it all smelt!--hard at work reading a worn "horrible"--"Sweeney Todd"
its hero--and yawning. Atmosphere, rather than weariness, caused the
gape, which came to an abrupt close.
As June was entering the warehouse from the back way, Max Oldstein, the
only son of the "firm," was to be heard descending the stairs opposite.
Jenkins was off his perch in an instant, and busily tumbling a bale of
clothing from the counter to the floor.
June viciously poked with her wand the scraggy nape of his neck to
remind him of Sally. Her protest was effectual. He went to the door and
shouted:
"Come in, Kid!"
Sally eagerly entered. She stood on the door-mat trembling.
"Pay her four and twopenth," said the master, as he put a tick on the
paper he held, "and tell 'er that if 'er people don't do the work
betterth, they'll be wantin' it."
Max turned abruptly, and went to the other end of the shop, where he
lighted a cigarette and thoughtfully admired the great gold ring on his
large little finger. June, feeling angry because of his blatant
unpleasantness, wished him a punishment of pain, which he felt.
"My corn!" he said, "it'th goin' to rain."
Meanwhile Jenkins was addressing Sally.
"You 'eard what the young guv'nor said? And don't you forget it!
There's the oof--count it!--and 'ere's another lot of material. See?
Twenty pieces. Now, you can sling your 'ook!"
Sally poised the pile of cloth on her shoulder and went. June followed
her into the street, made the load as light as good wishes and touch of
wand permitted, and instructed Bim, who during her absence had fallen
fast asleep in the gutter, to clamber on Sally's hat and go
home--"home"--with her, to guard her.
Then she returned to see what could be done with Max Oldstein, whose
ripe, unusual vulgarity fascinated her.
Sally, with Bim sprawling along her hat-brim like invisible red
trimming, jogged slowly eastward. The exhausted gnome was soon again in
his own little nod-land--sleep pulled so hard at his eyelids--and did
not return to this world of the infinite unrealities till Sally was in
the bed-workroom at Paradise Court, and the weary women had greedily
counted and grumbled over the few coins brought to them.
At once they returned to the sewing, and plied desperate needles through
the new mass of half-made clothing. So wore away more hours of their
unblessed lives.
Bim, awakened and sent tumbling by Sally's doffing her hat, crawled into
the beer-can, which still was lying where it had rolled when Bill
dropped it; curled himself up like a squirrel in its winter fastness,
and was asleep again. This shows how over-tired the poor fellow was;
Bim was, however, not too weary for dreams, and in the visions of
slumber, once more made that fearsome journey from Fairyland which ended
with the finding of June. This proves that gnomes can ride nightmares
too; a fact for the Psychical Society.
Max Oldstein puzzled June. She could not make him out. His interests
and actions seemed so purposeless and mean. During that busy morning he
was forty unpleasant persons rolled into one. When a customer who spelt
prosperity arrived, Max lost himself in oily politenesses. He laughed
vigorously at humour hardly there, and smirked and toadied like a
_nouveau riche_ at a Primrose tea-fight.
When there followed a journeyman-tailor who had wasted his opportunity
in drink, and was impelled by repentance and family needs to beg
pitifully to be taken on again, Max's politeness went like a bang. He
snubbed the tailor-man for his ingratitude, and abruptly closed the poor
fool's pleadings with a turn of his back.
There were so many other starvelings to take that wretch's place.
In the course of the morning Max showed himself shrewd, petty, fawning,
arrogant, determined, stupid, vulgar, and cruel. Ernie Jenkins, who
copied his manner as well as he was able to, lived in mortal terror of
him. To Ernie, Max Oldstein was a mean necessity, his bread and butter,
his all. To lose that hateful, pitiful employment would be to cut off
every one of his private luxuries--his evening glass of bitter, with its
opportunity for badinage with a barmaid, the Woodbine cigarettes, the
weekly visit to a music-hall, the Sunday walk with Emily. So he went
on, like a hundred thousand others of his kind--selling his life for a
pittance, swallowing infinite insults, cringing and mean. Poor Ernie!
What is to be done with such humans as he?
