[Illustration: Alleged “interference” with the Heavenly Twins.
_See “The Universal Conflict.”_]
UNPARLIAMENTARY
PAPERS AND OTHER
DIVERSIONS
BY
REGINALD BERKELEY
Author of
“French Leave” and “Eight O’Clock”
Part Author of “The Oilskin Packet”
and “Decorations and Absurdities”
_With an Introduction_
By J. C. SQUIRE
_And Drawings by_
BOHUN LYNCH
Cecil Palmer
Forty-nine
Chandos Street
W.C.2
FIRST
EDITION
1924
COPYRIGHT
_Printed in Great Britain_
_To_ C. H. G.
_Friend, of all friends most prized and dear,
When times are sad, when memories smart,
When smiles hold back the scalding tear,
And laughter hides a breaking heart--
Because the sleeve’s no place to wear it--
May this poor book of mine come in
And help brave you to grin and bear it,
Or--if you cannot bear it--grin._
Certain of the papers that make up this book have appeared, either in
this present or in some modified form, in the “Outlook.” Others have
been published in the “Nottingham Journal,” the “Yorkshire Observer,”
and other provincial dailies. Others again are hitherto unpublished. To
the Editors of those journals in which his work has appeared the author
wishes to express his gratitude and acknowledgments.
INTRODUCTION
I happen to frequent Captain Berkeley’s company on the cricket field.
When he is there, and the wicket is bumpy, it might suitably be called
a stricken field. He bowls very fast and very straight.
As his publisher usually keeps wicket for him, I dare not suggest that
the crooked ones go for four byes. In any event that parallel would
not be necessary here; but the general characteristics of Captain
Berkeley’s bowling are certainly in evidence. He goes direct at his
object, and when he hits it the middle stump whirls rapidly in the air.
He is all for hitting the wicket; slip catches and cunningly arranged
chances to cover are not for him. This blunt going for the main point
it is that gives his parodies their greatest charm. I like it when
I see a reference to “Count Puffendorff Seidlitz, the Megalomanian
Minister”: if we are being funny, why not laugh aloud instead of merely
tittering? “Lord Miasma” pleases me as a coinage full of meaning in
these days; there is a refreshing lack of compromise about the name of
the Galsworthy parson, “The Rev. Hardy Heavyweight”; and how better
could one name two of Sir James Barrie’s minor characters than by
the twin appellations of McVittie and Price, who here take, as they
elsewhere give, the biscuit? This agreeable couple appear in one of the
mock plays which, to one reader at least, seem to be the very best
part of this very miscellaneous volume. Captain Berkeley is himself a
successful playwright, and dog has here very entertainingly eaten dog.
Mr. Galsworthy’s passion for abstract titles; his hostile preoccupation
with the normal sporting man; his agonised sympathy with maltreated
women; his determination to load the dice against his heroines: all
these things are made clear in language very like his own, and yet in a
way that suggests (to return to our imagery) that the bowler, however
fast and determined, has a respect for the batsman. I don’t know that
it is quite fair to ascribe “the Manchester Drama” especially to Mr.
St. John Ervine or even to Manchester; but we know the type, and if a
few more blows like this will kill it, so much the better. It is well
enough to be harrowed in the theatre, but not to be made to feel as
though we had chronic dyspepsia. The Russian Drama is beautifully apt;
and “The Slayboy of the Western World” also. They reproduce idioms and
mannerisms perfectly, and exhibit limitations unanswerably.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing about this book is its diversity. It
is an age (excluding the merely vulgarly versatile) of specialists and
specialist labels. A man is not expected to see life whole, much less
steadily; he is encouraged to describe himself as “poet,” “parodist,”
“politician,” “business man” or what not; and it is regarded as almost
improper that a person who takes an interest in Synge should so much
as admit a knowledge of Mr. Winston Churchill’s existence. Captain
Berkeley refuses to subject himself to any such limitations. He surveys
everything around him, and where he sees anything he thinks funny, he
has a go at it. This should not be regarded--any more than Canning’s
squibs were regarded--as militating against his trustworthiness as
a politician. Rather the reverse. A knowledge of humanity and the
humanities is serviceable in legislation and administration, and a
sense of humour usually goes with the sense which is called common.
J. C. SQUIRE.
CONTENTS
PAGE
UNPARLIAMENTARY PAPERS:--
The Universal Conflict 3
An Eminent Georgian 12
My First Derby 20
On Eternal Life 28
The Next War--and Military Service 31
First Plays for Beginners 39
Hats 45
Shareholders’ Blood 52
The Personal Column 60
Society Sideshows 64
LATTER-DAY DRAMAS:--
Morality 75
Eternity and Post-Eternity 87
The Enchanted Island 101
President Wilson 112
Jemima Bloggs 125
Under Eastern Skies 132
The Vodka Bottle 144
King David I 153
The Slayboy of the Western World 158
IMPOLITICS:--
A Member of Parliament 167
Woes of the Whips 174
Young Men and “Maidens” 180
Front Benches and Back Benches 188
“Order, Order” 196
Lords and Commons 203
IRREVERENT INTERVIEWS AND OTHER IRRELEVANCES:--
With Lord Balfour at the Washington Conference 211
With Monsieur Briand after the Washington Conference 219
With Mr. Lloyd George during his
Premiership 227
With Lord Birkenhead on the Woolsack 235
Old Tory 243
Edward and Eustace 244
The Two Wedgwoods 249
Songs of a Die-Hard 253
Nursery Rhyme 254
The Old Member 255
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ALLEGED “INTERFERENCE” WITH THE HEAVENLY
TWINS _Frontispiece_
“DONE DOWN ON THE DOWNS” 23
“IN WHICH I SHALL LOOK LESS RIDICULOUS” 47
“AND OBLIGINGLY OVERTURNS DOWN AN EMBANKMENT” 71
“THE INFLUENCE OF THAT MAN SHAW” 89
“LIFE’S VERY HARD” 127
“AH! LITTLE FATHERS, THIS POISON----” 151
“NEW MEMBER, SIR?” 169
EDWARD AND EUSTACE 245
JOVIAL JOSIAH WEDGWOOD AND BOLD WEDGWOOD BENN 251
THE UNIVERSAL CONFLICT
NINETEEN ANYTHING--NINETEEN SOMETHING
ELSE
BY THE RT. HON. WINSOM STUNSTER CHORTILL
CHAPTER MXCVII
GOLGOTHA
More criticisms--My “interference” with the Heavenly Twins--Suggested
operations against Venus--My memoranda on Venus and Jupiter--Detailed
proposals--Our new super-planetary battering-ram--Lord Krusher
baffled--Correspondence between us--Lord Krusher’s objections--My
reply--His antagonism--Meeting of the Allied Planetary
Council--Serious position--The Archangel Gabriel’s shortcomings--My
plan for saving the situation--The crisis--My resignation--Reflections.
Scarcely had died away the reverberations of criticism, enhanced by
venomous personal attacks upon myself for my so-called “interference”
in the operations against the Heavenly Twins, when a new crisis of
even more momentous significance was sprung upon the Cabinet. In the
previous December, with the fullest concurrence of the First Air Lord
and the Board of Aerial Operations, I had planned a lightning raid
on the planet of Venus to be carried out by our obsolete comets. The
political situation has so important a bearing upon this project that
I must here interpolate a memorandum which, as long before as the
previous July, I had addressed to the Secretary of State for Extra
Planetary Affairs and circulated to my colleagues.
_Memorandum._
_Mr. Chortill to the Extra Planetary Secretary._
I can no longer preserve silence on the subject of Venus. Venusian
hostility may quite well be fatal to the whole grand operation which
we and our planetary allies are at present co-ordinating against
the Central Planets. The grip of Mars upon Venus is unquestionably
tightening; and, if no intervention is undertaken, but, on the
contrary, the spirit of _laissez-faire_ is allowed to prevail, we
shall not only lose a strong potential adherent, but, which is equally
important, also forfeit considerable sympathy amongst our own people.
The plan of the Martians is quite plain. Availing themselves of that
well-known astronomical phenomenon--the Transit of Venus--they will
undoubtedly utilise that period of uncertainty to detach this wavering
planet from our cause and bind her irrevocably to themselves. That
would be nothing short of a disaster.
At the same time, knowing his difficulties in coping with the tasks of
his office, I instructed the faithful Smashterton Jones to convey the
following message to the Prime Minister himself:
_Mr. Chortill to the Prime Minister._
I am seriously exercised in my mind about Jupiter. I fear that, by
confining ourselves to the narrow requirements of tactical gain, we
are neglecting inter-planetary strategy. Do, I beg you, consider this
point. If Jupiter can be induced--I don’t suggest that this proposal
is necessarily the best, but, let us say, by the offer of one or both
of the rings of Saturn under a Mandate of the League of Planets--if
Jupiter could in this or some other manner be induced to take an
active part, at least in the aerial blockade to cut off from the
Central Planets the communication which at present they enjoy outside
the Solar System, there is no doubt but that the conflict would be
sensibly shortened, and it might make a difference of centuries. I
enclose a Memorandum on Venus which I have sent to the Extra Planetary
Secretary, and upon which I should value your remarks.
W. S. C.
Reverting now to the plan for an aerial raid on the planet of Venus.
We had the old comets, quite ineffective for operations against the
major Planets, but powerful and not at all to be despised; we had a
satisfactory surplus of meteors which could be employed in support;
and we had in addition the newly constructed, and in all respects
novel, planetary battering-ram, specially designed for jarring, or,
as the technical word is, “boosting” heavenly bodies out of their
orbits--the apple of the eye of old Lord Krusher and the Board of
Aerial Construction. This formidable engine, unique, as we were led to
believe, in the whole stellar universe, must in any case carry out her
trials somewhere, and might as well be utilised in toppling a potential
antagonist out of our path, instead of being sent to the Milky Way for
the usual two months’ test. So much for material. Of trained personnel
we had, though not an abundance, a reasonable margin. Only one thing
seemed to baffle the mighty war mind of old Lord Krusher and our
experts--a satisfactory jumping-off place. Accordingly, the day before
the Cabinet met, I dictated the following:--
_First Lord to the First Air Lord._
Referring to our conversation with regard to the Venus Striking Force,
and the necessity for a jumping-off place, has it occurred to you that
the Mountains of the Moon are in every way adapted for this purpose?
A force of comets and meteors with the necessary reserves, L. of C.
troops, etc., based upon this strategic point, not only dominates the
principal airways and traffic routes, but points a spear directly at
the heart of the enemy. Request therefore that you will examine this
proposition, and, in conjunction with Aerial Operations, furnish me
immediately with an estimate of the material, plant, etc., required to
convert these natural fastnesses into a suitable base.
W. S. C.
To this he replied in a characteristic letter:--
Trusty and well-beloved Winsom,
Your plan is, like yourself, marvellous! Nobody but you could have
thought of it. I could turn the Mountains of the Moon into the base
you require in forty-eight hours, but for one overriding difficulty,
which your memorandum does not meet. There is no AIR on the Moon, my
Winsom, and human beings being what they are, _air is necessary_ IF
THEY ARE NOT TO PERISH.
Only THREE things are necessary to win the war: _air_, SPEED, and
GUTS. I have got the last, you are providing the second, but where are
we to get the AIR?
_Skegness?_
We had better try the Valley of the Dry Bones instead, if the
archæologists can find it for us. Failing that, Sinbad’s cavern.
Yours till Ginger pops,
KRUSHER.
This was the kind of thoughtless criticism to which I was occasionally
subjected by the old air-dog.[1] Magnificent in his courage, more often
right than wrong, a splendid example of British brain-power, there
were times when he made the error of estimating other people’s mental
capacity by his own. Time was pressing, so I wirelessed the following
reply:--
_First Lord to First Air Lord_:
TAKE SUPPLY OF OXYGEN IN CANISTERS,
which settled the matter. Alas! I was to discover later that this
too speedy resolution of his difficulties was merely to succeed in
antagonising the bluff old warrior against the whole project.
Meanwhile the great Council of the Allied Planets met, and it became
all too apparent that the operations, as a whole, were being pursued
with even more than our customary hesitation and delay. The Archangel
Gabriel, an excellent First Minister in times of peace, was beginning
to give unmistakable signs of being too old and slow-witted for his
work. Since his well-remembered and highly successful controversy with
Lucifer, some æons before, his powers had been steadily waning; and
it was speedily becoming apparent that he had no longer the mental
alertness and vigour of body for a prolonged campaign conducted under
the stress of modern conditions. At times--as, for instance, over the
thunderbolt shortage--he would arouse himself to prodigious efforts,
equalling, if not outstripping, his ancient prowess. And then he would
fall into always increasing periods of apathy, from which there was no
extracting him.
In these circumstances I wrote the following memorandum:--
_Memorandum by the Rt. Hon. Winsom Stunster Chortill on the general
situation_:
We have now been at war for forty-three years and eleven days. A
prodigious expenditure of blood and treasure has so far secured for us
no material advantage. The essential services are suffering from lack
of co-ordination. Much valuable energy is being wasted in duplication
of effort.
I have indicated in the accompanying appendices (36 in number)
detailed plans for a change of policy on all the fronts, and I attach
also an additional memorandum with 7 sequellæ, 41 maps and a detailed
schedule of supplies, dealing with the political situation likely to
arise on the Transit of Venus, and outlining a scheme of operations
for immediate consideration and adoption.
After all these years it becomes necessary to say that the Allied
cause is suffering from a want of decision. As each new problem arises
we seem to be more and more unprepared. This cannot be indefinitely
prolonged, and only one sensible solution presents itself--namely,
that the control of all policy, operations and forces should be
centred under one hand. Modesty forbids the suggestion that the
serious crisis in our national fortunes demands that I should indicate
myself as the most suitable person to have charge of this enterprise;
but if consulted I should be willing to express my opinion on the
matter.
