I
It was hot.
It was so hot that a certain Mr. William Hollis sitting on an old bacon
box in the lee of a summerhouse in his lock-up garden had removed coat
and waistcoat tie and collar, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and
loosened his braces. The presence of a neighbor's elbows on the party
hedge forbade a complete return to nature, but the freedom of Old Man
Adam from the restraints imposed by society was envied just now by one
at least of his heirs.
By the side of Bill Hollis was a stone jar of Blackhampton ale, a
famous brew, but even this could not save him from gasping like a carp.
It was a scorcher and no mistake--thick, slab and hazy, the sort of
heat you can almost cut with a knife.
Leaning gracefully across from the next plot was a large, rotund
gentleman with the face of a well-nourished ferret. Draped in an artful
festoon beneath an old straw hat, a wreath of burdock leaves defended
him from the weather. "Mr. Hollis"--he addressed the man on the bacon
box with conversational charm--"if you want my opinion they're putting
in a bit of overtime in Hell."
"Mr. Goldman, you've got it." His neighbor, a man of somber
imagination, was struck by the force of the image. First he glanced up
to a sky of burnished copper and then he glanced down over the edge of
sheer hillside upon which he and his friend were poised like a couple
of black ants on the face of a hayrick. Below he saw a cauldron in
which seethed more than a quarter of a million souls. Floating above
the cauldron and its many thousands of chimneys was a haze of soot
thick enough to conceal what in point of mere size was the fourteenth
city of Great Britain. But speaking geographically, and Blackhampton's
inhabitants were prone to do that, it was the exact center of England,
of the United Kingdom, of the British Empire, and therefore--
Somewhere in the mind of William Hollis lurked a poet, a philosopher
and an artist. He pointed over the dip of the hill into the middle of
the cauldron. "Reminds me," he said, half to himself, for he was not
consciously an artist, "of the Inferno of Dant, with Lustrations by
Door."
Mr. Goldman frowned at the simile. What else could he do? He was a
solid citizen, of a solid city, of a solid empire: he was not merely a
Philistine, he was proud of being a Philistine. He suddenly remembered
that his neighbor was a failure as a man of business. And in a flash
Mr. Goldman knew why.
"Yes, Hollis--hot." The ferret-faced gentleman spoke with more caution
and less charm. Commercially and socially he was secure, but the same
could hardly be said for the man on the bacon box who spoke of the
Inferno of Dant with Lustrations by Door--whatever the Inferno of Dant
with Lustrations by Door might be.
"Hot enough, Mr. Goldman, to melt those three brass balls of yours." It
was a graceful allusion to a trade symbol, yet a prosperous pawnbroker
felt that in making it a semi-bankrupt greengrocer was verging upon the
familiar. He had just reached that conclusion when a boy selling papers
came along the narrow lane that ran past the end of the garden, and
thrust a tousled head over the fence.
"Four o'clock, mister?"
Bill Hollis produced a halfpenny. A minute later he produced a note of
disgust. "County's beat. Yorkshire won by an innings an' four runs.
Funny thing, our chaps can't never play against Yorkshire--not for sour
apples."
Mr. Goldman gave a slow deep grunt and then artistically readjusted his
garland.
"Hirst six for twenty-two. Them Tykes can _bahl_ a bit. Rhodes four for
nineteen."
Mr. Goldman grunted again. And it was now clear by the look in his
small eyes that disapproval was intended. The Inferno of Dant with
Lustrations by Door was still in his mind. That was the key to his
neighbor's financial failure, but this squandering of money, time and
brain power on things of no value was just as significant.
"Cricket." The tone was very scornful. "One o' these days cricket is
going to be the ruin of the country."
William Hollis stoutly dissented. "It's cricket that makes us what we
are."
"It's business, Hollis, that makes a country." There was an accession
of moral superiority in the pawnbroker's tone. "That's the thing that
counts. All this sport is ruination--ruination, Hollis--the road to
nowhere."
William Hollis was unconvinced, but a man so successful had him at a
hopeless disadvantage. In theory he was sure that he was right, but the
pawnbroker knew that he had just made a composition with his creditors,
so that it didn't matter how sound the argument or how honest the
cause, he was out of court. Truth doesn't matter. It is public opinion
that matters. And public opinion is conditioned by many subtleties,
among which a banking account is foremost.
Bill Hollis covered his retreat from a position that should have been
impregnable, by turning to another part of the paper which was the
Blackhampton _Evening Star_.
"Ultimatum to Serbia. Ugly situation. I don't think."
Mr. Goldman asked why he didn't.
"A dodge to sell the paper."
"I expect you're right," said the pawnbroker judicially. "They've
always got some flam or other."
"Civil war in Ireland," announced Bill Hollis.
"I daresay. And next week we shall have the sea serpent and the giant
gooseberry. And all for a halfpenny, mark you. We're living in great
days, Hollis."
The little greengrocer was silent a moment and then he said
thoughtfully, "I sometimes think, Mr. Goldman, what this country wants
is a really good war."
Mr. Goldman smiled in a superior way. "Well, I don't mind telling you,"
he said, "that I've thought that for the last twenty years. Not this
country only, but Europe, the whole world."
"You're right, Mr. Goldman." There was a grandeur in the conception
that in spite of the weather almost moved his neighbor to enthusiasm.
"Stands to reason, my boy, and I'll tell you why. The world is
overpoppylated. Look at this town of ours." With the finger of an
Olympian the pawnbroker pointed down the hillside to the smoking
cauldron below. "Poppylation two hundred and sixty odd thousand at the
last census. And when I first set up in business, the year before the
Franco-Prussian War, it was seventy-two thousand. And it's not only
here, it's all over the world alike."
"That is so, Mr. Goldman. And they say that in America it's even
worse. In fact, wherever you look the competition is cruel."
"Yes, Hollis, a real good war would do a power of good. We want Old
Boney back again--then there might be breathing space for a bit. As it
is this country is overrun with aliens."
William assented gloomily.
"This town of ours, my boy, is crawling with Germans. They come over
here and take the bread out of our mouths. They work for nothing and
they live on nothing. They learn all our trades and then they go back
to the Fatherland, and undersell us."
Said Bill Hollis with the air of a prophet, "I reckon that sooner or
later we'll be having a scrap with the Germans."
"Not likely." The pawnbroker's tone was a little contemptuous. "The
Germans can get all they want without fighting. Peaceful penetration's
their game. They are the cleverest nation in the world. In another
twenty years they'll own it all."
Upon this last expression of his wisdom Mr. Goldman gave a final touch
to his straw hat and its cool garland, waddled down a box-bordered path
and out of the gate at the bottom of his garden.