw his query in deference to the fatigues and anxieties
through which the new Warden of the Court of Dowry had so recently
passed, but the Prime Minister, though appreciative of that offer,
rather determined that his dear young relative should win his spurs;
and trivial as the subject was, Question No. 31 was by far the most
important upon the paper for most of those present.
It concerned (of course) the wreck which still banged about, the sport
of wind and wave, upon the Royal Sovereign Shoals. This aching tooth
of Empire had cropped up again in yet another aspect. The Member for
Harrowell, a landowner upon that coast, wanted to know whether it was
not a fact that large planks studded, he was ashamed to say, with long
rusty nails, had not drifted shorewards from the wreck and grievously
scratched such persons as were indulging in mixed bathing just off the
popular and rapidly rising seaside resort which lay a little east by
north of the wretched derelict.
Question No. 29 was answered, Question 30 was answered. Demaine’s
ordeal had come.
He heard a low mumbling noise some distance down the benches which he
would never have taken to be the single word “Thirty-one” had not his
mother’s half-sister’s husband the Chancellor of the Exchequer given
him a sharp dig in the ribs with his elbow and jolted him onto his
feet. His hands shook like a motor car at rest as he began his reply.
“I have nothing to tell my right honourable gentleman--I mean my
honourable gentleman....” Here there was a pause, painful to all
present with the exception of one ribald fellow who cackled twice and
then was silent.... “I have nothing to add,” George Mulross began again
with a lump in his throat, “in reply to my honourable friend--to
what my predecessor said in reply to a similar” (another pause) ...
“Oh,--_question_--upon the tenth of this month.”
He had read all of it out now, anyhow, and he sat down, a trifle
unsteadily, feeling for the seat.
“Arre we to onderrstand,” boomed the voice of the inevitable fanatic,
“that the carrgo of GIN is yet aboorrd...?”
“Hey! what?” said Demaine over his shoulder, with a startled air.
“Get up and ask for notice,” whispered a colleague very hurriedly. “Get
up and say ‘I must ask for notice of that question.’ Say ‘I must ask
for notice of that question.’ Get up quick.”
Demaine got up, took hold of the box, turned his back upon the
questioner and looking full at the harmless and startled Opposition
said, not without menace:
“I must ask for a notice of that question”--and sat down.
There were a few more sympathetic cheers and all was well. The Warden
of the Court of Dowry was launched upon his great career.
Meanwhile, beyond the Central Hall, Lord Repton of Giggleswick was
rising for the first time among his Peers.
That House also was full and was prepared to give the spare towering
figure and the stoical face a sympathetic hearing, for the recognition
of a man who had served his country so faithfully and so well and who
had recently suffered a temporary malady of so distressing a nature was
universal and sincere.
The House of Lords knows a _Man_.
Lord Repton, even as plain Sir Charles, had always been an admirable
parliamentary speaker: not only quick at debate but with a grave and
lucid delivery which, coupled with his intimate grasp of detail and the
sense of balanced judgment behind his tone, made his one of the most
effective voices in our public life.
It would be difficult to say by what art he contrived to give in that
large assembly the impression of speaking as quietly as though he were
in a private room, and yet so managed that every word of his--every
syllable,--was heard in every corner of the House.
In the Peeresses’ Gallery women in mauve, heliotrope, eau-de-nil,
crapaud mort, and magenta, made a brilliant scheme of colour.
The Lords, who upon occasions of privilege are by custom robed, gave to
the splendid place the deeper tone of red plush and white pelts with
small black tails which is otherwise reserved for such great occasions
of state as the Opening of Parliament, the Coronation, an Impeachment
or a Replevin at Large; at the bar a crowd of Commoners pressed, many
of whom recognised in the faces before them those of brothers, fathers,
first cousins, debtors, creditors and clients in business. It was
an animated and an impressive scene, and the audience, large as it
was, would doubtless have been larger but for an unfortunate blunder
by which the Eton and Harrow match and a particularly interesting
rehearsal of the Mizraim dance were both fixed for that very afternoon.
As it was, the two hundred or more Peers present were finely
representative of all that is best and worst in the national life.
The aged Duke of Battersea had made a point not only of coming but
of speaking upon such an occasion; the Bishops had turned up in full
force, and the Colonial Peers, now happily added to the ancient House,
were remarkable not only for their strict attention to this historic
business, but for their somewhat constrained attitudes: not one was
absent from his seat.
The report of a speech, however excellent, is but a dull reflection of
the original, as all may judge who consider the contrast between the
entrancing rhetoric which daily holds spellbound the House of Commons
and the plain prose appearing in the morning papers.