W. S. C.
On the following day, the most fateful of my life, I was unable to
resist a foreboding that things were not yet destined to go right for
the Allied cause. The careful records I had kept of my administration
satisfied me, as I looked through them, that for all I had done I could
assure myself of the approval of posterity. We had created, equipped
and maintained a gigantic aerial machine. No hostile forces had so
much as come within sight of our planet. My further schemes, to which
I had applied every existing intellectual test, made us reasonably
certain of a speedy result; and I left my room and strode across to the
Council with a conviction in my heart that I could carry through my
proposals--and yet with a haunting fear of the unexpected. On arriving
at the Council Chamber my forebodings became heavier. The proceedings
were of a most perfunctory nature. All controversial business was
adjourned to a later meeting, and we were informed that a crisis made
it necessary for the head of the Government to demand the resignations
of his entire Ministry. With a heavy heart I parted with the insignia
of my office, realising, as I did so, that the struggle must now be
indefinitely prolonged. The head of the Government, animated by that
spirit of kindliness towards myself which he had ever shown, pressed me
to accept a gilded sinecure. With every wish to avoid giving him pain I
felt myself obliged to decline. Posterity, he told me, would appreciate
my zeal in the public service.
Posterity, I felt to myself, as I left the building, would, thanks to
my diaries, at least understand.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A kind of Skye terrier.--W. S. C.
AN EMINENT GEORGIAN
SOME EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY IN THE MANNER OF A DISTINGUISHED WRITER
During the latter part of the closing year of the nineteenth century,
an English traveller, sojourning with his wife and daughter near
the hot springs of Rotorua in New Zealand, was observed one day to
dash from the verandah of his hotel, hatless, into the street, and
accost a passing urchin. The lad was singularly unprepossessing; he
squinted, his right shoulder was strangely deformed, and his ears
were much too large for his head. Unlike most children in receipt of
flattering attentions from an elderly and distinguished stranger, he
snarled, spat on the ground, and hurried away muttering oaths. The
astonished relatives of the traveller, hurrying out in pursuit of
him--in the belief, as the wife said afterwards, that he was suddenly
demented--found their husband and parent almost beside himself with
excitement. “That boy,” he said, pointing towards the receding figure
a hand that shook with emotion--“that boy will end as Prime Minister
of England.” Convinced that his mind was wandering, they led him back
with soothing words to the hotel; but his unerring judgment was once
again to be confirmed by the verdict of time. The speaker was Dr.
Quank Brane, the eminent psychologist; the boy, soon to be known to
the greater part of the universe, equally for the profundity of his
wisdom and the variety of his gifts and achievements, was Erasmus
Galileo McCann, philosopher, scientist, theologian, naval and military
strategist, scholar, economist and some time First Minister of the
Crown.
The boyhood of this monument of versatile genius, no less than his
manhood, was remarkable. At the age of one, when dropped by his nurse,
a fact which accounted for the deformity of his shoulder, he was
distinctly heard, as if in anticipation of his interjectional habits
of later life, to rip out an accusing oath; and, when the startled
slattern turned up her hands and eyes in horror, he added, “Don’t
stare like a fool, go and get the doctor!” At three years old his
father presented him with all the volumes of Buckle’s _History of
Civilisation_, which he had completely mastered before he was five.
His dissertation of _The Lesser Cists in Invertebrates_, published at
the age of seven, is still a standard work of this little known branch
of biological science. Many years later an old friend of the family
told an admiring conclave of relatives of an encounter with the young
McCann, in which he himself was considerably worsted. In the course of
a journey across the Warraboora plains, a wild and almost uninhabited
tract of country, his provisions gave out. Some friendly natives whom
he encountered contrived to spare him a few dried corn cobs, but these
could hardly last him indefinitely. Starvation stared him in the face.
One day, however, as he was making a frugal meal of a large aboriginal
lizard, that he found entangled in the undergrowth, a strange urchin
dropped on his head from out of a tree fern, uttering savage whoops,
tore the carcass from his astonished fingers, and devoured it without a
word of apology.
“That,” said the older man with resignation, “was my last morsel of
food. I must now die.”
“_Je n’en vois pas la nécessité_,” returned the youth (it was McCann),
quoting La Rochefoucauld with the nonchalance of complete familiarity;
wherewith he swung himself into the branches of a Kauri pine, and
disappeared without another word. Giving himself up for lost, the
lonely traveller prepared for death; but before nightfall the youth
returned with a wallet of provender, and accompanied by guides who
piloted them back to civilisation. The boy appeared blissfully unaware
that he had done anything remarkable. “Such astonishing sang-froid,”
the traveller used to conclude, “I never encountered before or since. I
knew he was destined for greatness.”
* * * * *
His schooldays and college life were curiously uneventful. He secured
the uncoveted distinction of remaining at the bottom of the bottom
form of the school for three years, and of failing ignominiously in
the Cambridge Junior Local. Wiseacres shook their heads and quoted
scores of instances of infantile precocity. It began to look as
though the early promise was after all no more than a false dawn; and
then, to everyone’s astonishment, at the age of 19½ he planned,
financed and brought out _The People’s Piffle_, a daily journal
exactly corresponding to the literary appetites of the masses of the
British reading public. Among other novel features of this newspaper,
alternative opinions were presented in parallel columns on the leader
page, the appointment of the editor was subject to confirmation or
change every three months by a referendum of the readers, and, in place
of the obsolete insurances against accident, continued subscription for
a period of 25 years or longer conferred a pensionable right upon the
subscriber.
So momentous a development in the literary activities of the country
created a profound impression. More than one well-known actress sent
him her autograph unsolicited. A film star was heard to refer to him
as “some guy.” The Prime Minister of the day shook hands with him
in public. Lord Thundercliffe shook in his shoes, and redoubled
his fulminating denunciations of everything. But the day of Lord
Thundercliffe was over: a new era was at hand, the era of universal
genius; and McCann, its prophet and its leader, was even then poising
himself on the crest of the wave that was to sweep away the wreckage
of the old century, and sweep in the reforms of the new, and sweep him
personally into a position of eminence hitherto unknown in our annals.
* * * * *
Just at about this time a resident at Claydamp-on-the-Wash was
astonished, in the course of a country walk, to see a tall, thin
gentleman leaning over a gate in an attitude of insupportable
dejection. The enormous brogues; the ill-fitting brown suit; the
high-domed forehead; the bushy brown spade beard; the huge spectacles
perched on the lofty sensitive nose; the dreamy eyes looking far away
into the mists, all suggested a certain literary personage. Could it
be? Was it possible? Overcoming a natural hesitation at intruding
upon the privacy of one who was obviously a recluse, he hesitatingly
ventured to approach. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but surely I am
addressing Mr. Lytton Strachey?” and without giving the stranger time
to answer he added, “Is anything the matter? Can I help in any way?”
The solitary turned upon him eyes that were suffused with tears.
“Oh, no,” he replied, “no. Nothing. I was born too early, that is
all.” And on being pressed for a further explanation he continued,
“By the ordinary processes of Nature I must inevitably predecease
this monstrosity of talent; and I am excluded from the possibility of
writing the only Georgian biography that offers any kind of scope for
my abilities.”
* * * * *
He was of politics; and he was not of politics. He built up abstract
theories of Government in his articles in the morning Press: and
demolished them in the evening in his speeches in the House of Commons.
He attracted the sympathies of simple folk by a life of Spartan
discipline; and disgusted them by a profuse and shameless bestowal of
peerages and honours. He angled for the votes of the mercenary and
idle by a wholesale creation of state benevolences; and threw away
what he had gained by an almost niggardly supervision and husbandry of
the national income. As Controller and chief proprietor of the great
Press Trust, he denounced the infamies and exactions of the great
profiteering combines in which he himself was the principal partner:
and as Prime Minister of a secular Government he disestablished the
Church of which he, as Cardinal Archbishop, was the protesting head.
Writing at about this time Count Puffendorff Seidlitz, the Megalomanian
Ambassador, reported to his Government that it was perfectly vain to
cherish the slightest hope of undermining the national popularity
of one who so supremely embodied in himself the qualities, and the
inconsistencies, and the portentous humbug that chiefly characterised
the nation of which he was the head. Nothing could be done at present.
Above all there must be no haste. “But I do not despair,” he added,
“for, though ignorant of music, the man has a certain coarse feeling
for the arts--and that, in a country of Philistines, must in the long
run betray him into our hands.”
Fatal self-complacency! At the very moment when those words were being
penned, McCann was--where? He was in the anteroom of the Princess
Vodkha, that luckless Ambassador’s sovereign, waiting to seal with a
courtly handclasp the Trade Agreement between Megalomania and this
country. Poor Count Puffendorff Seidlitz! Where Lord Thundercliffe and
his brother Lord Miasma has failed, it was hardly to be supposed that
he would succeed.
* * * * *
So ended, in a thin filmy haze, a life of service and sacrament. To
the very end they thought he might be saved. The general public,
brought suddenly to the realisation of the approaching calamity, stood
dumbly in the streets, or hurried away--hoping. But the sands were
running down; the tide, long since turned, was ebbing with inexorable
swiftness; the night was indeed at hand. A greater and more terrible
accuser than Lord Thundercliffe hovered over the sick man’s bed; and a
greater and wiser Judge than public opinion was waiting to pronounce
the verdict from which there is no appeal.
MY FIRST DERBY
“No,” I said, “as a matter of fact I’ve never been to the Derby--and to
tell you the truth----” I went on.
He winced. He did not want me to tell him the truth. If the truth was
(as it was) that I didn’t care two cassowary’s eggs whether I went to
the Derby or not, that was the very last thing he desired to hear. He
wanted to keep his opinion of me as unimpaired by such idiosyncrasies,
as I would permit. These thoughts rippled over the mild surface of his
features like gusts of wind across the waters of a pond. I allowed the
words to die away in my throat. After all, to give pain flagrantly--
“Promise me,” he urged, “p-p-promise me you’ll take a day off and go
to-morrow. It’s one of the sights of the world. The Downs black with
people----”
“Black?” I murmured, “surely not in this heat?”
“Oh, well, covered with people then, stiff with people, crowded for
miles and miles with millions and millions of all classes in the
land----”
“Dear, dear,” I said, “first, second, _and_ third!”
He ignored this miserable attempt at buffoonery.
“Yes,” he averred, “all classes in the land, thimble-rigging, cocoanut
shying, confidence tricking, eating, drinking, laughing, cheering.
Vehicles of all sorts, shapes, sizes, motive power, blocking all the
roads in the neighbourhood. And the horses, my dear boy, the horses!
Until you’ve seen those horses, trained to a hair, with coats like
satin, ready to run for their lives, why, you simply haven’t seen
anything. And the crowd in the paddock. You _must_ see the crowd in the
paddock. _And_ the bookies. No man’s lived, till he’s been done down on
the Downs. Now promise me faithfully----”
“Very well,” I said hurriedly to forestall the otherwise inevitable
repetition, “I promise....”
* * * * *
It was rather fun, I admit. From the moment when the wheel-barrow on
which, apparently, I had made the journey in the company of a Zulu
chief, Lady Diana Manners, Mr. Justice Salter, and a dear little Eskimo
girl aged seven, drew up at Boulter’s Lock--no, no--not Boulter’s
Lock--Tattenham Corner, I knew I was in for one of the great days of my
life. There, glittering in the sunlight in all its pristine colouring,
stood the brand-new Tattenham Corner House, erected for the occasion
by Sir Joseph Lyons himself, who, with Lord Howard de Walden on one
side of him and the Prime Minister on the other, stood in the doorway
receiving his guests. A prodigious negro, with an unexpectedly small
voice, announced me (for some reason) as “Mr. Mallaby Deeley,” and I
found myself walking on a vast deep verandah, laid out with innumerable
little luncheon tables, through which a long procession of horses was
intricately manœuvring.
“The paddock,” murmured my Zulu companion. “It’s an idea of Sir
Joseph’s. The combination of a sit-down luncheon and form at a glance.
Extraordinarily convenient.”
We sat down at a table. Immediately a jockey and his horse sat down
opposite to us.
“Order us a drink each, dearie,” said the jockey, “it’s a fearful
business this perambulatin’ about; and you get nothing for it. Eh? Oh,
gin for _’er_, and I’ll take a glass o’ port.”
“And what is your young friend’s name?” enquired the judge, suddenly
putting his head from under the table.
“Ah,” said the jockey, knowingly, “that ’ud be telling, that would.” He
tapped his nose mysteriously and drank.
“But, my good sir,” complained the judge, “how can I back your horse if
I don’t know its name?”
“By the process of elimination,” said the jockey sagely.
[Illustration: “Done down on the Downs.”]
“Elimination,” said the judge, “what of?”
“Yourself,” said the jockey; and his mount choked coyly in her glass.
At this moment the King appeared, followed by Aristotle, Sir Thomas
Beecham, and others.
“The next race is about to begin,” he said severely, “and you’ve none
of you brushed your hair.”
* * * * *
It was a long time before I found the bookmaker. Any number of spurious
ones rose up in my path and taunted me; but He always escaped. At last
I thought of looking under one of the thimbles; and there he was in
deep calculation.
“What price Poltergeist?” I demanded. I wanted to say Psychology, but
the word somehow refused to shape itself.
“It all depends,” he replied shrewdly, “on whether you want to buy or
to sell,” wherewith he crossed his legs, smiled on only one side of his
face, and returned to his calculations.
“Aren’t you a bookmaker?” I faltered.
“Certainly,” he cried shrilly, “and I’m making a book now, can’t you
see?” He held up a kind of primitive loose-leaf ledger, made of calico
pages bound in sheepskin.
“Very durable,” he explained, and broke into a harsh chant:
“If I lay sevens and fours
And you take fives and threes--
What do they care for gaming laws,
Who have not felt the squeeze,
Who sacrifice the world’s applause
And gain ignoble ease?
With odds laid off or on,
And prices up or down----”
He broke off abruptly and rose to his feet. The miscellany in his lap
was scattered upon the ground.
“Pick up my work-basket,” he exclaimed, “and give me the kaleidoscope,”
I handed him the strange black instrument at which he was pointing, and
began groping on my knees among the pins and needles. He turned towards
the sun, and gazed at it through the object in his hand.
“Look out,” he exclaimed suddenly, “they’re off.”