At one o'clock Max hurried to the "Haversack" for a large meal of stout
and boiled beef with carrots, and, while eating, read with sniggerings a
weekly pink paper, which gave oracular advice on race-horses,
interspersed with funny paragraphs about lodgers. Also there was talk,
in which barmaids, customers and waiters joined familiarly--of the X
street murder, the betting prices, and the divorce case of the day with
its pretty details.
Then Captain Crowe, whom the folk of his world knew as "Charlie," came
in, and Max was pleased to speculate a shilling on a hundred up with
him, which the young man lost with a very bad grace, till the Captain,
who really had once upon a time held a subaltern's commission in a
disbanded battalion, having borrowed half-a-crown from a casual
customer, who knew him but indifferently well, restored his opponent's
good temper with the gift of a soda and whisky and some flowers of
speech, so leading the way to another game of billiards and another
defeat for Max.
June was awed by all she saw, and puzzled how to win back to
Fairyland--this! She sat amongst used tumblers on the mantelpiece,
below the marker's board, patiently watching and wondering. What could
she do to mend things? How difficult it was! Were human beings worth
saving? Was not Oberon in his ruling right, and she wickedly wrong?
These creatures--so mean and sordid--were worse than ever they had been
painted to her by their most candid critic in Fairyland.
Then she remembered Sally, and the sweated women in their evil home, and
decided to persevere.
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" she said thoughtfully,
unconsciously plagiarizing.
The whisky ended, and the business of recreation done, Max Oldstein paid
his score unwillingly, and returned to headquarters. Ernie met him at
the door-step.
"Guvnor's come. Been waiting an hour," he warned him.
Max ran upstairs, two at a time, to see his father, and hastily
concocted a detailed account of the business which had detained him.
The lie was not required that day. He mentally pigeon-holed it for a
later occasion.
His senior greeted him with a loud, glad laugh. Max wondered. His
father showed him an invitation card with the arms of the City upon it.
"Max, my boy! Look at that!" cried the old man, clearing his throat.
"What d'ye think of Papa now, eh?"
He rose, chuckled violently and rattled his golden watch-chain. Max
took the card and read it. It was an invitation to dine with the Lord
Mayor and some representatives of commercial houses. He felt a twinge
of envy, and then of pride.
"Bravo, Dad!" said the son. They shook hands solemnly. "It'th
to-night, too!"
"Yeth," said Emmanuel, taking the invitation and frowning at it. "Thoth
idioth at the potht-offith nearly mitht my thecuring thith 'igh honour.
'Ere's the envelope. Look at the thtamp. Pothted a week ago, and I
only got it to-day. Put in the wrong letter-box. I've written to the
Potht-mathter-General to complain. A 'ot and strong letter I've
written. Very nice of the Lord Mayor, ain't it?"
"'Ow did you get it, Dad?"
"Lord knowth! I lent one of 'is footmen money. P'raps that 'elped!"
"'Ave you accepted? You mutht, you know!"
"Twice; to make sure, I sent two letterth by expreth, from different
poth-offithes."
"My word, Dad, you are spendin'. That'th what I call extravaganth."
"No, my boy, you muthn't look at the pennieth when there'th a twenty-bob
dinner in store. That'th policy and busineth too. You can't teach Papa
nothin', you can't! Now, 'ow are things?"
They talked of clothes, market-prices and details of their trade for a
couple of hours, while June listened and wondered. How these mortals
did waste their time over the wealth which isn't worth having!
She made up her mind to go to the banquet at the Mansion House.
When the office-clock chinkled five the elder Oldstein looked at his
watch to confirm the news, and hurriedly put away his papers.
"I mutht be off to dreth," he said to his son. "I'm going' to 'ave a
bath."
He went, June after him.
He drove westward in a slow omnibus. The fairy sat on his knee, and,
looking about her, felt disappointed with civilization.
At length they stopped by Maida Vale, and the wholesale clothier having
ridden his full three-pennyworth, waddled down two streets and arrived
at his dwelling. It was one of a row of buildings, mostly
boarding-houses, in their dull unornamental dinginess strangely similar
to each other. They were Mid-Victorian--the Drab Age!--and looked it
from boot-scraper to roof-tree. Oldstein's private residence, like his
business house, seemed in dire need of paint. What the household could
do was done. What they could not do must be done without.