It would ill repay the reader for the courtesy and charm she has shown
throughout the perusal of these pages, were I to inflict upon her a
mere verbatim transcript of Lord Repton’s famous harangue. But the
gist of it well merits record here, not only because it did much to
kill a poisonous spirit which had till then been growing in English
journalism--but also because it was in itself a typical and splendid
monument of the things that build up the soul of a great man.
He began in the simplest manner with a review of what had determined
some of them to bring forward this Resolution. It needed no reiteration
upon his part, and indeed the matter was so painful that the mere
recalling of it must be made as brief as possible.
“It has been suggested that places in that House are acquired by
process of purchase.
“There, in plain English, is the accusation.”
He would remark in passing that the cowards and slanderers--he did
not hesitate to use strong language--(and even the sanctity of the
precincts could not check a murmur of approval), the cowards and
slanderers who brought forward that general accusation, dared not make
it particular.
“In one case,” he said, turning gravely to the place where he expected
to see but was disappointed not to see the very aged frame of Lord
Ballymulrock, “in one case which referred to a peer whose health I am
distressed to say has made it impossible for him to be present upon
this occasion” (a protest from an exceedingly old man who sat folded up
on high--it was Bally himself!), “in one case a direct accusation has
been made.... Melords, you know the issue. An appeal still lies, and it
is not for me to deal with a matter which is _sub judice_; but apart
from that case, these anonymous hacks who have for so long corrupted or
attempted to corrupt the public mind in respect to this House, confine
themselves to generalities upon which the law can take no hold.”
It was upon this very account that the general resolution of which
he had spoken had been framed, and he would pass at once from the
unsavoury recollection of such acts, to that part of his argument which
he thought would have most weight with his fellow-subjects.
“This House, including the more recent creations, the Colonial Peers,
and the ex-officio additions with which a recent--and in my opinion a
beneficent reform--has recruited it, still numbers less than fifteen
hundred men. Of these the ex-officio members, the lords spiritual”
(and he bowed to the Bishop of Shoreham, who was deaf) “the elected
members from the Britains Overseas (among whom I am glad to see present
the Nerbuddah Yah) between them account for no less than forty-two.
Two hundred and eighty” (he quoted from a paper in his hand) “are
imbeciles, minors or permanent invalids; somewhat over fifty are for
one reason or another incapacitated from attendance at their debates;
ten are in gaol.”
“Now, Melords,” he continued, “of the eleven hundred remaining--they
are roughly eleven hundred,--what do we find? We find”--emphatically
striking his right-hand fist into his left-hand palm,--“we find no
less than five hundred and twelve to be the sons of their fathers--or
in some other way direct heirs: ninety-eight to have succeeded to their
titles from collaterals of the first or of the second degree; sixteen
to have succeeded in some more distant manner; eleven to owe their
position to the revival of ancient tenures; the claims of six to have
been recently proved through the female line; and one by Warranty and
Novel Disseizin. What remains?”
He looked round the eager assembly before him with an attitude of the
head dignified but wonderfully impressive.
“Melords, I ask again, what remains? _Less than four hundred men_, the
representatives of all the chief energies of our national life. We
have here the great champions of industry, the great admirals of our
fleets, the great generals of our armies--and I am happy to include
the Salvation Army, (the head of that great organisation lifted his
biretta)--men who have distinguished themselves in every conceivable
path of public life, who have loyally served their country and many of
whom after such service are still honourably poor.”
At this phrase which was evidently the approach to his peroration, many
Peers who had hitherto been sitting with their knees apart, crossed one
leg over the other; some few who, on the contrary, had had their legs
crossed, uncrossed them and reposed both feet upon the floor; more than
one took the opportunity to recline his head upon his right hand, and
the most venerable member of the bench of Bishops coughed in a manner
that would have wrung a heart of stone.
When these slight interruptions were over, Lord Repton of Giggleswick
found it possible to proceed. He showed by a strict process of inquiry
how those to whom the abominable suggestion might conceivably apply,
could not by any stretch of the imagination amount to eighty in number.
“Less than eighty men, Melords, in an assembly of fifteen hundred!
Hardly five per cent.--hardly, if I may use a bold metaphor, thirteen
pence in the pound! It is by this proportion alone, even did these
detestable falsehoods contain--which they do not--a grain of truth,
that our whole body is forsooth to be judged! But, Melords, who are
these eighty men, if I do not insult them by permitting my argument to
approach their names?