Simultaneously a voice near me said, “The King’s calling you,” and I
began to run. Immediately the hounds were slipped from the leash, and
the hunt settled down in my wake. The ship began to sway from side to
side, and the roaring grew louder and louder. Still I ran, flashing
past the booths, past upturned umbrellas with cards scattered over
them, past the stewards’ enclosure, past the Royal Box. The thundering
grew louder and more insistent. I was flying along the track with the
whole field plunging after me. Hoarse cries. I redouble my efforts. My
head is going to burst. The Royal Box whizzes past again. The winning
post. I’m falling....
* * * * *
A long time afterwards, a voice said:
“He’s quite all right. A touch of heat-stroke is nothing, really, you
know. Quiet. Couple of days in bed.”
I opened my eyes.
“Sir Joseph Lyons----” I began.
“All right,” said the doctor, “you shut up.”
“I’ve promised to go to the Derby,” I protested.
“Next year,” replied the doctor. “Just drink this, will you?”
ON ETERNAL LIFE
Somebody--a certain Dr. Friedenberg to be truthful--has thrown out
suggestions of the dreadful possibility of indefinitely prolonging
the human existence; in fact of bringing about a kind of mundane
immortality. Hair is to be made to grow upon bald heads (no, mine
is not bald); short men will increase in stature by several inches;
and fat men will become slender and graceful. The last is perhaps an
attractive prospect. Wait. Tell me this.
Who wants to live for ever? And having disposed of that pertinent
question, in the affirmative if you will, who wants his neighbour to
live for ever?
Who wants to stereotype the control of human affairs in the hands that
find it so difficult to control them? What becomes of young ideas, new
movements and general progress, in a universe of bald pates thatched,
short men grown taller and corpulence made small? For in all this one
hears nothing about recharging the brain; and bodily vigour does little
to stave off mental paralysis of the kind that usually comes on with
age. Would flowing hair and graceful figure countervail the growth of
avarice, deceit and malice; or check the relentless march of stupidity?
Would it not rather be the case, that from year to year all the more
unpleasant of human characteristics would intensify and harden?
And, by the way, think of the population of this miserable little
globe in a thousand years or so. Nobody dies. We all live and multiply
for eternity. It increases by geometric progression. To-day we are,
let us say, a paltry thousand million of people. In a year’s time, at
a conservative estimate, we should double our population. In a few
hundred years--good heavens! Life would become like the platform of
Piccadilly Circus at six o’clock in the evening.
Piccadilly! This subject is inextricably bound up in my mind with
Piccadilly. I will explain why.
Not long ago, when musing upon Dr. Friedenberg’s discoveries, I had
occasion to use the railway of that name. I boarded a crowded train,
thinking deeply. I took my place (most incautiously, I admit, but there
happened to be no other place to take) standing beside a forbidding
military gentleman, whose arms were full of brown paper parcels. In the
immediate vicinity stood a large stern woman, solidly planted near the
door, who disdained the help of the strap and supported herself, with
arms akimbo and legs wide apart.
The train ran smoothly enough through Dover Street and Down Street, and
my line of thought, on this problem of perpetual life, developed into
a kind of saga to the rhythm of the movement over the rails. The whole
subject went before my eyes like a glorious vision. I knew just what I
was going to say in this essay....
And then the train back-jumped, and the large stern woman, in the
effort to retain her balance, planted one of her feet with relentless
precision, exactly on one of mine, and simultaneously drove her
right elbow into my ribs. In really considerable agony I recoiled,
involuntarily loosening my grip of the supporting strap. Immediately
the train swerved, and threw me into the bosom of the military
gentleman, whose armful of parcels burst from his control and smothered
the occupants of the neighbouring seats. Muttering imprecations, he
crouched on the swaying floor and began to pick them up. I stooped to
help him; and our heads met with a grinding crash....
Meanwhile the woman--the--the unspeakable monster who had caused the
calamity, stood entirely unmoved, gazing through the glass doors at the
conductor.
Think of such a person going down through all eternity committing
outrages of this kind--probably one a day. Eternal life? Penal
servitude for life is more to her deserving.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] I except, of course, Drigg, Bootlecut, Volmer, and their
insignificant following.
[3] _The Psychology of Post-Metempsychosis._ J. Swift Leggitt. The
Mangy Press. 5s.
THE NEXT WAR--AND MILITARY SERVICE
Russia and Germany have joined hands; France and Belgium have banded
together; Italy has made a secret treaty with the Kemalists--a fact
which can hardly afford much satisfaction to the kingdom of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes, leave alone the Greeks! Poland and her neighbours
are on much the same terms of cordiality as rival opera singers. There
is Bessarabia; there is (so to call it for convenience) Germania
Irridenta; there is the Burgenland; all simmering merrily away. There
are heartburnings in Transylvania. I cannot think that even the Sanjak
is really placid--it has always wallowed in grievances from time
immemorial. Indeed (so I am told), it needs but a spark to set the
whole contraption in a blaze. Only a spark!... We are sitting on a wood
pile soaked in petrol; and the boys at Paris and elsewhere are out with
their tinder-boxes.
Viewed from one point of view, this situation has arisen very
appositely to certain investigations conducted not long ago by _The
Times_, and provides a capital solution to the problems of how to find
careers for our sons, and what to do with our daughters. But there are
some of us[2] to whom even the satisfaction of starting our children in
(or rather out of) the world, would be but a poor recompense for the
physical discomfort (it’s not the danger; we none of us mind _danger_;
we rather like it) of resuming active hostilities ourselves. As Leggitt
says[3]: “Danger I scorn; but discomfort is the parent of anxiety; and
anxiety is the handmaid of despair.” That’s good enough for me.
Besides, wars are not what they were. The last war was, to a great
extent, won, and the next war will be entirely won, behind the lines.
“Lord Northcliffe,” says a military historian[4] in his article on war
in the Encyclopædia, “Lord Northcliffe dealt heavier blows than Haig.
Haig hit harder than Rawlinson, Rawlinson than Godley, and Godley
(through a long string of intermediary Blenkinsops and Chislehursts)
than Private Muggins. In fact, the whole lesson of the war was that
Muggins didn’t matter twopennyworth of gin. The further back you were,
the more you could do. If Captain Slogger, the Company Commander,
stopped one--why, anybody else could carry on. But if the R.T.O.’s
clerk at the base went down with writer’s cramp, the repercussions
might be felt all over Europe. And in the next war....” And so on.
Push this to its logical conclusion and what do you find? An entirely
new conception of the theory of national service. The duty of every
man, with love of country in his heart, is to fit himself to play a
far-reaching, noble, and adequate part in the next war--from a distance
at which brains will really tell. As Sir Cuthbert puts it, “The duty
of the soldiers of the future is to consolidate the front behind the
front.” No mawkish sentimental considerations should interfere with the
attainment of this. “If others have to fall in the front line, drop a
tear, good citizen, or if you feel so disposed, drop two tears. But for
the sake of your country, and its final victory in the struggle, _see
to it that you are not the one who falls_.”
I will. I will see to it with punctilious care. It is my duty; and I
shall discharge it with the same devotion as I displayed in the last
war, when I rose from assistant warehouse clerk (graded as bombardier)
in the E.F.C. receiving shed, via R.T.O.’s clerk at Boulavre (graded as
Staff Sergeant of Musketry), assistant press censor (graded as Squadron
Leader of Cavalry with rank of Captain) and Base Commandant (graded as
G.S.O. 2, but with rank of colonel on the staff and pay and allowances
of a Lieutenant-General) to the proud position which I occupied at the
end. I have nothing to complain of.... I cannot deny that I had all
kinds of obstacles to overcome. Ignorant prejudiced fools, blind to
the interests of their country, were constantly endeavouring to comb
me out. And so it will be in the next war. The earnest patriot will
find himself thwarted and misunderstood at every turn. Nothing but a
knowledge of the niceties of the medical board, will avail to defeat
these busybodies. Indeed, it may at times be necessary to indulge in
a little pardonable deception. Thus, a cigarette soaked in laudanum,
and smoked half an hour before the doctor’s examination, will produce
all the symptoms of general paralysis, heart failure, and abdominal
catarrh; yet, in an hour or two at most, the smoker will have recovered
most of his faculties, and the remainder will return in, at the
outside, a few days. A glass of vinegar, swallowed without deglutition,
produces the pallor of a ghost and the pulse and temperature of a
lizard; yet the effects have rarely lasted longer than a week. And
there are, of course, such well-known (but to my thinking too crude)
expedients as self-inflicted wounds and even amputations.
Perhaps it is best, indeed, to make preparations in advance. It must
never be forgotten that a large civilian population is necessary to
carry on what are called “the essential public services.” No one should
disdain to do his duty in one of these capacities. And if, as in the
last war, the only sons of widowed mothers are to be given special
consideration, we must not hesitate to take full advantage of such a
provision. A judicious use of the knife or poison cup, or possibly
a combination of the two, will place many a strapping fellow in the
necessary condition of exemption.
Promptski-Buzzoff, in his elaborate, but too little known, treatise
“_Die Vermeidung des Kriegesdienstes_”[5] lays down that “the spinal
marrow of a nation is to be found in the conscience of its citizens.”
This is profoundly and undeniably true. The pages of history are
bespattered with the fragments of empires that have disintegrated
through the decay of their moral fibre. Every good citizen, says
Buzzoff, should cultivate a conscience as inflexible as Bessemer
steel. A properly cultivated conscience will no more permit its owner
to kill, or be killed, than a vacuum brake will let a train run away.
It’s automatic. You mention the word war, and there’s an instant
inhibition. This kind of thing however, needs considerable preparation.
It is always open to misinterpretation if your conscience doesn’t
develop until the outbreak of war; although that, in itself, is not
a consideration which ought to deter a man with the interests of his
country at heart.
Many of us, again, are indispensable. Until late in 1917, I was
indispensable myself. And next time I fully intend to be indispensable
all through the war. I shall get elected to some legislative body--say
the London County Council; and my devotion to duty will do the
rest. But, of course, in case of mischance I shall be prepared with
an alternative plan, several alternative plans in fact. And, in
the last resort, I shall place my services at the disposal of the
Director-General of Lines of Communication. After all, speaking as one
who has already fought a campaign in that capacity, one has a sense of
responsibility and power, even in the humblest posts behind the line,
of which even Divisional and Corps commanders might be envious. As an
R.T.O.’s assistant, one is conscious of a control over the destinies of
others, that almost partakes of divinity. A motion of the hand, a word
on a scrap of paper, and divisions and their baggage may be separated
for ever; provisions consigned to one country may find themselves
devoured in another; and Generals waiting to begin a battle may awake
on zero day to the fact that they have no forces, except their staffs,
wherewith to fight.
It will be understood that I offer these suggestions on the
understanding that we find ourselves allied to a country in which
there will be some approximation, in the amenities offered to L. of
C., to those enjoyed in the larger cities in France during the war.
Otherwise, frankly, nothing doing! I have been studying the appendices
to Splitz’s book on the Russian Army[6]; and the feeding is hardly
up to what I might call a civilised war standard. Thus, on L. of C.,
the weekly ration allowance appears to be four gold roubles’ worth of
straw soup, three poods of lycopodium seed cake, and two samovars of
liquorice water, together with thirty-seven foot-calories of bonemeal
and a packet of spearmint--which, although it compares favourably
with the diet of Divisional and Corps Commanders in that country[7],
has but little attraction for the gourmet. And in any case what about
the residuum? After all, we can’t all of us expect _carte blanche_
to send trains backwards and forwards--passed to you, please, and to
you, please, and so on. Even on the grander scale, there’ll never be
room for more than a million or so R.T.O.’s all told (and that will
include the other side). Something’s got to be done for the rest of us.
Even the L. of C. troops will be up to full strength at last. They’ll
absorb a number of millions; but they’ll fill up eventually. Even the
essential public services at home can’t be swelled indefinitely. There
will come a time when everything useful has been filled up, and there
are still people left over.
Well, we can’t all be satisfied in this world. It was never intended
that we should. And, so far as I can see, the overplus will have to
make themselves comfortable in the trenches. It will be a galling
thought to them that they’re poked away there out of everything, with
no real work to do. But it doesn’t really matter, for we’ll win the war
all right.
We’ll win it in spite of them.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Sir Cuthbert Limpitt, K.B.E., a former Director of the Ministry of
Misinformation.
[5] Berlin, 1921. Published in an English translation under the title
_Military Service and its Avoidance_. Blottow and Windupp, 1922. 7s. 6d.
[6] _The Russian Army, its Organisations and Morale._ By Hermann
Splitz. Boonkum and Co., New York. Two vols. $4.
[7] And that is only in the larger cities such as Yekanakaterinakanaka.
In the smaller towns and villages the amount would be much less!
FIRST PLAYS FOR BEGINNERS
This is the Truth about the production of first plays.
First the author, in the secrecy of his chamber, painfully gives birth
to an idea, and clothes it in words--if possible of not more than
one syllable. Then he shows it to his best friend, who obligingly
points out that the whole conception is faulty, and that the dialogue
is beneath contempt. He then reads it to his second-best friend,
who wakes from his slumber greatly refreshed. By the end of a short
period he has no friends left: but he has learnt a few of the more
obvious imperfections of his work. In despair of ever reconciling
the conflicting criticisms to which it has been subjected, he posts
it defiantly to Grossmith and Malone, Sir Alfred Butt, Mr. Charles
Cochran, Mr. Laurillard, Mr. de Courville, and the whole gang of
impresarios. It returns from each of them accompanied by a printed
slip. He then slinks to the office of a dramatic agent.
The dramatic agent is a florid man with a super-silk hat. He receives
the author with the gracious condescension of royalty greeting an
inferior. The author, overcome at the honour which is being conferred,
gratefully deposits his precious MS. in the luxurious plush-padded
basket which is held out by an underling. The basket is reverently
placed upon the table; mutual expressions of goodwill are exchanged;
the author is bowed out.
Then the dramatic agent shakes the MS. out of the basket, as though it
were verminous; pitchforks it into the recesses of a safe; locks the
safe with a loud clang, and loses the key for two years.
At the end of two years Cyrus K. Bimetaller, the celebrated “Stunt”
King, visits the dramatic agent to throw in his teeth the forty-seven
separate scripts of forty-seven separate plays--but why go into this?