"Wathte of good money, my boy;" and then, "Next year, per'aps." And so
on, season after season, year after year. Like Alice's to-morrow, the
Oldstein next-year never came.
The clothier and his family lived at forty-eight. The next house was
number fifty. The two front-doors were immediately adjacent, the
entrances separated by a row of rusty railings.
As he ascended his steps, Emmanuel slyly slipped a folded, printed paper
out of his breast-pocket; and leaning over the railings, gently dropped
it into the next-door letter-box.
The same instant his front-door was opened by Hannah, the
ever-indignant, eldest daughter of the house.
"Those people have been at it again!" she said, and angrily crumpled up
and threw down a circular she had just taken out of the letter-box.
"The thame thort?" her father asked, shutting the door quietly.
"Yes, of course, this is the ninety-second they've dropped in. It makes
me wild! I've made up my mind when the hundredth comes--if it does
come--to give Aaron Hyam's youngest tuppence to break their kitchen
window."
"Don't waste yer money like that; am I a millionaire?" He picked up and
smoothed out the circular, and began to read it aloud: "'Thothiety for
the Conversion of the Jews; an evenin' meetin' with addretheth.' Oh,
put it with the retht, Max will make a spill of it. Leave it to Papa,
dear. I've got a better plan for dealing with 'em; I've begun to put it
in practice already."
"'Ave you, Dad? I'd like to scratch that little nincompoop of a son of
theirs. He makes me mad with his soppy smile, and sandy whiskers, and
conceited sanctimoniousness. I'd give 'im hymns at the street corner."
"A much better plan, my clear. You may as well give me them little
billths--all of 'em. They'll be useful. They're poor, ain't they?"
"They are--as synagogue rats--if the faces of the tradespeople are
anything to go by."
Hannah was very vicious.
"Well, then, leave it to me. Every time they invite us to be converted,
I invite them to borrow money from me--from Jabez Gordon. They've 'ad
fourteen of my circulars already. I gave 'em a fifteenth to-day.
That'th the best bait for those birds. Trust Daddy, my dear. They will
bite--that sort of body always does. Trutht a hymn-smiter for a quiet
gamble; and then----"
"You will fleece them?" she cried, with fierce exultation. Something of
Jephthah's daughter, of Deborah, of Hagar, of the ancient heroines of
Israel, lived in her breast.
"Oh no, Hannah! Fleeth! we never fleeth. I will help them to some very
good bithness, that ith all."
"That will do!" she said. "They convert _us_! The fools!"
"And ith the shirt well aired?" he asked. "I'm nervouth of cold white
shirts."
"You'll find everything all right, Dad. Your bath-water will soon be
ready. Mother's in the drawing-room ironing your dress trousers. Now
don't you worry. Just wait while I'm putting your things ready, and
listen to a tune on the gramophone. You've plenty of time. The
brougham won't be 'ere for a good hour yet."
He went into the drawing-room. June fluttered above him. Her
brightness was faintly reflected on his dingy bald head. She was
strangely curious for a high-minded fairy. The home of want she had
seen; now for the home of the master!
The sight awed and depressed her. She perched on the chandelier and
studied everything closely, while beneath her a gramophone--set going by
Becky, the second and last of the daughters--blared a blatant anthem of
the streets.
The furniture was worthy of the house--Mid-Victorian to the last. A
green mirror with gilded frame, a golden eagle perched at the top of it,
reflected an untrue version of the objects before it. There was a
clumsy clock, with black ornaments to match it on either side; at each
end of the mantelpiece was a lustre with spills stuck into it.
Photographs of Hebrew celebrities--singers, actresses, and politicians
of a certain party complexion--were ranged about shelves and tables.
There were albums and unreadable books with cheap, bright covers here
and there. Some coloured engravings of sentimental pictures hung
against the red wall. A dead musical box, waxen water-lilies in a glass
case, and--but enjoyable as it is to take a verbal photograph of a
characteristic, respectable British interior, it is unnecessary to do so
here. We shall not require to enter that room again.
The more June watched the place and its people, the more she wondered.
And then, while she waited for Mr. Oldstein to bathe and adorn himself
in glistening raiment, she decided on a plan of campaign. In her dreams
of prediction, even then, in that centre of hopeless banality, she saw
Fairyland exultant where vulgarity gloomed.