“I will not cite my own case; my public career is open for any man to
examine, and I think I know the temper of my own people too well to
delay upon that score. But there are around me others perhaps (I know
not) more sensitive, or less experienced in the petty villainies of the
world, than am I, who may have thought themselves especially marked out.
“I ask, against which of them could such an accusation be levelled by
name, without the certitude of such a result in any Court of Justice as
would silence the mouth of the libeller for many years? Is it, Melords,
the man to whom we owe the great reservoir at Sing Yan? Is it that
world-famous Englishman who by his organising ability, his untiring
industry and his knowledge of men, has built up the United Sausage
Company’s emporiums throughout the length and breadth of the land?
“I might extend the list indefinitely: Melords, to no one of these, to
no one member of this House I venture to say, can words of this kind be
addressed without their falsity being apparent almost without need for
proof.
“I repeat in the words of Burke, ‘No, no, no, a thousand times no.’ I
am not ashamed to recall the glorious phrase with which these walls
echoed to the voice of Ephraim ten years ago: ‘Give me such principles
as these and I will trample them into the dust beneath my feet!’”
Having said so much, Lord Repton sat down, and it is a tribute to the
fire and the conviction of the man that a young heiress of African
Origin but recently married, who had been listening intently from the
Peeresses’ Gallery throughout the latter part of the speech, gave a low
moan and fainted clean away.
Her young form was borne down to the buttery by a strong posse of
attendants where the air from the Terrace soon revived her. I mention
the incident only as a signal proof of the oratorical powers that had
illumined Repton’s great career.
After such an effort Lord Methlinghamhurst necessarily somewhat palled,
especially as an imperfection in his diction, failing eyesight and a
certain loss of memory compelled him to make long and uncomfortable
pauses over the large printed slip which he held in his hand, but
it was over at last, and the Duke of Battersea rose amid the evident
interest of such as remained to hear him, no less than five of whom
were concerned with himself in the Anapootra Ruby Mines.
The great financier did well to interpose upon such an occasion. His
lisp, with which the House was now familiar, was the only impediment to
a sincere and vigorous piece of English. There was not a word which the
most exuberant would presume to add, nor one which the most fastidious
would dare to erase.
The proceedings had occupied something close upon three-quarters of
an hour, and the Senate, unused to such delays, was impatient to pass
to the vote, when, to the universal horror of that hall, Ballymulrock
tottered to his feet. There was almost a stampede. Luckily the Aged Man
was as brief as he was inaudible. It was a couple of squeaks, several
mutters, and a collapse. They proceeded to put the question.
The Peers flocked back again to their places in great numbers; others
stood ready for the Lobbies--but there was no need.
It was one of those rare moments when many hundreds of hearts, to quote
a wild and lovely poem, beat as one; and with a silent unanimity which
eye-witnesses declare to have formed the most impressive sight since
the first great review of Specials upon Salisbury Plain, the Resolution
was adopted.
Thus was destroyed, let us hope for ever, what was rapidly growing to
be a formidable legend and one that would have undermined the security
of the State and the honour of our public life in the eyes of rival
nations.
It was not the least of the services which Charles Repton had rendered
to the State, and as we raise our grateful hats to Providence for the
recovery that made his action possible, let us not forget the genius of
the Young Canadian Doctor who was the author of that miraculous moment
in a story of a thousand years.
* * * * *
The Private Members’ time was ended. The House sat on upon the
Broadening of the Streets Bill, the intense unpopularity of which
rendered it especially urgent.
When the House of Commons rose, near midnight, Dolly and Dimmy went
out together by the door of the private rooms into the cool air and
there in the courtyard were the glowing lamps of Mary’s motor car. She
beckoned them and they got in.
“You got to come to supper to-night,” she said mysteriously. “They’ll
all be there.”
Dimmy was agreeable. Dolly tried to plead something but she shut him
up, and after them in single file raced through London half a dozen
taxis and cars and broughams all making in a stream for St. James’s.
It made such a supper-party as Mary Smith alone in London could gather!
Her sister-in-law, with the Leader of the Opposition, and his
brother; his right-hand man who had been Chancellor in the last
administration; his nephew, the Postmaster General; Dolly himself;
Dolly’s brother-in-law, the Secretary for India; his little nephew’s
wife’s cousin at the Board of Trade, and his stepmother’s brother at
the Admiralty, sat down,--and so did Dimmy, who was there without his
wife, and also, I regret to say, without a stud, or rather without the
head of a stud, in his shirt; for somehow it had broken off.
But the reader will have but an imperfect picture of that jolly table
if she imagines that it was a mere family party.