He says that all dealings between them are at an end, and demands his
account. The dramatic agent mechanically opens the safe to get out
his books--and there lies the neglected MS. As a last bid for fortune
he places it eloquently in the hands of Cyrus K. The latter grunts,
and sprawls on the sofa to “size it up.” This process occupies five
minutes. At the end of that time he remarks laconically, “This is the
goods.”
The author is now summoned from Kilimanjaro, where he is growing
grape-fruit, in order to give his assistance at rehearsals. He arrives,
however, only just in time for the first night, when scores of hands
drag him on to a prodigiously vast stage to abase himself before a
jeering audience. His spasmodic efforts to speak merely confirm the
impression that he is a congenital epileptic.
Next day the newspapers, after a flattering reference to his personal
appearance, unite in denouncing the play as the work of a man with the
intelligence of a crossing-sweeper and the originality of a jackass.
These comments are judiciously edited and made up as posters. The
effect is stupendous, and the public flocks to the theatre. The author
is a made man.
At least, he hopes he is.
Letters pour in upon him from all quarters demanding more plays from
his pen. Actresses lie in wait for him at garden parties, and say,
archly, “Oh, Mr. Blotto, when are you going to write a play for
_me_?” Actor-managers call him “old boy”; and allow themselves to be
seen shaking hands with him. The gifted gods and goddesses who are
performing his play make no secret of his acquaintance. The great Cyrus
K. Bimetaller strokes a mighty stomach in silence. The dramatic agent
grunts, “I told you so,” and gives another polish to the super-silk
hat. Melisande, writing her customary column in the _Evening Quacker_,
observes: “Last night, at Mr. Blotto’s delightful play which is
charming London, I saw the Duchess of Dripp, Count Sforzando, Mr. and
Miss Mossop, and the Hon. ‘Toothy’ Badger. The house was crowded, of
course. Mr. Blotto himself looked in during the evening, but hurried
away on being recognised. He is so retiring.”
In the middle of this chorus of enthusiasm the author bashfully brings
forward another play. Everyone scrambles to read it. Each points out a
separate defect. All unite in pronouncing it “essentially undramatic.”
It finds its way into that limbo of lost manuscripts, the safe of the
silk-hatted agent. Setting his teeth, the author completes another
play. It passes from hand to hand, becoming dog-eared in the journey,
and finally returns to him, in silence and tatters. It seems hardly
worthwhile adding it to the mountains of paper on the Agent’s shelves,
so somebody tosses it behind a book-case, where it is treated with the
scorn it merits by mice and insects. By now the first play has been
supplanted by a Bessarabian allegory, and the author’s name has long
been forgotten. Still buoyed up with hope, he plans a _chef d’œuvre_--a
drama. “Something Shakespearian,” he modestly proclaims. Very few
people, however, even bother to read this, all eyes being fixed on a
genius from Kurdistan, who is taking away the breath of theatrical
London in a play written entirely in Esperanto. The author spends his
last few shillings on a ticket to the Argentine, and begins a fresh
life as a herdsman.
Years pass. The author is far from unsuccessful in his new venture.
In fact, he becomes extremely wealthy. He buys up his employer’s
_hacienda_. He buys up several other people’s _haciendas_. He buys up
the greater part of the Argentine Republic. He has serious thoughts of
buying up South America and selling it to the United States. But his
better nature prevails, and he returns to England and buys a peerage
instead. On the day appointed for him to be introduced to the House
of Lords, his eye happens to see the poster of a new play--_The Dusky
Child_. The name touches a chord. He recognises it as his own work. He
forgets his engagement with the Peers of the Realm, and hurries off
once again in pursuit of literary reputation.
His old friend the dramatic agent is comparatively unchanged. He is
a little more silk-hatted, a little more rotund, and a little more
contemptuous of every one else. He recognises the author at once,
ejaculates laconically: “I told you so,” and takes him to meet Erasmus
W. Bogg, the new impresario who is producing the play. They hurriedly
prepare for the first night. The Lord Chancellor is very annoyed. The
author snaps his fingers. At last literary fame is in his grasp. It
seems an extraordinarily cold winter, but that doesn’t really matter.
He hurries on the rehearsals, snapping his fingers.
How amazingly chilly it has become.
The House of Lords are sending the Lieutenant of the Tower to arrest
him. Ha, ha, let them. He snaps his fingers.
Really, this weather, after the climate of the Argentine, is beyond a
joke. For goodness sake hurry up with that scenery. What’s that about
the Lord Chancellor? Mr. Ramsay MacDonald--what? The who?
Eh?
* * * * *
He wakes up to find his cherished first play still unperformed--still,
indeed, uncompleted. Kilimanjaro, a dream. The Argentine, a dream. The
peerage--a dream, too. He shudders at that escape.
Brr! Why, dammit, the fire’s out!
HATS
The hat, says my copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is “man’s,
woman’s outdoor headcovering, usually with brim.” Not unto me the glory
of writing about woman’s outdoor headcovering. These mysteries are
too sacred to be profaned. But man’s hats are another thing. I have a
number of my own. There is none of which I am not, in secret, ashamed.
Some men have the faculty of knowing what hats they can wear with
credit--or, if not with credit, at least without sacrifice of
self-respect. They go to the hatter, pick out a perfectly ordinary
“headcovering” (usually “with brim”), and leave the shop gorgeously
transformed. Their very discards can be reblocked and made to look,
if anything, better than new. And I? I go from one hatter to another
in an endless pilgrimage in search of something in which I shall look
less ridiculous (observe I say “less ridiculous”--I am easy to please),
and find it never. I follow my friends into the places where they hat
themselves; I allow myself to be persuaded into buying some hateful
contrivance--“a perfect fit, sir”; and in three days the damn thing
shrinks so that I can’t get it on my head. Or again, I try to allow for
this by ordering a larger size, whereafter, either I spend the whole of
my spare time stuffing the lining with paper or else it gradually but
relentlessly sinks, and settles on the bridge of my nose.
The very brims play tricks with me. I have a bowler. I bought it, I
distinctly remember, on account of the width of its brim. I have always
liked a wide brim. Not that it ever keeps off the sun or rain, but
somehow it gives confidence. There is something spacious about a wide
brim. Something suggestive of an opulence to which I have in no other
way ever pretended.
Well. Anyhow. I gave up wearing my bowler, because it insisted on
shrinking. It perched itself higher and higher on my head, until I
began to think it really wasn’t safe. It might fall off and get run
over. Nobody wants to expose even a rebellious hat to the dangers of
London traffic. I went to my hatter (why I say _my_ hatter I can’t
think. Nobody is my hatter. Many have tried, none has succeeded). I
went to _a_ hatter; bought a large brown felt hat, wore it away (like a
bride setting out for the honeymoon); and arranged for the bowler to be
safely conveyed to my home, hoping that all would be well.
Well? Not a bit of it. The brown hat swelled and swelled. All the
newspapers in London contributed in their turn to keeping us from
parting. In vain. That hat had a craving for adventure; it wanted to
make its way in the world alone; and a gust of east wind carried
it (together with so much of the “Evening News” as had enabled it
to maintain a precarious balance on my brow) under a passing bus. I
hurried home with feelings almost of friendship for my erring bowler. I
said magnanimously that forgiveness----
[Illustration: “In which I shall not look so ridiculous.”]
Somehow it didn’t look the same. I was prepared to swear that when I
handed it over to the hatter (_my_ hatter, very well) it did in some
sort cover my head. But now--it had diminished to the size of a child’s
toy. And the brim--the brim had shrunk to the merest shadow.
I have at last given up the struggle. I wear anything that comes along.
Not that it matters. People have survived their hats before now. These,
after all, are the merest idiosyncrasies of head-covering. Observe,
for instance, the hats of the great. There you find something of real
distinction.
It is one of the curious things about really great men that they are
unable to resist the bizarre in hats. They don’t turn out in strange
trousers, or curiously contrived coats. You don’t see them walking
about in sandals, or veldtschoons. They don’t tie up their beards with
ribbon; or shave their eyebrows; or put caste-marks on their faces.
Right up to their head-coverings they are indistinguishable from
you and me. I don’t wish to flatter us, but very often they are less
pleasant to look at ... and then their greatness declares itself, or
their originality breaks loose, or some other eerie characteristic
finds its appropriate expression, in the form of an article of apparel
about as distinctive and ugly as Britannia’s helmet.
Not long ago I met a noble Viscount, a man who might easily become
Prime Minister--I saw him, I mean; I encountered him in the street. He
was wearing a hat that suggested a bowler, but was not a bowler--that
might have been a “Daily Mail” hat, only it was black with a dull
surface, and, if I may so put it, had soft rounded lines in place of
sharp ones--that--that in fact was indescribable. The rest of his
garments were those of a normal citizen. There were no unfamiliar
excrescences on his coat. His collar and tie were much like my own.
Later in the day I saw in front of me a tall, hurrying figure striding
towards the House of Commons. The stooping gait and sombre clothing
might easily have been those of a mere scholar or clergyman. But the
figure bore upon its head a shapeless contrivance of purple velvet; and
by that I knew it was--(well, you know who it was as well as I do).
Look at Mr. Winston Churchill. Look at Admiral Beatty. Whoever saw a
service hat quite like Admiral Beatty’s? Though I admit, in his case,
the oddity is accentuated by his way of wearing it. Look at the hats of
foreign potentates. Look at----
Look at Mr. Lloyd George. I have never actually seen him in one of his
“family” hats--but I know his hatted appearance intimately through a
picture. It is a photograph representing “the man who won the war,” as
a vigorous smiling personage in a grey tweed suit. It seems to be very
much the kind of suit that you or I might select for golf. But--here
distinction creeps in--the upper part of his body is swathed in
something that resembles a horse blanket ... and he is crowned with the
headdress of a Tyrolean brigand.
I am going to be a great man. I know it by my hats.
SHAREHOLDERS’ BLOOD
GRAND (TRUNK) FEATURE SERIAL.
CANADIAN FILMS LIMITED.
We are in the Wild West of Canada--a land full of mustangs and
moccasins. People with hard faces are riding about in strange clothes.
Gently nurtured maidens are scrubbing out the cowshed, or digging
up the manure heap. The hired-woman is sitting in the sunlight with
a book. It is a typical scene in a British Dominion; we know it is
Canada, however, because there’s a flick, and the screen says:
THIS IS THE CITY OF BISON SNOUT,
FED BY THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY,
CANADA’S PREMIER RAILROAD.
Then there’s another flick, and, lo! a magnificent train, racing across
the prairie, gives us a hint that we are watching Canada’s premier
railroad in operation. The screen obligingly confirms this impression
by--FLICK:
LUXURY, SPEED, AND SECURITY.
THE GRAND TRUNK MILLIONAIRES’
LIMITED THUNDERING ACROSS THE
CONTINENT
ON ITS JOURNEY TO BISON SNOUT.
The scene changes, now, to a precipitous hill overlooking the smiling
valley through which the train is thundering. Far away you can see her
plume of smoke, racing across the sky. And here, in the foreground,
are two sinister figures, mounted on the inevitable mustangs, masked
and visored, grim and silent. Oo! They look like Irish gunmen; and as
soon as they espy the train they turn simultaneously to each other and
exclaim with sinister emphasis--SNICK:
THERE’S BOODLE IN THIS.
CLICK--and we’re back again with our two desperadoes, galloping like
mad from their point of vantage towards their luckless prey. (_Noise
off--cloppety, cloppety, cloppety, clop._)
Next we have a close-up of the train as it speeds over the landscape.
The passengers are sitting back in their places, wreathed in smiles.
They like their train. They think it particularly safe; and behind it
all there is the feeling of immense security derived from the thought
that they are travelling in a British Dominion of the British Empire
under the waving protection of the Union Jack on which the sun never
sets. The orchestra interprets their thoughts, and ours, by playing a
selection of patriotic melodies.
Now we are shown something really out of the way. Thus: SNICK:
ON THE FOOTPLATE.
FLICK:
SWAYING ALONG AT HUNDREDS OF
MILES AN HOUR, THE JOVIAL
ENGINEER AND HIS MERRY COLLABORATORS
PASS THE TIME WITH
DANCE AND SONG.
CLICK: And there they are, swaying like dipsomaniacs, dancing like
dervishes, and opening their mouths like bullfrogs in a drought. Of
course, you can’t hear what they’re singing, but a gramophone (_off_)
obligingly strikes up at this moment:
Sons of the sea,
All British born,
Sailing every ocean,
Laughing foes to scorn--
and so on. A little inappropriate to the setting perhaps; but, oh, how
apposite to what follows!
Suddenly the face of the jovial engineer clouds over. He shades his
eyes with his hands. Rushing to the eyeholes, he peers out into the
day. His collaborators copy him. We know something is coming. We stir
uneasily in our seats. Somehow we can’t help associating this action
with the two sinister----What’s that? He’s beckoning to the chief
mate (or whatever the fellow’s called). The chief mate’s beckoning to
him. Neither dares leave the eyeholes. How can they communicate with
each other? Still the train speeds on. Oh! the engineer’s drawing his
revolver. Ah! it’s empty! So is the chief mate’s. So is everybody’s.
He flings it down with a curse. He’s going to speak to the chief mate.
He’s speaking: SNICK:
SAY, YOU GUYS, IT’S HELL OR HOME.
AND ME FOR HOME!
FLICK:
STOKE UP YOUR BOILERS, YOU BLEAR-EYED
SKUNKS!
An underling flings open the door of the furnace. He staggers back.
Empty! He rushes with a shovel to the coal bunkers. The others rush
after him. Oh, there’s no coal! The train’s slowing down every minute.
The desperadoes are riding nearer and nearer. We can hear the thunder
of their hoofs--I mean their horses’ hoofs. (_Noise off--cloppety,
cloppety, cloppety, clop._)
Ah! what are they doing now? They’re going to throw one of the
underlings into the furnace to keep the train going. They’re going to
burn the engineer and the chief mate. They’re going to pull the engine
to pieces and burn that. Anything to escape. Anything to escape....
Suddenly the chief mate, who’s looking through the eyehole, gives a
great shout. He’s very excited and relieved. He’s speaking--listen,
look, I mean.