The crusade was to begin that evening. So let London hope!
*CHAPTER VI*
*POST-PRANDIAL*
Mr. Oldstein drove to the Mansion House in a hired brougham. Hannah
travelled with him, for the sake of the drive. He talked of his father,
who had been a publican in Petticoat Lane.
June was on the box with the coachman most of the time. She found
looking at the passing lights and strange shops more entertaining than
the conversation inside, which, indeed, was no better than the ordinary
stodge most of us talk.
The fairy rested. She still felt the strain of the crowds, the noise,
and the atmosphere; but not so severely as she had done during her
entrance to London yesterday. She rested her very best.
They arrived at Walbrook in good time. Emmanuel had no intention of
missing anything. This was a chance to be swallowed whole. The carriage
found its place in the gathering queue, and slowly approached the side
of the Mansion House where the guests were alighting.
June watched a few belated pigeons which had not yet gone to roost. An
idea came. Dim would be of use that evening.
She charmed one of the birds to her, put her spell upon it, and
despatched it at its special speed to Paradise Court. The pigeon flew
well; it was to be rewarded.
In twenty-five minutes it was back again, with Bim clinging to its feet.
June praised the pigeon and touched it, giving it nobler plumage. It
was no longer grey and ordinary, but brightly speckled and a pouter.
Sudden pride ate up its quieter qualities. It did not wait even the
tail-end of a minute, as courtesy required, but was up in the pigeons'
dormitory over the architrave, as swaggering and important as Bumble,
showing off and strutting before its mate, who woke from domesticated
dreams of well-laid eggs to gaze and grumble. She had been quite
contented with the lord and master as he was.
Bim's sleep had restored him. He was once again his old berry-hued
self, and June's as devotedly as ever.
Mr. Oldstein had long since entered the Mansion House and been welcomed
by the host and Chief Magistrate of the City, Sir Titus Dodds; but not
all the guests had yet arrived. The most important--the representatives
of the Church, the State and the halfpenny Press--were in fact but then
arriving. So June flew and Bim scrambled up the red-covered steps
together, and entered the palace of feasting in good time to share the
greatest event in Oldstein's life.
Bim stared at the stockings of the footmen, awed, and Emmanuel followed
his example. He admired and examined the mayoral furniture,
appurtenances, ornaments; the busts, pictures and tapestry, appraising
their value with eager professional interest. It must have cost a good
twenty thousand pound! He determined to remodel his own drawing-room on
Mansion House principles, provided he had good luck in Wardour Street.
He regretted now that he had not sought civic responsibilities and
honours for himself. Dear, dear! Economy is a bad policy when it costs
anything. He began to know golden-chained hopes; but the ambition never
extinguished the tradesman. He wondered whether he might
surreptitiously drop one of his Jabez Gordon circulars on that corner
ottoman, and decided not to do so. There were too many risks.
He wished that his wife, Hannah, Becky, Max, could have seen him in his
glory, waiting amidst that high company, and that they might have
watched him shaking hands with the Lord Mayor--his fingers tingled with
pleasure still. He must have an appropriate coat-of-arms--something gold
and scarlet, with a rampant lion if possible. Social ambitions
quickened within his brain. Yes, he would come into public life, if it
did not cost too much.
So Emmanuel Oldstein went on building his castles--forgetting,
forgetting they were based on piles of clothing sewed and made saleable
by the needles of sweated women. That aspect of facts did not even for
a half-moment occur to him. This was the prevalent fact--that he was a
gentleman, enjoying the company of baronets and Common Councillors,
received within the hospitable walls of that Zion of commercial probity
and prosperity--the Mansion House.
The welcome summons came at last, and, the Lord Mayor leading, the
guests trooped into the Egyptian room, place of daytime dullness and
evening festivities.
The banquet was begun.
June, who afterwards confessed herself much impressed by the Lord
Mayor's robes and diamonds, perched herself on an epergne full of
delicious spring flowers. She feasted on their delicate scents and
colours, while Bim sprawled lazily on a jelly. Little did the masters
of Gog and Magog, feasting there on their soups and meats and sweets,
dream that a fairy and a gnome were watching them. June was thinking
hard about Sally, and the hunger of the slums.
A solid hour was eaten away.
