The cost of living in the vicinity of the Peace Conference has been
enormously exaggerated. Likewise the difficulty of reorganizing Europe
on a truly ethnic basis. By combining the two questions I have found
them immensely simplified, and I have been in Paris only three days.
My meaning will be clearly illustrated by the record of a single day's
experience--with the representative of the Dodopeloponnesians for
_déjeûner_ and the delegate of the Pan-Deuteronomaniads for dinner.
I made the acquaintance of the first in the lift. On the way down
it came out that I was _journaliste_ assisting at the Conference of
the Peace, whereupon the other introduced himself as secretary of
the Dodopeloponnesian delegation and eager for the pleasure of
entertaining me at _déjeûner_.
Nothing international arose in connection with the _hors d'oeuvres_.
It was between the soup and the fish that my host inquired whether
I had yet found time to look into the just claim of the
Dodopeloponnesian people to the neighbouring island of Funicula.
"You mean," I said, "on the ground that the island of Funicula was
brought under the Dodopeloponnesian sceptre on September 11th, 1405,
by Blagoslav the Splay-fingered, from whom it was wrested on February
3rd, 1406, by the Seljuks?"
"Precisely," he said. "But also because the people of Funicula are
originally of Dodopeloponnesian stock."
"Yet they speak the language of Pan-Deuteronomania," I said.
"A debased dialect," he said, "foisted upon them by a remission of
ten per cent. in taxes for every hundred words of the lingo learned
by heart, with double votes for irregular verbs."
The _entrée_, something with eggs and jelly, was excellent.
"Far be it from me to deny," I said, "the fact that Funicula is by
right a part of the inheritance of the Octo-syllabarians"--and I bowed
gracefully to my host, who raised his glass in return--"and I agree
in advance with every argument you put forward in favour of a restored
Sesquicentennial commonwealth by bringing together the scattered
members of the Duodecimal race from all over the world. In fact," I
added as the waiter poured out the champagne, "it seems to me that
in addition to the Island of Funicula there properly belongs, in the
realm of your Greater Anti-Vivisectoria, the adjacent promontory,
geyser and natural bridge of Pneumobronchia, from which the last
Seljuk ruler, Didyffius the Forty-fifth, leaped in front of a
machete wielded by his eldest son, who therefore became Didymus the
Forty-sixth."
He was delighted to find so much sympathy and understanding in an
alien journalist from far across the seas. His bill, so far as a
hurried and discreet glance could reveal, was 89 francs 50 centimes,
not including the _taxe_.
On the other hand, the _sous-secrétaire_ of the Pan-Deuteronomaniad
delegation, who took me out to dinner that same night, paid 127 francs
(including theatre tickets) before he proved to my satisfaction
that the basic civilization of Funicula Island is after all
Pan-whatever-you-call-it.
At any rate my point is made. My expenditure on food these three
days in Paris has been negligible, and there is rumour that the
Supra-Zambesian delegation is thinking of opening a hotel with running
water, h. and c., in every room.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Gunner_. "DO YOU PLAY THE PIANO?"
_Jack_. "NO, SIR."
_Gunner_. "NOR THE 'CELLO?"
_Jack_. "NO, SIR."
_Gunner_. "WELL, THE NEXT TIME YOU HEAR RUMOURS OF A BARBER JUST
FOLLOW THE MATTER UP."]
* * * * *
_DULCE DOMUM_.
The air is full of rain and sleet,
A dingy fog obscures the street;
I watch the pane and wonder will
The sun be shining on Boar's Hill,
Rekindling on his western course
The dying splendour of the gorse
And kissing hands in joyous mood
To primroses in Bagley Wood.
I wish that when old Phoebus drops
Behind yon hedgehog-haunted copse
And high and bright the Northern Crown
Is standing over White Horse Down
I could be sitting by the fire
In that my Land of Heart's Desire--
A fire of fir-cones and a log
And at my feet a fubsy dog
In Robinwood! In Robinwood!
I think the angels, if they could,
Would trade their harps for railway tickets
Or hang their crowns upon the thickets
And walk the highways of the world
Through eves of gold and dawns empearled,
Could they be sure the road led on
Twixt Oxford spires and Abingdon
To where above twin valleys stands
Boar's Hill, the best of promised lands;
That at the journey's end there stood
A heaven on earth like Robinwood.
Heigho! The sleet still whips the pane
And I must turn to work again
Where the brown stout of Erin hums
Through Dublin's aromatic slums
And Sinn Fein youths with shifty faces
Hold "Parliaments" in public places
And, heaping curse on mountainous curse
In unintelligible Erse,
Harass with threats of war and arson
Base Briton and still baser CARSON.
But some day when the powers that be
Demobilise the likes of me
(Some seven years hence, as I infer,
My actual exit will occur)
Swift o'er the Irish Sea I'll fly,
Yea, though each wave be mountains high,
Nor pause till I descend to grab
Oxford's surviving taxicab.
Then "Home!" (Ah, HOME! my heart be still!)
I'll say, and, when we reach Boar's Hill,
I'll fill my lungs with heaven's own air
And pay the cabman twice his fare,
Then, looking far and looking nigh,
Bare-headed and with hand on high,
"Hear ye," I'll cry, "the vow I make,
Familiar sprites of byre and brake,
_J'y suis, j'y reste_. Let Bolshevicks
Sweep from the Volga to the Styx;
Let internecine carnage vex
The gathering hosts of Poles and Czechs,
And Jugo-Slavs and Tyrolese
Impair the swart Italian's ease--
Me for Boar's Hill! These war-worn ears
Are deaf to cries for volunteers;
No Samuel Browne or British warm
Shall drape this svelte Apolline form
Till over Cumnor's outraged top
The actual shells begin to drop;
Till below Youlberry's stately pines
Echo the whiskered Bolshy's lines
And General TROTSKY'S baggage blocks
The snug bar-parlour of 'The Fox.'"