FLICK:
WHY IT’S ONLY THE SHERIFF’S BOYS
HAVING A GAME WITH US!
The others do not agree with him. They point rudely at him, and curse
him for a fool. But he only smiles and says through his smile:
CLICK:
SURE--IT’S THE SHERIFF RIGHT
ENOUGH. I SEEN HIS LIL’ BUTTON.
HIS DEPUTY’S WITH HIM.
I DONE SEE HIS BUTTON, TOO.
They rush to the eyeholes again. There’s no doubt this time. They throw
up their hats and cheer. They are beside themselves. They even go so
far as to pull up the train. The passengers crowd to the windows. At
first they are alarmed. They shrink back. They mutter among themselves.
CLICK:
IT’S A HOLD-UP.
BUSH-RANGERS.
and so on. But the engineer puts all that right. He descends royally
from the footplate and walks along the train reassuring them. FLICK:
IT’S ALL RIGHT, LADIES AND GENTS.
IT’S ONLY THE SHERIFF OF THE
DOMINION COME TO PAY US A SURPRISE
VISIT.
What a joke! How they laugh! And cheer! They crowd to the window. They
swarm out on to the line. They offer expensive drinks to the engineer
and his collaborators, which are accepted. They pass round the hat.
And then the sheriff approaches. He asks them to line up. They are
delighted. Another priceless joke. Ha! Ha! Ha! What a wit the man has,
to be sure! He suggests they should produce their valuables. Only too
delighted. Their stocks and shares, jewellery--everything, in fact,
they have with them.
THEY’RE “OF NO VALUE” TO YOU
NOW.
Ha! Ha! Ha! They’re doubled up with laughter. They’re holding their
sides. What a funny man. What a very fun----Eh? He’s speaking again.
GET A MOVE ON IF YOU DON’T WANT
A DOSE OF LEAD!
Oh, of course, very subtle. It’s all part of the joke. He’s acting so
well, isn’t he?
What’s he doing? He’s putting all their valuables into a bag. He’s
taking them away. He’s a----He’s a _robber_! Oh, no! Oh, not that! But
he _is_. Old men are weeping over the loss of their life’s savings. Old
women----Oh, this isn’t funny at all!
A handsome young woman is speaking to him. She’s pleading, she’s on her
knees.
CLICK:
IF YOU TAKE THAT IT MEANS I
CAN’T GET MARRIED. WE WERE
GOING TO START HOUSEKEEPING
ON MY FIRST PREFERENCE STOCK.
She’s broken down. He’s laughing, the brute! He’s roaring with
laughter. So’s his fellow desperado.
Who’s this? What a funny fat man! Oh, it’s going to end happily after
all. He’s a policeman, I suppose, but his hat looks a bit queer. Oh, an
American hat--I see. He’s very angry with the brigands--the sheriffs, I
mean. He’s speaking.
CLICK:
THIS OUTFIT’S WORTH AT PAR
£37,073,492.
FLICK:
“THIS WOULD MAKE MY APPRAISEMENT
OF ALL THE STOCK, THE VALUE
OF WHICH IS HERE IN ISSUE, NOT
LESS THAN $48,000,000.”
Oh, it’s too bad! They’re laughing at him, too.
PLICK:
GET AWAY HOME, YOU FAT OLD GUY,
BACK TO THE STATES WHERE YOU
BELONG.
He’s very angry indeed. He’s turning away in high dudgeon. He makes a
last appeal.
FLICK:
BUT AIN’T YOU THE SHERIFF?
BLICK:
WHY, YES; BUT WHAT’S THAT GOT
TO DO WITH IT?
SNICK:
WELL, I MEAN TO SAY----
CLICK:
A MAN’S GOTTER LIVE, AIN’T HE,
EVEN IF HE IS A SHERIFF? AND
THEY’RE ONLY DURNED ENGLISH
GUYS, ANYWAY.
THE PERSONAL COLUMN
The big events of the world, the things so remote from most of us,
float serenely down the midstream of the day’s news, little heeded, I
confess, by me; but the flotsam of life is brought to one’s very feet
by the undercurrents and eddies of the Personal Column.
The news headings of one’s morning paper deal with subjects whole
worlds away from one’s own humble existence. The movements of Marshal
Foch; the Japanese Earthquake; the Recognition of Russia. Even (long
since) when the “Date of the Peace Celebrations” was announced, it was
a comparatively lifeless statement. To vitalise it, to humanise it, one
had to go to the neighbourhood of the Personal Column. Thus:--
“CHAMPAGNE. APPROACHING PEACE CELEBRATIONS. Advertiser representing
principals holding stocks of the best known brands of Champagne, etc.,
etc.... Apply to ‘Benefactor.’”
Here at last we were in the heart of things. “Stocks of the best
known brands of champagne.” This unlocked the tongue, set speculation
working. What brands? What is your favourite brand? One reviewed a
pageant of sparkling names such as Ayala, Irroy, Heidsieck, Mumm,
Moet, Pommery, Roederer and the Widow, the dainty Clicquot.... And then
arose the question what to do on Peace Night--Jazz? Theatre? Opera? Or
should it be a quiet dinner (preferably at home) with Jones, who shared
one’s last Xmas in the Salient, and Smith the Silent, who never let one
down, and Robinson?... I seem to remember that I wrote to “Benefactor.”
Actually “Benefactor” was not, so to speak, a Member of the Personal
Column, though he dwelt very near to it. His announcement abutted
on a poignant appeal for a “SUITABLE PLACE TO STOP” from a young
minesweeping lieutenant who, having exhausted his patience in
ransacking London for a bed, had lit upon the discovery that a large
part of the hotel accommodation in this city was still in the clutches
of Sir Alfred Mond and his Merry Men; but it was published (wrongly,
of course) under the heading: “Business Opportunities.” What creature
would sink so low as to make a business opportunity out of the sale
of that golden drink, of those “best brands of Champagne”--and in the
Peace season, too? Perish the thought! To the Personal Column let
“Benefactor” be admitted.
The Personal Column is the quintessence of journalism, an
inexhaustible lucky-bag of strange communications and curious
announcements. Do you want a furnished caravan? Napoleon relics? Are
you a philatelist? Would you like a summer outing in Kew Gardens? Have
you a haunted house? These, after all, are things that touch one’s
daily life. Marshal Foch might go to the Sandwich Islands, and the
philatelist and I would wish him God-speed, and think of it no more;
but a haunted house (even if it be only haunted by mice) brings one
“up against it!” Are you bored with your life? The Personal Column is
a constant provocation to plunge into the whirlpool of the unknown.
Thus at random: An officer, aged 20, of cheerful artistic and musical
tastes, wishes to correspond with somebody with a view to “real
friendship.” There’s your chance. And what dark story, think you, is
concealed behind the following:
“The Black Cat is watching: green eyes. S?”
What tale of a temptation spurned lurks in:
“Scalo: I may be poor but I love truth far better than gold--Misk?”
Under the influence of what jealous pangs came this to be penned:
“Ralph--Who is BABS--Remember Olga?” (The following, in a happier vein,
tells presumably of a lovers’ quarrel made up:
“Whitewings. Darling you know really you are the only thing on earth I
love. Snowdrop.”)
The big news columns tell us what our intellectuals consider it good
for us to know, in the manner in which they consider it good for us
to be told. The Ruhr Occupation, denounced by Mr. Garvin, upheld by
Lord Rothermere--The Betrayal of the Country to Labour (in the Gospel
according to Mr. Churchill)--The League of Nations--Bootlegging and
Prohibition. But the Personal Column--ah!--the Personal Column gives us
a peep into the throbbing lives of our neighbours; we become partakers
in the bliss of Whitewings and Snowdrop, we share “S’s” apprehension of
the Black Cat, and our hearts go out to Misk and Olga--poor forgotten
Olga. Here are no world politics dished up by statesmen _manqué_,
or camouflaged by great journalists, no subjects to be discussed in
catchwords and manufactured phrases, but the myriad voices, from the
streets around, crying out at the impulse of the eternal verities.
SOCIETY SIDESHOWS
EXTRACTED FROM THE PRIVATE DIARY OF THE HON. “TOOTHY” BADGER
Dined at the House last night. Ridiculous party given by “Bulgy”
Gobblespoon to celebrate his wife’s election: the first husband and
wife to sit together. To everyone’s dismay, it proved that she had only
scraped in by the Prohibitionist vote, to win which she had to pledge
herself never to allow any form of alcohol on any table at which she
sat. Very restrictive of her dining out, I should imagine, and utterly
destructive of her own dinners, which used to be rather fun. Impossible
to imagine the gloom of that gathering! Even old Bitters, who was
wheedled off the Front Bench to come down and say something amusing,
was quite unable to sparkle on Schweppes’ ginger ale. Hurried away
with little “Squeaky” Paddington (old Ponto’s new wife) to sample a
drink and a spot of foot shuffling at Sheep’s. Very stuffy and a lot of
ghastly people.
* * * * *
Somebody, turning out their lumber-room, has presented a whole shoot
of pictures to the National Gallery; so I went to see who was looking
at them. What that place exists for I can never understand. Hardly
anyone there except a herd of frowsy old women, with paint-boxes, who
took jolly good care that nobody should come within a mile of anything
worth looking at. One rather jolly girl--but very severe. The rest
awful. A couple of anxious-looking people walking up and down, looking
intense and making speeches about Ghirlandajo or Cimabue to an audience
of yokels that doesn’t know either from cream cheese; and the remainder
of London seems to use the portico as a convenient meeting-place, and
never goes inside at all.
* * * * *
Broke my rule against large parties last night in order to go and
stare at the women Members of Parliament, who allowed themselves to
be shown off by old Lady Paramount Nectar at Ambrosia House. Never
again. The rooms are big enough Heaven knows; but they seemed to have
invited everyone in London, who had a dress-suit. Lady Biltong, whose
figure needs to be put under restraint, was carried out fainting. Poor
Bottisford had two ribs stove in going up the staircase and didn’t know
it till he got home--kept murmuring that he must have got a touch of
pleurisy in the fog. And old Sir William Bylge trod on a lady’s train
and brought it clean away from the gathers (whatever those may be).
Needless to say, it proved to be a Royalty, but only a minor one.
Never saw so many foreign potentates and creatures gathered together in
my life before: the Duca di Corona Largo, Count Papryka da Chili, the
Prince and Princess of Asta Mañana, a woman from New York, the Gizzawd
of Abbyssinia, old Ramon Allones, looking younger than ever, and heaps
of others. Nothing to eat, of course, and sickly sherbetty stuff
masquerading as champagne. Hurried away to Stag’s with George Mossop to
wash the taste out of our mouths. If old Paramount Nectar had lived,
how different that supper would have been! As it is, if they took a
bottle out of his cellar now, and poured it on his tomb, I believe he’d
rise from the dead in very shame. Seems a bit too low to accept old
Lady P.’s hospitality, and then slang the food; but, after all, he was
my father’s cousin, and one feels it reflects on one’s own palate that
a relation by marriage should give inferior wine.
Country house parties nowadays are becoming absurd. In the old days
there was a lot to be said for country house visits. Even quite
recently they could be profitably undertaken. But now! _Nous avons
changê tout cela._ The advent of a Labour Government has put the
final kybosh on even the limited hospitality one enjoyed last year.
Three invitations this morning. One from Ditchwater Abbey--a place I
loathe; one from Hugo Hamstringer, the fellow that made a fortune
out of glue in the war, bought everything, lost the whole boiling in
multiple eggshops during the slump, and is now trying to make two ends
meet in that awful barrack of a place, Dundahead Hall, that he took
over from “Wacker” with a block of dud oil shares in payment for his
“calls” in Hamstringer, Limited, before the Company went bust--(nothing
would induce me to go near _him_); and one from dear little Phyllis
Biddiker, whose husband has lost everything in Southern Ireland, and
who is scraping along somehow by letting off apartments at the Weir
House (their place in Berkshire) to wealthy Colonials over here for the
British Empire Exhibition. None asked me for more than a week-end. All
say “Bring your own whisky if you want any.” Phyllis has had a present
of Australian Burgundy from one of her lodgers, and offers to share it.
I shall stay at home.
* * * * *
Because my brother Henry chose to marry, why should his
almost-a-flapper daughter be motted on me to cart about London? A jade,
a sly boots and a minx, she makes my life a burden. She makes me give
her expensive meals, which I rather like; but I draw the line at being
a decoy duck. Last night, having bled me of my entire income at Mah
Jongg--a game I shall never hope to learn--she demanded to be taken
to an unintelligibly highbrow play, knowing, I suppose, that, after
the agony of listening to it, I should be as wax in her hands. Then
she led me by easy stages to Sheep’s Club, by pretending she wanted to
dance with me. There (by the merest accident, of course) we found young
Geoffrey Bannister, the one young man in London I was cautioned against
allowing her to meet--as if an uncle has any control whatever--and the
whole plot stood revealed. Before I could contort my features into a
frown, they were dancing in the middle of the room, where they seemed
to spend the remainder of the evening. I was allowed to give them
supper; they allowed me to take them away at two a.m. They were almost
too good to be true till we got home--driving back in Geoffrey’s car;
and then they suddenly insisted on starting off to “be in at the death”
at the Hunt Ball at Hillsbury, looking in at Bridget Hanover’s dance in
Brook Street on the way. Told them to go to the Hunt Ball at another
place beginning with the same initial, sent Geoffrey home, and packed
her off to bed. No more nieces for me.
* * * * *
They call them “winter sports.” You cram yourself, with everybody you
dislike most, into the same train; stamp round the decks of the boat
in a blizzard, swearing and trying to keep warm; ruin your digestion
with the beastly food in the Train de Luxe; scrimmage with thirty
other people for the sleeping berth you all booked six months before;
turn out at the frontier to be browbeaten by hordes of _douaniers_;
and arrive in the early morning feeling and looking like the Ancient
Mariner, and discover that your rooms at the hotel have been swiped
by somebody else. You turn out the manager, who shrugs his shoulders,
and, after a fearful row, condescends to offer you sleeping room in
an attic, on terms for which you could buy a large mansion in most
countries. But your spirit is broken, and, rather than face the journey
back, you accept with resignation, and crawl into the hovel allotted
to you. You unpack your traps, and find that one of your skates is
missing, or else that the straps have disappeared from your _skis_.