The loving-cups were brought in, and distributed to the various tables.
Now was the time to act. June gave Bim her wand. In obedience to her
command he dipped it deep in the spiced wine of the loving-cups. Never
a common drink, it was nigh to nectar now. There was magic in it, and
liquid warmth-of-heart, a loving-cup indeed! Every man drank the new
ambrosia and passed the cup to his neighbour. So the fairy's influence
went round, and the distinguished company of commoners was linked
together in a union nobler than any of them knew.
The fun was beginning. How likeable seemed their fellow-guests! what a
nice bright kindly world it was! They thought this generosity of
feeling was their ordinary post-prandial satisfaction, fed upon warm
meats and the drinks that are Philistine; but the fairy at the board
knew better. Later on, some of the guests realized the difference too,
for they are astute--those gentlemen in the City.
The toast-master made himself evident. He had a magnificent voice, and
a big broad beard, which would get entangled with his watch-chain. Bim
could not resist it. He gazed with longing, and then tucked the wand
under his elbow, took a flying leap on to the arm of the mayoral chair,
ran up to the back of it, and sprang at the beard. There he clung, and
hid, peeping out of the brown forest at the concourse of happy
gourmands.
The loyal toasts were given, cheered and sung. There was conversation
and amateur music by Guildhall scholars.
The Lord Mayor uprose to propose the toast of the evening, "The Commerce
of London." He was a picture of rubicund prosperity, a man of drab and
scarlet. He began a pompous speech.
"My lords and gentlemen, the Lord Mayor and the ancient Corporation of
London have often greeted at their hospitable board gatherings similar
to this, yet never before, my lords and gentlemen, never before, has any
Lord Mayor had the high honour of welcoming to his table a more
distinguished gathering of leaders in commerce than that which graces it
now."
The orator stopped to look at his notes. A rolling round of applause
told him he was doing well enough.
Emmanuel Oldstein, whose seat was some distance from the speaker, craned
forward better to hear. He--a leader in commerce! Good!
"Round this table," the Lord Mayor continued, with a sweep of his white
fat hand, "are magnates of banking houses, shippers, merchants of all
kinds of produce brought from the farthest ends of the earth, heads of
railways, representatives of all departments of commercial industry. The
prosperity of the United Kingdom--let me say the British Empire--is
represented here. It's a happy, a very happy, condition of things."
Another pause for note-reading; another roll of hand-clapping and "Hear,
hears." Cigars were lighted, wine sipped; the audience was in a
particularly sympathetic mood. It is flattering and delightful to be
reminded you are rich, and--the wand in the loving-cup had done its
work.
The fairy who ruled the feast was frankly bored by this display of
prose. To her critical ears it was drivel.
Some use must be made of this talkative gentleman, round whom the
incense of tobacco--how can men make that stifling smoke?--was being
assiduously burned. She flew to his shoulder, hovered for one
deliberative moment above his head, and forthwith crowned him with the
fairy crown. It shone like a golden drop on the shining bald space--a
glorious globule on a barren sphere; but none of the mortals could see
it.
The Lord Mayor at once threw down his notes. He had gained the
confidence of Demosthenes. He smiled, and braced himself for an effort.
His pomposity was forgotten; his hesitancy gone.
June was making a miracle. The wonders went on. Never before at a
Mansion House festival had any such speech been heard as was then to be
delivered; but now it was heard--and applauded. June flew back to the
epergne to listen. She had reasons for being interested now. Bim,
seeing his mistress's activities, crept out of his tangle and returned
to sit cross-legged on the table to watch and listen with eyes and mouth
at their widest, till the warmth and the smoke took their toll, and he
lapsed into sleep.
"Now, my friends and fellow-citizens, I want to speak to you as man to
men. I put a plain question plainly, and you will accept its truth.
What is the good of our wealth if it is not well used? How can it bring
us true happiness, if it does not bring others happiness too? Would you
like to think that your possessions meant want in others?"
"No!" shouted Emmanuel Oldstein.
"No!" shouted everyone else.
"Of course No. You are true men. Princes of Commerce! And yet look
facts in the face. Does our wealth bring those others who help us to
create it anything like an adequate return for their labours in
happiness or kind? It does not!"
Men rose from their seats to shout agreement with this utterance.