Our public life is a larger thing than that! Of the five members of the
two front benches who were not connected by marriage, two were present:
the Minister for Education who could draw such screamingly funny things
on blotting-paper, and Beagle, back two days before from Berlin, who
could imitate a motor car with his mouth better than any man in Europe.
And there also, by a sort of licence, was the Duke of Battersea,
brought by Charlie Fitzgerald and his wife.
They had already sat down when William Bailey, whom no one had invited,
came ponderously and good-humouredly in, affected to stare at the Duke,
and made a place for himself as far as possible from that controller
of hemispheres, who was in his usual chair on Mary Smith’s right hand,
with bulbous baggy eyes for none but her.
William Bailey smiled all that evening and smiled especially at
Dimmy--but he remained very silent; when, a little before two, they
began to make a move, he had not said a dozen words--and Dimmy was
exceedingly grateful.
Nay, his friendship extended further: he saw Demaine as they all got up
from table nervously stuffing a corner of the cloth in mistake for his
handkerchief into his trousers pocket.
“Look out, Dimmy!” he said.
Dimmy jumped, and the tablecloth jumped with him, and then a crash--a
great crash of broken glass, and the falling of candles.
Mary Smith was very nearly annoyed, but on such an occasion she forgave
him.
* * * * *
North of the Park, for now two hours, Lord Repton of Giggleswick had
slept an easy sleep.
ON THE PSEUDOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF CARYLL’S GANGLIA
A PAMPHLET
_Which the reader need not read. It is quite as easy to understand the
book without it._
Extract from a lecture delivered, for a grossly insufficient fee, by
a professor of great popular reputation at the Royal Institution on
January 26th, 1915:--
“The _Review of Comparative Biology_ in its October issue contained a
short and modest paper over the name of Henry Upton which is destined
to influence modern thought more profoundly than anything that has
appeared since _Lux Mundi_ or the _Origin of Species_. Henry Upton has
been taken from us. Or, to use a phrase consecrated by his own reverent
quotation of it, he has ‘Passed beyond the Veil,’ he has crossed the
bar; but short as the time is since this brief essay was given to the
world, his name is already famous.
“You will have heard the echoes of passionate discussions upon his
famous theory; it is my business this afternoon to put before you in
clear and popular language that you can easily understand, what that
theory was; and when I have done so I make no doubt that you will see
why it has been thought so transcendently important.
“Briefly, Henry Upton declared himself finally convinced that between
Man and the Simius Gabiensis there existed a differentiation so marked
as to destroy all possibility of any recent common origin for the two
species.
“When I add that Simius Gabiensis is but the technical name for the
Ringtailed Baboon of our childhood you will at once appreciate what a
revolution such a pronouncement must work if it can be sustained: and
it has been sustained!
“It is common knowledge and will be familiar to the youngest child in
this room that the Ringtailed Baboon is the highest of the Anthropoids,
and the one nearest approaching the majesty of the Human Species--Homo
Sapiens; and if between him and ourselves the link of affinity prove
far removed, it seems indeed as though the whole edifice of modern
biology and of modern thought itself will fall to the ground.
“The superficial differences to be discovered between a cleanly and
well-bred gentleman and the Ringtailed Baboon are common property: the
beard in the Anthropoid is not so clearly defined as in the allied
organism of Man, but covers the whole face; the superciliary arch
is more prominent, the diaphragm tessarated and refulgent, while the
Cardiac Aneries are at once paler and less vasculate in form: the
rings upon the tail are of course peculiar to the Simian, and almost
universally absent in the human species, while the speech of the latter
is far more complex and articulate than that of the former.
“But I need not detain this cultured audience with considerations
quite unworthy of physical science. All the weight of real evidence
pointed to the close relationship between the two types, and it was a
commonplace of the classroom that in all fundamentals the two animals
betrayed an ancestor less remote than that of the dog and the wolf.
Now, since Henry Upton’s work appeared, we are certain that that
ancestor is more remote than the ancestor of the hippopotamus and the
Jersey cow, and probably more remote than that of the mongoose and the
Great Auk.
“In every text-book we read (and we believed the statement) that
between a really poor man and the highest specimens of our race lay a
gulf wider than that which separated the former from the Ringtailed
Baboon and even from the Gorilla and the Barbary Ape. To-day all that
is gone!
“Now let me turn to the evidence. Briefly, again, Henry Upton proved
that CARYLL’S GANGLIA were not, as had been imagined, unimportant or
useless organs, but were organically necessary to the full conduct of
man.