But you are desperate now; you bind them on your feet with string,
and rush out into the snow. You are immediately knocked down by some
confounded beginner who has lost control and is flying down the hill
at the rate of knots. You stagger to your feet gasping, with snow down
your neck and both your _skis_ adrift. While you are readjusting them,
a bob-sleigh whizzes into you, sweeps you off your feet on top of its
crew, and obligingly overturns down an embankment. The occupants of
the sleigh are people you’ve been trying to avoid for years; and,
instead of cursing you for being in the way, they fall on your neck and
invite you to dinner. You are in such pain from broken arms and legs,
that you can’t think of an excuse, so you have to accept. After dinner
they rob you at bridge, and, as a crowning blow, the man of the party
borrows money from you. At last you break away, hurry back--and find
the interesting girl you were hoping to talk to, deeply engaged with
some wretched subaltern. And then the Lord Chancellor or some other
fearful bore insists on talking about home politics--the one thing
you were dying to forget. You mutter excuses and stumble off to turn
in--still nursing your wounds. Some idiot has left the window open, and
there are icicles hanging from the ceiling and a pile of snow in the
middle of your bed. Next day you repeat the performance, which goes on
for a fortnight at least. Winter “sports”! It must refer to the people,
and not to the pastimes.
[Illustration: “And obligingly overturns down an embankment.”]
LATTER-DAY DRAMAS
MORALITY
(_In the manner of John Galsworthy._)
ACT I
SCENE: _The rectory at Swilberry. The rector, the Rev. Hardy
Heavyweight, is going through the accounts of the village cricket club
with Diggers, his sexton and factotum._
DIGGERS (_adding up as he goes along_): And three and sixpence is four
pound two and a penny ’a’penny, and five shillin’ is four seven one a
half; and there’s that cheque from Mr. Selvidge.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_comparing each item in the bank book_): That’s not
entered here.
DIGGERS: Paid in later, per’aps. The cheque----
HEAVYWEIGHT: Yes--it will be in the pocket of the book. (_He gropes
for it._) There seem to be a lot of papers here. (_He pulls them
out._) Why, good heavens!
DIGGERS: What’s matter, Sir?
HEAVYWEIGHT (_in a changed voice that belies his words_): Nothing,
Diggers, nothing.... Here’s the cheque (_he holds it up_).... Who had
charge of this book?
DIGGERS (_mildly surprised_): Miss Agatha, Sir.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_mechanically--he is thinking hard of something else_):
You’ve never seemed to get accustomed to calling her Mrs. Foxglove,
Diggers.
DIGGERS (_heartily_): No, Sir, that I ’aven’t. An’ when them ’orrible
divorce proceedings is finished an’ she’s quit o’ that thing of a
’usband, she _will_ be Miss Agatha again, to all intents an’ purposes.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_pained_): I think we mustn’t talk about that, Diggers.
The club accounts are all right?
DIGGERS (_disappointed_): Yes, Sir.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Thank you for helping me. Would you ask Mrs. Foxglove to
come?
DIGGERS: Miss Agatha, Sir? Certainly. (_He goes. The rector leans
back in his chair, with his face drawn with anxiety. He toys with the
papers he has abstracted from the pocket of the bank book. He shakes
his head sadly as he reads. Suddenly Agatha Foxglove, a charming and
vital creature, bursts in on him._)
AGATHA: Hello, papa--what’s up?
HEAVYWEIGHT (_looking away from her_): Agatha, dear, these
letters--(_he holds them up_)--these letters from a man called Jim,
they’re yours, are they?
AGATHA (_taken aback_): Ye--yes. I....
HEAVYWEIGHT: (_appealingly_): I’m sure there’s an explanation, dear.
Won’t you tell me?
AGATHA (_laughing uneasily_): Well, er, I suppose ... where did you
find them? (_He silently points to the book._) I don’t know. I suppose
I must have put them there accidentally, from my table.... It comes of
keeping those horrible accounts for you.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_sadly_): But the _contents_, Agatha, dear.
AGATHA (_sharply_): You’ve read them?
HEAVYWEIGHT: I was unable to help reading them. They were lying open
among the cheques. (_Tenderly_): Won’t you explain?
AGATHA (_with the modern mixture of frankness and impatience_): Of
course, there’s an explanation, papa. You surely don’t suppose that,
with a drunken imbecile for a husband, I could do entirely without
sympathy and affection?
HEAVYWEIGHT (_apprehensively_): Then--you were--unfaithful?
AGATHA (_swiftly_): But we’re going to be married, as soon as the
decree is made absolute.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_pitifully_): I’m sure, my dear, that that was your
intention; but, as a clergyman----
AGATHA (_anxious_): You won’t tell anyone----?
HEAVYWEIGHT: My child, can’t you see? can’t you feel for me? As a
clergyman I believe--I am bound to believe--that marriage is an
irrevocable tie. Divorce on proper grounds I have to recognise, as a
servant of the State; but when I see the procedure abused by those who
have forfeited their right to invoke it, how can I, as a conscientious
minister of God--how can I stand aside because the culprit is my own
adopted daughter and ward? I am morally bound to inform the King’s
Proctor.
AGATHA: But father--father. Oh, for God’s sake--(_she becomes
incoherent._)
HEAVYWEIGHT: Ah, my child, my child. Morality demands--(_His voice
breaks. There is a terrible pause. He goes to the bookshelf._)
AGATHA (_agonised_): Oh--what are you doing?
HEAVYWEIGHT (_in a dead, mirthless voice_): Looking out my train to
London.
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT II
SCENE: _The Divorce Court._
MR. WHASSIT (_Agatha’s Counsel_):--a temptation which, please God, I
shall never encounter myself. And further----
THE JUDGE (_testily_): Mr. Whassit, is it necessary to prolong this?
MR. WHASSIT (_firmly_): My Lord, I have a duty to my client, and----
THE JUDGE: Yes, yes, I know, Mr. Whassit. Your conduct of the case has
been very proper; and, of course, if you wish to proceed, I shall say
no more. But you’ve not traversed a single fact----
MR. WHASSIT (_sitting down at last_): I will leave the matter in your
Lordship’s hands.
THE JUDGE: That is well.... This is an application to make absolute
a decree nisi pronounced in October last. The King’s Proctor has
intervened, alleging misconduct on the part of petitioner, such as
would have invalidated her plea; and he has amply and abundantly
proved his case. The application therefore fails, and the petitioner
will pay the costs of the intervention.
But that is not all. In the course of the proceedings, which were
defended, the cross-examination of the petitioner was directed towards
establishing these very adulteries, which have now been proved. She
denied them with vehemence, and went so far as to comment, from the
witness-box, upon the propriety of counsel raising issues of the
kind. Now this is a serious matter. It is one thing to make what I
might call a formal denial of adultery, in an undefended case, though
technically it might be perjury, and I myself should view even that
with gravity; it is quite another thing in a defended case, where
the matter has definitely been put in issue, to make a denial of
the kind; and I cannot see how the situation differs from that of a
plaintiff who comes before the court seeking relief, let us say, on a
Bill of Exchange, and falsely denies an allegation of fraud, or some
other invalidating factor. In both cases there may result a serious
miscarriage of justice, which at least cannot be so in an undefended
divorce suit, where it is to be imagined that the respondent is
indifferent to the consequences.
(_Addressing Agatha at the solicitor’s table_): It has been urged
most eloquently by your counsel that you had much to endure, and many
temptations to the course upon which you ultimately embarked with so
much recklessness. That may be so; or, again, it may not. It might be
taken into account by another court, as a mitigating circumstance.
But the Law, which I am here to administer, gives me, as I see it, no
choice. Public morality must be vindicated; and a flagrant perjury of
a kind that has become all too prevalent of late, is more than I can
pass unchallenged. The papers in this case will therefore be forwarded
to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
AGATHA (_hysterically_): My Lord. We--I--Oh God----
THE USHER (_sternly_): Silence.
DIGGERS (_patting her hand_): There, there, Miss Agatha. Don’t take on.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_on the other side_): My dear--don’t let’s have a scene.
HER SOLICITOR (_kindly_): Hush! You mustn’t interrupt his Lordship,
you know.
AGATHA (_wildly_): But if I don’t, they’ll prosecute me!
THE USHER (_to the Serjeant of Police_): Get ’er solicitor to take ’er
quietly outside. (_The Serjeant complies._)
DIGGERS (_following and moaning as he goes_): Why did you go an’ do
it, Mr. ’Eavyweight, Sir? (_Wringing his hands more than ever_): Oh,
Miss Agatha, Miss Agatha.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_trying hard to be brave_): Hush, Diggers, be a man. Bear
up. Courage.
DIGGERS (_bursting into tears_): Oh, Mr. ’Eavyweight, Sir, ’ow could
you?
HEAVYWEIGHT (_who has only done his duty_): You don’t understand, my
poor fellow.... Morality demands----(_His voice breaks. They vanish
in the wake of the Serjeant._)
THE REGISTRAR (_calling the next case_): Boggs versus Boggs and Boggs,
Boggs intervening. (_He hands up a bundle of papers to the judge._)
A COUNSEL (_rising_): This is an application for administration _de
bonis non_, my Lord. I understand----
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT III
SCENE: _A prison. Agatha in her cell. The doors are flung open and the
visiting justices troop in, accompanied by the Governor of the prison,
the doctor, the chaplain, warders, and our old friend Diggers, the
sexton._
FIRST VISITING JUSTICE: Well, what’s this one?
THE GOVERNOR (_curtly_): Perjury. Five years’ penal servitude. Last
Assizes.
THE WOMAN SUPERINTENDENT: Sulky little fiend. Won’t speak; and throws
her food at the warders.
SECOND VISITING JUSTICE (_addressing Agatha_): Come, come, my girl,
you’re doing yourself no good by this kind of thing. (_Addressing the
Governor_): Can’t your doctor do anything--or the chaplain?
THE DOCTOR (_in a dry staccato voice_): She’s perfectly healthy--not
losing weight--organs in good condition. I can’t do more than keep her
fit.
FIRST JUSTICE: Well, the chaplain, then?
THE CHAPLAIN: She’s very hard and unrepentant.
SECOND JUSTICE: Can’t you make her repent?
THE CHAPLAIN (_decidedly_): No. Nor can anyone else.
BOTH JUSTICES (_uneasily_): I see. Yes. (_Addressing the Governor_):
Can nothing be done?
THE GOVERNOR: Nothing more. She’s under constant supervision....
There’s a visitor for her with our party; where is he?
DIGGERS (_coming forward_): Here, Sir?
THE GOVERNOR: See if you can persuade her to speak to you.
DIGGERS (_approaching her timidly_): Miss Agatha, Miss Agatha ...
won’t you speak to me, old Diggers? (_She pays no attention._) Miss
Agatha, I’ve brought you some cowslips from the old glebe be’ind the
church. (_Anxiously, to the Governor_): May she ’ave them, Sir?
THE GOVERNOR (_blowing his nose_): Of course. Of course. (_Diggers
produces a sorry mess of yellow blossoms._)
DIGGERS: They’re faded, but they’re from the old ’ome.... Won’t you
’ave them, Miss? (_She makes no sign. One of the justices breaks
down._)
THE WOMAN SUPERINTENDENT: Now, dearie, take the nice flowers. (_But
Agatha pays no attention._)
THE SECOND JUSTICE: Dear, dear, how sad. (_Making a final effort_): My
poor young woman, you mustn’t take it so to heart. Your sentence, with
good conduct remission, which I presume you mean to earn--though you
won’t do so by throwing good food about--your sentence is really quite
trivial. (_She suddenly turns her eyes on him, with a baleful glare in
them. He stumbles over his words and dries up_): Yes, er, exactly.
THE FIRST JUSTICE (_who is bored_): Well, let’s be getting on. (_They
troop out._) It’s a sad case; but of course, Morality--(_his voice
dies away_.)
AGATHA (_when they have gone_): Stupid, sentimental humbugs!
(_Viciously_): Slugs, worms, uncomprehending BEASTS! (_In impotent
fury she whirls round the cell like a dervish, finally throwing
herself panting on her mattress._) Morality, indeed! (_She bites a
large piece out of the floor._)
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT IV
SCENE: _The streets of London (many years later). Heavyweight and
Diggers walk slowly along, searching the faces of the passers-by.
Suddenly Heavyweight stops in front of a thin, emaciated woman._
HEAVYWEIGHT: God! It’s you, Agatha, at last.... Have you come to this?
AGATHA (_unsteadily_): Don’t interfere with me. I’m looking after
myself. What I do is my affair.
DIGGERS (_incoherently_): Oh, Miss Agatha, Miss Agatha. (_He strokes
her hand._)
HEAVYWEIGHT (_tenderly_): My dear. You’re worn out, thin, hungry.
Wait. We’ll buy some food and wine and take you back. Come, Diggers.
(_They enter a shop. She leans against a lamp-post. A detective
appears suddenly beside her._)
THE DETECTIVE (_addressing her sharply_): Solicitin’, you was.... You
come along o’ me.
AGATHA (_furiously_): I won’t, I won’t! It’s a lie.
THE DETECTIVE: Now, then, be civil.... Ticket o’ leave, ain’t you?
AGATHA: Oh, what’s that to do with you? I’ve served my time. You’ve no
further claim on me.
THE DETECTIVE (_grimly_): ’Aven’t we? You just come along. (_He takes
her arm. Maddened, she deals him a vicious backhander in the mouth and
escapes from his grasp, fleeing along the pavement._) That won’t do
you no good, my girl. (_He starts in pursuit. Heavyweight reappears,
followed by the faithful Diggers._)
HEAVYWEIGHT (_anxiously_): Agatha, Agatha.... My God! (_Realising what
has happened, he rushes in pursuit._)
DIGGERS: Oh, Miss Agatha, Miss Agatha. (_He walks unsteadily after
them, wringing his hands. There is a hoarse shout, off, then a
horrible crash and a sharp, sickening scream. The detective and
Heavyweight reappear, carrying a lifeless form._)
DIGGERS (_in an agony_): What’s happened? Oh, what’s happened to Miss
Agatha?