Was this the Tory City or an improved Tower Hill?
The toast-master--in his private life a talking Radical, who always
voted Conservative--listened with perturbation and amazement. He had
not drunk of the loving-cup as had the guests. The speech was not
strange to them; they understood, they sympathized, and at intervals
punctuated it with rousing cheers. It was the very thing they wanted.
Archdeacon Pryde, who all his life had persistently blocked progress
with many words of heartfelt sympathy, smiled benediction, and tapped
the table, loudly encouraging the Lord Mayor to go on with his
revolution. The Lord Mayor went on. Nay, he broke another record,
established another precedent for the Mansion House, did what Mr.
Pickwick did--stood on his chair that he might be better heard. The
toast-master watched and hearkened, deeply grieved.
"It is just six months since the City did me the honour of electing me
Chief Magistrate. I have tried to do my duty. I have tried to serve
the City well."
"You have, you have!"
"Half my term of office has ended. The second half begins. During the
time remaining I intend to do something to make my year of office more
than ever memorable and worthy of the City. I am going to use my
opportunity and my wealth to set an example and undo some of the evil
that many of us have thoughtlessly done. I depend on the leaders of
Commerce to help me. Gentlemen, will you?"
He looked around from his chair, the Olympian citadel, and was
encouraged to continue. All the guests were listening eagerly. Cigars
were going out. The wine in the glasses was forgotten. The speaker's
face was the focus of eight hundred eyes.
"Money is a good thing," he went on. "It is necessary for economic
activities and commercial life. In private hands, well used, it yields
comfort, freedom, happiness, to countless homes. Never let us despise
the goodly things of life!"
"Hear, hear!" said Archdeacon Pryde.
"But too much wealth in a few hands is an evil bringing disastrous
results. Where is there greater unhappiness than with those
multi-millionaires, in America especially, whose mass of possessions
grows and grows, increasing their harassing responsibilities and
anxieties, haunting them with panic fears of rapid ruin; useless in its
vastness, mischievous, greedy? Like a golden horror, this
Frankenstein-monster of overgreat wealth brings sleeplessness, madness,
death, in its train. There you see money a burden and a curse."
Sir Titus paused again; and once more swept the faces of his hearers
with a keen glance. The room was as still as a tired church. The
toast-master now shared the interest of the guests. June sat on the
epergne smiling. Bim noiselessly snored.
"It is trebly a curse when, its creator dead, it passes to the children.
Think of those victims of fortune, and pity them. In the beginning they
are glad because they own so much. They plan the enjoyment of an
infinity of pleasures, and wonder how they can spend the hoard their
fathers have left them. They are victims caught in the toils. The
great machine goes on. Still the wheels of its production are moving;
the labourers are toiling, aching, and wanting. But the brain which has
guided their operations has become cold. The new controllers of the
machinery are comparatively effete. The old genius is gone. Hired
managers do their best, no doubt; but the master, the head of the
enterprise, is dead, and his place cannot be filled."
"Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!"
Agreement came in a rumble, followed with appeals to hush.
"There are dislocations in the machinery, labour troubles, angers,
strikes. I need not detail to you the consequences of swollen
industrial organizations, or the infinite troubles which come to
enterprises over-capitalized or run by incompetence. Let me, at
present, be content to remind you of the effects upon the
fortune-ridden, unfortunate children. The worldly folly of the fathers
is visited on them. All their lives they have been preserved from
experience. They have not been allowed to learn from contact with the
roughnesses of the world. They have been spoiled babes, pampered
children, gilded youths; and so grow up to responsibilities which they
cannot realize, and are perpetually blind to facts, victims to the
rapacity of rascals, puppets of fashion, tools and fools--wasting,
extravagant, weak, morally ruined. The greatest evil a man can do is to
leave his sons so much money that they need not work. The only
occupation left them is play; and so they spend their lives, pitting
excitement against ennui. Better far be poor with brains and character
than rich with the fortune of Dives and Croesus. Is it not so?"
"It is!" agreed the Archdeacon, looking down his nose. He had a fine
voice, kept in condition with constant lozenges, so that his approval
was heard all over the room.
"Hear, hear!" cried others.