“It had of course been known since Caryll first described and mapped
these ganglia, that they were present in Man and absent in all other
animals. But they were not unique in this, and the obscure part which
they seemed to play in our economy attracted little attention from
the student. Suddenly these humble agglutinations of organic matter
were lifted into the blaze of fame by an Englishman whose name will
not perish so long as our civilisation endures. For Henry Upton showed
that in these ganglia lay the capital distinction between man and his
congener; if I, myself, for instance, differ in any way from ‘Pongo’ in
Regent’s Park, it is to Caryll’s Ganglia, under Providence, that I owe
the privilege.
“Henry Upton was not the man to proceed upon _a priori_ reasoning,
or to state as a conclusion what was still a bare hypothesis. He had
suspected the truth ten years before committing it to print: they were
ten years of anxiety, nay, of agony, during which a bolder or less
scrupulous man might snatch from him the merit of prior discovery; but
he felt it was his duty to Science to continue the vast labour and the
patient research, until he could speak once and for all.
“Upton tabulated in all the enormous number of 57,752 recorded
experiments. He first noted the comparative sizes of the ganglia, in
children and adults, in women and in men, showing them to be larger
in men than in women, and in children rudimentary before the seventh
year. He next proved that in certain professions, notably in those of
the money-lender, the solicitor and the politician, hypertrophy of the
ganglia was to be discovered. The conclusions to which this pointed
will soon be evident. His theory already began to take shape. Luckily
for English science, this great man was possessed of private means. He
organised a staff of enthusiastic young workers who occupied themselves
in treading upon the toes of people in omnibuses, sitting upon top
hats, asking direct questions of slight acquaintances concerning their
financial affairs, and coughing violently and with long, uninterrupted
spasms at the most exciting moments of melodramatic plays. The result
was in each case tabulated, and in over 5·08 per cent. of the cases it
was possible with care to discover the position of the ganglia in those
who responded to the stimuli. Without a single exception the importance
of the ganglia varied directly with the self-restraint exercised
against such stimuli. Those who struck out, swore, or in any other way
betrayed immediate violence, were found to possess small and sometimes
partially atrophied C. G’s. Those who protested sullenly or confined
themselves to angry glances were normal; those who contained themselves
as though nothing had happened, invariably possessed ganglia of a
large and peculiarly healthy type, while those who actually expressed
enjoyment and begged for a repetition of the performance had ganglia of
so astonishing a size as to cause protuberances on either side of the
head, for Caryll’s Ganglia lie (as most of you probably know) a little
south-east and by east of the Aural Cavity.
“It might by this time have seemed sufficiently proved that Caryll’s
Ganglia were the seat of all that restraint and balance upon
which human society depends; but Upton was not satisfied until he
had clinched the process of proof by a negative experiment upon
animals:--And here let me point out in passing that had certain
well-meaning fanatics their own way, this great revelation would never
have been made. The horse, the pig, the common house-fly, the bee, the
dog and the wild goose, to give but a few examples, were severally
tested, and in each case it was discovered that a clout, a fillip, or
any other simple stimulus was at once responded to. In no case was a
trace of Caryll’s Ganglia to be found.
“You all know the end!
“The essay was printed, Upton’s name had already flown to the utmost
corners of the globe, when he read in some obscure narrative of travel
that the little armadillo that can sleep without a pillow, though
possessing no ganglia, was capable of the same balance and restraint
as man, could control himself under all but the most violent stimuli,
conceal his most poignant necessities, and smile in the presence of
death.
“Upton was a Scientist of the Scientists. One single exception and he
would retract from his position. He sailed for the Amazon, interviewed
the armadillo, but at the first pin he thrust into the fleshy portion
of the animal’s steaks, a little below the armoured belt, it belied the
false report by turning savagely round and biting off his head. His
remains were reverently brought home to London. He lies in Westminster
Abbey, the last and perhaps the greatest of martyrs to scientific
truth.
“If Henry Upton’s immortal achievement seems for a moment to have
broken down the very keystone in the arch of social progress, and to
have made null the whole structure of biological truth; if it leaves
Man no longer propped up by a knowledge of cousinship and brotherhood
with the beasts of the field, but all alone, an exile upon earth,
nevertheless we must take courage. The Bishop of Shoreham has told us
(Etc., etc., etc.).”
_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
_Edinburgh_
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dollars, not pounds.
[2] He did.
[3] [Greek: ... mega sthenos Ôkeanoio
Antyga par pymatên sakeos pyka poiêtoio.]
[4] I refer to Mr. Bulge, and I refer to him both as an actor and as an
author. Amen.
[5] There are two such farthings in the Heygate family to-day.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling that may have been in use at the time of
publication has been retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Change in the Cabinet, by Hilaire Belloc