THE DETECTIVE (_huskily_): Run over. (_Addressing Heavyweight_): Not
my fault, Sir. I couldn’t let ’er ’op it like that.
HEAVYWEIGHT (_brokenly_): My poor fellow, I know. You only did your
duty.... The social code must be upheld. Morality demands----(_His
voice breaks for the last time, and the curtain descends on his
tears._)
THE END OF THE PLAY.
ETERNITY AND POST-ETERNITY
(_An endless Tone-Drama in the Shavian manner._)
_Through the skylight of the subterranean dwelling of_ COLONEL LAZYBOY
(R.A.S.C., T.D.), _in the Chiltern Hills, an apparently endless
procession of clouds may be seen racing across a Mediterranean-blue
sky, a sure sign that rain will fall later. We may omit a number
of stage directions about the history of the_ LAZYBOY _family, the
detailed furnishing of the cavern, the mental processes of the_
COLONEL _himself, and a stupendous preface on “Midwifery and the
Modern Play”--it being sufficient to state that, although a spacious
mansion stands in the grounds hard by, it is entirely given over to
the servants, the family preferring to share the cave life of the_
COLONEL, _who, since he commanded a Chinese Labour Battalion during
the second battle of the Somme, has been quite unable to reaccustom
himself to living in a house, preferring, as he says, the harder and
more natural life of the dug-out._
_The_ COLONEL, MRS. LAZYBOY (_a faded, bored woman_), MERCIA, _their
daughter, and_ HARMODIUS HASHOVIT, _her husband, are at their morning
wrangle. In the middle of the row_, NURSE ALLSOPP _hurries in. Being_
MERCIA’S _old nurse she is virtually mistress (and master) of the
house._
MRS. LAZYBOY: Oh, dear! What is it now, Nursey?
NURSE: Oh, Im sure I beg pardon, Maam, but heres Miss Mercias young
man--(_suddenly observing_ HASHOVIT)--Oh, Im sure I beg pardon, sir, I
didn’t see you. I meant to say----
HASHOVIT (_heavily_): You meant that popinjay Eustace Brill. You
needn’t make a mystery about it, Nurse. Everyone knows hes my wifes
young man.
NURSE (_shocked_): Oh, that Im sure they dont, sir.
THE COLONEL (_pained_): Harmodius, my dear fellow, er----Allsopp, tell
Mr. Brill were not at home.
MERCIA (_bouncing up_): Certainly not! Send Youstee away because
Harmys jealous. Ill go and let him in myself.
HASHOVIT (_sneering_): So that you can kiss him in the passage without
anyone seeing you----
MERCIA (_proudly_): Ill kiss him before you all. (_A terrific crash
and splintering of glass heralds the arrival of_ EUSTACE _by the
skylight. He lands on the table, which collapses under him; recovers
his feet, and smiles genially around._)
[Illustration: “The influence of that man Shaw.”]
MERCIA (_crooning_): Yousteeee!
THE COLONEL (_testily_): Confound it all, Brill, I wish you wouldn’t
tear the place to pieces like that.... And you’ve shot a great fid of
glass into my eye. Damn the thing. (_He gropes, and finally extracts
it._) There, now itll bleed for the rest of the day!
EUSTACE (_surprised_): I thought you prided yourself on keeping up
active service conditions.
THE COLONEL: So I do.
EUSTACE: Then why make all this fuss about a trifling wound? You ought
to be grateful. It adds a touch of reality to your life.
THE COLONEL: Id rather you left me to supply the reality myself,
Brill. However--(MERCIA, _true to her threat, embraces_ EUSTACE _with
fervour_).... Now really, Mercia, upon my soul.... (_He clicks his
tongue with vexation._)
EUSTACE (_taken aback_): Mercia, dear. I know you mean it awfully
nicely. But really, in public----
HASHOVIT (_glowering_): You see--you degrade yourself to no purpose.
THE COLONEL (_warmly_): Degrade? Nonsense!... I, of course, dont mean
to imply----
HASHOVIT: But damn it all, Colonel----
MERCIA (_screaming_): Dont shout, Harmodius.
_The wrangle proceeds on the familiar Shavian lines, the party being
reinforced for no apparent reason by the arrival of_ DAN BIGBY, _an
old sea-captain, and_ MICHAEL JOHN O’SULLIVAN.
EUSTACE (_at long last_): Look here, Im getting sick of this. Its all
too much like a play by Bernard Shaw.
HASHOVIT (_growling_): Everyone is at heart a Shavian.
THE COLONEL (_hastily_): No, really, Harmodius.... O’Sullivan, Brill,
we cant have that----
EUSTACE: The truth about Shaw---- }
}
HASHOVIT: My idea of Shaw---- }
}
MICHAEL JOHN: Sure, if you come }
to talk about Shaw---- } (_Spoken_
} _together._)
MRS. LAZYBOY: Hes quite right. The }
influence of that man Shaw---- }
}
CAPTAIN DAN: Who was Shaw, anyway? }
THE COLONEL (_in his parade voice_): Silence. Youre on parade. Behave
accordingly.
CAPTAIN DAN: Avast there. Belay.
MERCIA (_stamping_): I wont belay. I object----
EUSTACE: But whats this to do with Shaw? And whats the use of
objecting when cosmic forces grip people by the throat? Ive no wish
whatever to do anything thats not A1 at Lloyds and all that. But----
HASHOVIT: Cosmic fiddlesticks. Its lust, Brill, and you know it. You
and Mercia want to misconduct yourselves, and its no good your trying
to draw a red herring of formulas and psycho-analytic bosh across the
track. It wont wash. In my young days----
MERCIA (_icily_): I dont think were greatly interested in your young
days, Harmodius.
HASHOVIT: Be quiet, Mercia. I ~will~ speak my mind, so youd
better make up your minds to listen. In my young days if a man and a
girl wanted to behave improperly they just did so and said no more
about it. But youve no decency. Youre not content with forbidden
fruit, you go and flaunt your liaison in the husband’s face, and make
a parade of it before all his and your friends. I wonder you dont
advertise it in the papers. Upon my soul, its what were coming to----
EUSTACE: But----
HASHOVIT (_yelling_): Dont you interrupt me, sir. I dont care a
swizzle stick about your stealing my wifes affections. As a matter
of fact, she hasnt got any, as youll jolly soon discover when the
noveltys worn off----
MERCIA: Oh, Harmy. (_She weeps._)
HASHOVIT: I dont care if you take her to Brighton or Nijni
Novgorod--if youre such a blasted fool as to spend so much money on
her. I dont care if you sit all day squeezing her hand, looking into
her eyes till you both squint, pawing her about, and talking that
horrible sickly twaddle I couldn’t help overhearing last night (_he
shudders at the recollection_).... But--(_rising to his feet_)--but I
will not have all your friends and my friends whispering and talking
about me as though I were something to be pitied. (_His voice rising
to a scream._) If you want to know, I think Im just about the damn
luckiest fellow alive to have unloaded this viperish, discontented,
addle-headed, empty-hearted baggage on the most crass and pitiable
fool Ive ever met--and if you want to say any more--(_his poor,
overstrained voice cracks and dies away in his throat with a mouse’s
squeak; whereat he expresses his feelings by tearing the cushions to
pieces and scattering the bits on the floor_.)
THE COLONEL: Come, come, my dear fellow--pull yourself together.
MERCIA (_crisply_): What I like about Harmodius is his obvious
self-control.
HASHOVIT (_his eyes bulging; he speaks in a hoarse whisper_): Shut up,
you she-porcupine, you hateful female skunk, you--(_his vocal chords
snap and his voice goes for ever_.)
MERCIA: His manners are so perfect, too: and hes so brave.... Cry-baby!
HASHOVIT (_inarticulately_): o o o o o o o b b--(_or some similar
noise. Blood gushes from his mouth._)
NURSE ALLSOPP: There, my poddle-poodkins, come with nursey-wursey.
(_Addressing the others sharply_): And if you want any lunch go and
wash your hands, all of you. (_She leads HARMODIUS out by the hand.
The others, except EUSTACE and MERCIA, follow her meekly_.)
EUSTACE (_uneasily_): You expect me to admire all that, I suppose.
MERCIA (_fixing him with vampire eyes_): I expect you to admire
nothing except me.
EUSTACE: Admire you. I loathe you. I struggle to escape from you.
Youre like some awful drug, the same odious intoxication, the same
irresistible fascination, and the same deadly remorse when its all
over. You steal away my senses, and make me a slave.
MERCIA: I make you a priest, not a slave.
EUSTACE: No, its slavery.
MERCIA: Priesthood. High Priesthood to the divine desire in all of us.
EUSTACE (_retreating_): Im afraid of that.
MERCIA (_snaring him with her eyes_): Afraid! Afraid of worshipping
love?
EUSTACE: Yes. Ive no vocation.
MERCIA (_dangerously_): Does that mean youve no inclination?
EUSTACE: No. It means what it says.... You talk about priesthood of
love. You seem to think no vocation is necessary, though I suppose
youd admit it in the case of a priest of Buddhism. Religion is a
dedication of the spirit; Love, a dedication of the heart. You cant
dedicate your spirit till its broken; nor can you your heart; and
hearts dont break as easily as crockery, let me tell you. (_Espying
MICHAEL JOHN in the passage_): O’Sullivan.
MICHAEL JOHN (_entering and curling himself up in the coal-scuttle_):
Speak.
EUSTACE: Tell her how long a mans heart must beat against that of a
woman before it will break.
MICHAEL JOHN: Four years and ninety minutes exactly. On the tick of
the ninetieth minute the heart cracks, and the imprisoned soul passes
from its bondage into the numbing bliss of everlasting heartache----
CAPTAIN DAN (_entering unobserved and taking up the tale_): And in
the fifth year he shall be exalted above human understanding.... In
the dog watches and under the dog stars Ive looked upon the ways of
mankind, and held my hand from destroying them in sheer----
EUSTACE: Pity?
CAPTAIN DAN: Pity. No! Indifference.
MERCIA (_fixing him with her eyes_): Danny, I make you mine. The
priesthood of love----
CAPTAIN DAN (_uneasily_): Avast there.
MERCIA (_triumphantly_): There’s no avasting where Ill take you.
(_Breaking into a chant_)
I go by the mountains and rivers,
I go by the seashore and fell.
EUSTACE (_satirically_):
While the thankless old mariner shivers
MICHAEL JOHN:
And strives to break loose from her spell.
MERCIA (_her voice rising to prophetic fervour_):
But the child, still unborn, of my yearning,
Shall go in the van as our guide,
CAPTAIN DAN (_chuckling feebly_):
Down the pathway of shame to the burning,
MERCIA (_laughing horribly_):
When Im Daniel the Mariners Bride.
(_She sweeps him into her arms and carries him away shouting._)
MERCIA (_disappearing_): Io. Io. Dionysos!
CAPTAIN DAN (_in a high falsetto_): Let the skies rain joy!
EUSTACE (_passionately_): How can you, Mercia, how can you? (_He is
seized by uncontrollable weeping._) Im crying, O’Sullivan----
MICHAEL JOHN: Im wantin a cry meself. (_He bursts into tears._)
MERCIA_’s voice_ (_a long way off_): But you must let me come back and
look after Harmodius’s clothes----
_Many years elapse. They are still talking._
MERCIA (_temporizing_): After all, if I leave Harmodius for Eustace,
or Eustace for Danny----
THE COLONEL (_who is deaf by now_): Whats that?
MRS. LAZYBOY (_who is nearly as deaf and very feeble_): Shes talking
about the childrens holidays.
THE COLONEL: He! He! He!
_A long time passes by._
MR. FUZZLEWHITT (MERCIAS _great grandson_): After all, if she had
deserted Harmodius Hashovit----
MRS. FUZZLEWHITT (_who is thoroughly tired of the story_): Yes, Rejjy,
I know....
_Centuries roll by._
MONSIEUR CHOSE: Bernard Shaw says in his play about Mercia and
Harmodius Hashovit that if Mrs. Lazyboy----
_Æons pass._
SOMEBODY: Theres a storm coming. Its going to cleanse the world. (_The
sky darkens._)
SOMEBODY ELSE: It makes no difference. The human brain will survive.
A THIRD PERSON: The human antheap will continue to surge with
meaningless movement.
A FOURTH: The human voice will continue to cry from nothing to nothing.
A FIFTH: The human hand will continue to write, and posterity will
bury the writings.
A SIXTH: And Shaw alone shall be assured of immortality.
_The storm breaks with prodigious force. Eternity arrives._
A SHINING ONE: Yes, the immortals are all in their places. Dante and
Cervantes had a squabble last night, but theyve made it up.
THE ETERNAL: Good.
THE SHINING ONE: Shakespeare has been giving trouble, too. Hes jealous
of Shaw.
THE ETERNAL (_apprehensively_): Im not at all easy in my own mind
about Shaw.
_Eternity passes._
MR. SHAW (_on the steps of the eternal throne_): Im really very sorry.
Its no wish of mine, you know.
THE ETERNAL (_apologetically, and handing over the crown and sceptre
of Heaven_): Not at all. Its a pleasure to make this trifling
acknowledgment of your genius.
THE END OF THE PLAY.
THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
(_A Fantasy in the manner of J. M. Barrie._)
I
The pink and white drawing-room of Emily Jane’s house--or rather of
the house of Emily Jane’s father, Mister Balbus, is so caressingly
harmonious to the eye, so surpassingly restful, so eminently a place
of happy people, that one knows instinctively it will be visited by a
tragedy. It is just a question of time, and this gentle atmosphere will
find itself charged with the electricity of conflicting human emotions;
dear women’s hearts will break and be laid aside in pot-pourri jars;
strong sentimental men will walk their sweet, melancholy way; and we
shall all go home the cleaner, mentally, for a refreshing bath of
tears. Emily Jane is not yet in the drawing-room. The appropriate
atmosphere has first to be created, so that we may catch our breath
just a little as Miss Compton or Miss Celli trips on. Emily Jane is
really a very ordinary kind of girl, plump, pleasant-looking, and
neither very clever nor specially athletic. But to her mother she is
still a tiny toddling mite in a knitted woollen coat with pink ribbons,
and to Daddy, Mister Balbus, she is a resplendent goddess.
At last, after a preliminary conversation about stamp-collecting, or
some other harmless hobby, between McVittie and Price, two old dullards
introduced to fill in the few awkward minutes while the latecomers are
clambering into their stalls, Mister Balbus comes into the room. There
is nothing remarkable about Mister Balbus. In the eyes of his wife he
is an irresistibly lovable plexus of male weaknesses; in the eyes of
Emily Jane he is closely related to the Almighty. Actually he is nobody
in particular, an architect of sorts; but we are to see him through
their eyes, and so he appears in the play as a genial and gigantic
mixture of a demigod and a buffoon. Mr. Aynesworth is appropriately
selected to represent him.
“Good morning,” he says.
“Good morning,” reply McVittie and Price, delighted that any of the
principal characters should condescend to speak to them.
“Where’s our little Emily Jane?” he asks, tenderly.
“Here, Daddy,” replies a sweet voice.
“Where, my lovely one?”
“In the chimney, Daddy”; and the dear child clambers down and rushes
into his arms without even waiting to brush off the soot. McVittie and
Price make clucking noises of approval and delight. This is typical of
what goes on in the Balbus household every day. How can it be possible
that anything except joy should be in store for them? But ah----
MR. BALBUS: Where is Mammy, my treasure?
EMILY JANE: Waiting for Daddy darling, in his study.
MR. BALBUS: Will my little heart ask her to come?
Emily Jane trips away so happily and obediently. “Well, Price,” says
Mr. Balbus, “I must go and see how they’re getting on with the wall.”
PRICE: Haven’t you finished it yet?
MR. BALBUS: I don’t think I ever shall. Balbus was building a wall in
the time of the Roman Empire; and I suppose he’ll go on for the rest
of time.
MCVITTIE: Which wall is it this time, Balbus?
MR. BALBUS: The Great Wall of China. They’ve retained me to go and
inspect it. I leave to-morrow.
Mrs. Balbus hurries in and embraces her husband shamelessly. Emily Jane
follows and embraces them both. McVittie and Price, not to be outdone,
embrace each other in the corner.
“You’re going to China, my husband?” asks Mrs. Balbus, tenderly.
“Yes, wife.”
“I’ll go with you.”
EMILY JANE: And I, Daddy.
MCVITTIE & PRICE: We will come too, old friend.
Mr. Balbus beams at them through his tears. The audience beam at each
other through theirs.
II
They have been wrecked.
They are all on a deserted island which, from the stunted shrubs
and bleak outlook, is probably in the neighbourhood of Tristan da
Cunha. McVittie and Price are pretending to be tremendously brave and
contented over a meal of roasted berries.
“These are really delicious,” says McVittie.
“Capital,” says Price. “Have some more.”
“No thanks. My doctor, you know. He won’t let me enjoy myself.”
“A glass of this delicious rock-water, then. Most stimulating.”
“No, my dear fellow. I’ve done magnificently. Not another sup.”
But it is really only pretend. The brave fellows are concealing their
anxiety for fear of alarming Emily Jane and her mother who are resting
in the bivouac near by. Actually they are full of apprehension.
“Price,” says McVittie at last, leaning forward mysteriously.
“McVittie?” He leans forward too; their long noses almost touch.
“I’m uneasy.” A hoarse whisper.
“So am I. Very.” A squeak of terror.
“I’ve found out the name of this island, Price.”
“Indeed?”
McVittie sinks his voice even deeper.
“It’s called--Umborroweeboo.”
“Gracious. What ever does that mean?”
“It means....” His voice becomes blood-curdling in its intensity. “It
means The-Island-that-wants-to-be-let-alone. It’s a sinister spot,
Price. They say....”
Darkness begins to close in rapidly. Price shivers.
“What do they say?”
“They say it can vanish beneath the sea and reappear in another place,
after remaining submerged for years.”
“Good heavens.” Price is very uneasy. Emily Jane appears from the
bivouac and prostrates herself on the ground.
“I love you, dear little island,” she murmurs, kissing the shore. “I
would like to be married to a beautiful island like you.”
“I shall come to claim that promise one day,” says a deep, rich voice
from nowhere.
EMILY JANE: Did anyone speak?
MCVITTIE: No one. I heard nothing.
PRICE: I thought--why, what’s that?
MR. BALBUS (_emerging from a hollow tree_): What’s what?
PRICE: That. There. Look.
THE OTHERS: Where?
PRICE: There. Look. Now it’s _there_. Quick. It’s moved again. (_A
strain of unearthly music._)
EVERYBODY: Hark. What’s that? (_Mrs. Balbus crawls out of the bivouac
on her hands and knees._)
MRS. BALBUS (_fondly_): John, you’ve left off your comforter.... Why
are you all in a ring? You’ll have the fairies out if you stand in a
ring.
MCVITTIE (_uneasily_): In a ring? I didn’t notice. I think----(_He
turns to move away but finds himself rooted to the ground._) Well,
this is most extraordinary.
EMILY JANE: What is extraordinary, dear Mr. McVittie?
MCVITTIE: I can’t move hand or foot.
MR. BALBUS: Good Lord. Nor can I.
PRICE: Nor I.
EMILY JANE: I can a little. It’s getting very difficult. Now _I_ can’t
either. (_The strain of music is heard again._)
MRS. BALBUS: Ugh! The horrid thing’s got hold of _me_ now. I can’t
move either. John, make them stop it at once.
MR. BALBUS (_feebly_): How can I, my dear? I’m quite powerless.
EMILY JANE (_illusion suddenly stripped from her eyes--for that is
what happens under the spell of this magic island_): Oh, Daddy, I
thought there was nothing you couldn’t do. And now, now--you’re just
like anybody else.
MRS. BALBUS (_critically_): You certainly look strange, John; not at
all your usual self.
MR. BALBUS (_for the first time seeing his wife and daughter as they
really are_): Please be quiet both of you and don’t talk about things
you don’t understand. McVittie, what are we to do?
MCVITTIE (_philosophically_): Wait for the island to disappear, I
suppose. (_The strain of music sounds once more._)
PRICE (_excitedly_): There it is moving about again. The thing I saw
before.
EMILY JANE: It’s like a tiny, tiny man.
MR. BALBUS: I don’t fancy this at all.
PRICE: It’s coming nearer. (_An elvish figure appears dancing towards
them. It is puffing a stupendous pipe._)
MR. BALBUS (_trying to be severe and failing signally_): Who are you,
please?
THE FIGURE (_dancing more than ever_): Macconachie.
EMILY JANE: What do you mean by trespassing on our island?
MACCONACHIE: I live here. It’s my home. You are the trespassers. But
you’re very welcome. (_With goblin glee._) I’ve been waiting for you,
for a long time.
MR. BALBUS: Waiting for us. Nonsense. You don’t know who we are, even.
MACCONACHIE: Oh yes I do. I’ve been watching you for a long time.
Especially Emily Jane. I want Emily Jane.
MRS. BALBUS: Want Emily Jane? The idea of such a thing! Go away, Sir,
at once.
MACCONACHIE: You think you’re her mother, I suppose? (_Addressing
Balbus_) And you believe yourself to be her father?
MR. BALBUS (_with dignity_): I certainly do.
MACCONACHIE: But you’re not, you’re not. She’s mine.
MRS. BALBUS (_indignantly_): Sir! John, don’t listen to a word he says.
MACCONACHIE: You’re all mine. I want you all.
MCVITTIE (_hoarsely_): Want us all? What for, may I ask?
MACCONACHIE: To draw tears from simple hearts. You’ll see.
But they don’t understand at all, and look blankly at one another, as
he flits about like a will o’ the wisp still puffing at his gigantic
pipe.
III
The drawing-room again. They are all, except Emily Jane, sitting there
in disconsolate melancholy.
MR. BALBUS (_with a deep sigh_): It’s for the best of course.... But I
miss her sadly.
MCVITTIE & PRICE: It’s terrible, terrible. (_They sigh_).
MRS. BALBUS: I always felt there was something unearthly about the
child. (_She sighs very deeply._)
There is a long pause. They are thinking of their terrible experience
when Macconachie flitted over their heads like a sprite, and the solid
island sank beneath their feet, and they were left clinging to a raft.
“When the island began to submerge”--begins Mr. Balbus, and then he
checks himself with a sob.
MCVITTIE (_for the hundredth time_): I could have sworn I had her in
my arms on the raft. (_His voice breaks._)
PRICE: You didn’t hear the Voice--
MRS. BALBUS: Voice--what voice?
PRICE: Something about claiming a promise. And she gave a little cry
of wonder. I heard it. (_He walks gloomily over to the window._)
MR. BALBUS (_suddenly enlightened_): That’s what Macconachie meant,
when he said “to draw tears from simple hearts.” I begin to
understand....
PRICE (_at the window_): How very curious.
MRS. BALBUS: My curtains? They are certainly not.
PRICE (_in choking tones_): Look at the lake--it’s drying up, or
something.
They all rush to the window. An amazing thing is in progress. The
bottom of the lake seems to be rising. Stunted shrubs are pushing
themselves above the water.
“My gracious powers, it’s the island,” cries Mr. Balbus.
PRICE (_quoting McVittie’s long-forgotten remark_): They say it can
vanish beneath the sea, and reappear in another place after remaining
submerged for years.
MCVITTIE: There’s somebody moving on it. Look. Among the trees.
MR. BALBUS: It’s Macconachie. (_He hails the island. Macconachie comes
ashore, and flits up to the house_.)
MR. BALBUS (_in a trembling voice_): Where is she, Sir? Tell us where
she is?
MACCONACHIE: Emily Jane? She’s touring in America. Making a fortune.
MR. BALBUS: But will she come back, Sir?
MACCONACHIE: If you need her sufficiently, and wish for her often
enough, and believe with strength, she will assuredly come back.
MR. BALBUS: But why should she have been taken from us, Sir? We loved
her, cared for her. She was happy with us.
“To carry my message to the hearts of men,” replies Macconachie, with
a wistful smile. “I may need any of you in the future and then----” He
pauses. “But till then farewell.” And he flits through the window; and
the island submerges again. But the others sit in rapt silence, for
they have seen beyond the veil.
PRESIDENT WILSON
(_A Chronicle in the manner of John Drinkwater._)
SCENE I.--_The President’s Chamber in the White House, Autumn, 1918._
WOODROW WILSON, _lean, single-purposed, masterful, is signing State
documents with inflexible pen_. JOSEPH TUMULTY, _a chubby little
man, is leaning affectionately on the back of the President’s chair,
following the movements of his pen with dog-like veneration. The
President, still writing, breaks the silence without looking up._
WILSON: Tumulty.
TUMULTY: Yes, Governor.
WILSON: I wouldn’t have you think I’m insensible to the merits of your
proposals--but I can’t accept them. In the bargainings and shifts of
the Allies I must be unfettered, if necessary blindly followed, by
the American delegation. Otherwise there’ll be another Congress of
Vienna.... It’s not that I criticise our Allies, I would be loath to
do that; but I understand their passions and distress. Firmness on
our part may perhaps redress the balance.... Where’s Lansing? (_The
Secretary of State comes in._)
LANSING: Good morning, Mr. President.
WILSON (_wistfully_): Why--you’re mighty formal, Lansing. I’ve not to
convince you again, I trust. Why, Lansing----
LANSING: I hold, as you know, that with the Republicans in a majority
in both Houses, it’s an act of, I won’t say folly, Mr. President, but
an act of ill-judgment to have them uncommitted to the terms of peace.
WILSON: I’m taking Hoover and White.
LANSING: White means nothing, and Hoover is only an expert. Lodge,
Root, Leonard Wood should all go with you as delegates.
WILSON: No, Mr. Secretary. (TUMULTY _bows his head as if to a blow_.)
No, a thousand times.
LANSING: They’ll tear up your work otherwise. I speak as your friend,
Mr. President. Myself as you know I don’t think extravagantly well of
your plan for a League of Nations. I’ve never disguised that. Though
a fine ideal it isn’t practical----But setting my views aside, and
speaking as a friend to the proposal, because it’s your proposal, I
feel bound to say that, if the Republicans aren’t pledged to it in
advance, it will never pass Congress.
WILSON (_affectionately_): Lansing, you’re so logical and clear there
seems to be no escape from your reasoning. I’ve no doubt you size up
the Republican intentions mighty well. But you’re wrong for all that;
and where you go wrong is right at the beginning. Don’t you see the
choice of evils before me? If I don’t take the Republicans they may
try to wreck my work when it’s done, true; but if I do take them the
work won’t be done at all.
LANSING (_stiffly_): I can’t allow that, Mr. President. They’re good,
patriotic Americans.
WILSON: Who says they aren’t? Who suggests for one moment that they
won’t do their best for America and the Allies? But will they do the
best for the world? (LANSING _is silent_.) Will they tie the world
up in a League against war; or will they inflict a vindictive peace,
that’ll do no more than sow the seeds of another?
LANSING: You distrust their patriotism?
WILSON: Never. I distrust their passions. Or say I’m wrong. Say their
conception of the peace is the proper one, and mine a delusion. How
can we work together? The Delegation couldn’t be depended on to agree
in the smallest particular. I should just be playing a lone hand; and
the Allies, knowing my house to be divided against itself, would put
me aside in the Conference like a cipher. No, Lansing. I’ll go to
Paris with those on whom I can rely. I’ll so tie up the peace with
the League, that the one can’t live without the other; and if, as you
prophesy, I find myself deserted by Congress, I’ll go over their heads
to the American people in whose ideals the thing has its roots. That
is my final decision.
LANSING: I hope you’ll not regret it.
(_He takes his leave. The others follow him with their eyes. The
President gives a half laugh._)
WILSON: Ah, if one could only add to the good qualities one’s friends
possess, the good qualities one would have them possess.... (_He
sighs_). These Commissions (_holding up the papers he has signed_),
they’re all in order now?
TUMULTY: Yes, Governor.
WILSON: Deliver them yourself. (_He reads out the names as he hands
them over._) House ... Lansing ... White.
THE SCENE CLOSES.