"The useless children of the over-rich are with rare exceptions
prodigal, spendthrift, the gulls of unscrupulous rogues--no curse can be
greater than the glaring and manifold inequities which come from undue
wealth. I need not further remind you of these facts, for you are
thoughtful men and sympathetic. But this counsel I venture to give, and
this counsel henceforth I pledge myself to keep. When you have secured
your sufficiency for comfort, for legitimate industrial enterprise, and
for the proper training and equipment of those dependent on you, don't
you think it better, instead of accumulating and still accumulating
loads of unrequired wealth, to use the surplus for the communal good,
for the improvement of the locality, and the betterment of your
neighbours and fellows? I shall do this, I pledge my word to it.
To-morrow I go to my office, and will ensure that every one of my
employes has a fair wage and a secure prospect, provided he does his
duty."
Such applause of approval went up, breaking the Lord Mayor's speech,
that Bim awoke with a start. He sat up and looked around affrighted;
but seeing June sitting among her flowers, laughing, he became the
courageous gnome again.
He picked up the wand, and went for a stroll down the table, wantonly
touching men's hands as he went by, impelling them to clap and thump the
louder. He was delighted to be wielding such powers. It was a comedy
out of Fairyland, a farce with an effective ending.
The Lord Mayor stepped down from his chair and lifted his glass of
champagne. His voice took on new seriousness:
"My lords and gentlemen, I have not forgotten the toast I am asking you
to drink. 'The Commerce of London' is a mighty fact, a tribute to our
national energies and honourable name. It is potent; yet its power
might be greater than ever for securing human happiness. All that is
required is a little more humanity, sympathy, imagination, easy
sacrifice on the part of--_us_! We, the masters, can do great things.
Let us manage this. We shall not make our means and wealth appreciably
less by securing that those dependent on us have sufficient to live on
in decency and comfort; nor shall we lose anything worth the keeping if
we resolutely refuse to condescend to such shoddy evils as sweating,
jerry-building, wild-cat speculations, and the maintenance of the slums.
Let us live well, and avoid dying leaving preposterous fortunes behind
us. Let me make a public confession. I own five houses in a street in
South London. They are old, ill-built, badly-drained, rack-rented. I
know it well, but have never thought of the true facts about them till
now. Those houses shall be destroyed; and, in their stead, buildings
erected that will provide decent and comfortable homes at a fair rent
for the present occupiers. I shall not lose much, if anything, through
the improvement; but the happiness I shall in consequence gain will be
immeasurable. There will be no skeletons in my cupboard henceforth. My
lords and gentlemen, am I to go on this crusade alone? Will you join me
in this effort for human good?"
Every man in the assembly, including the toast-master, rose in his place
and shouted "Yes!"
"Then may I suggest that each of you takes his menu and writes on it
resolutions--no pie-crust promises these, no New Year good intentions,
but resolutions to be lived up to and with determination kept? If I
fail in my intention, hoot me and stone me at the end of my year of
office; but I will not fail! I will not fail!"
June flew, and kneeling on the top of the Lord Mayor's head--so round
and smooth and shiny--kissed it delightedly. A new inspiration
thereupon came to him:
"Above the resolutions write--'Let us make London fit for the fairies!'
My lords and gentlemen, I give you the toast."
They drank it in bumpers.
*CHAPTER VII*
*ARCHIDIACONAL FUNCTIONS*
When the excitement which followed the Lord Mayor's speech had to some
extent subsided, there was a hurried borrowing and sharpening of
pencils.
The Lord Mayor wrote his resolutions with a flourish.
"I'll have that framed," he said, as he gazed with head a-slant at the
inscribed menu. The Archdeacon wrote his in Latin verse. Emmanuel
Oldstein--far away--began his with a gold pencil as large as a cigar;
and then paused, puzzled.
"'Ow d'ye thpell fairieth--oh, and what are fairieth?"
He had a faint fear that they were something to do with the Book of
Common Prayer.
The man he addressed was a Personage, the Past-Master of a City
Company--which had no longer a Hall, and was blessed with a dwindling
income of seventy pounds per annum.
"The fairies," he began, with a tremendous air of authority--"tales, you
know--ah!--the fairies--."
Bim, who happened to be wandering along his part of the table, hearing
this hesitancy on the most real and important subject under the sun and
moon, raised the wand and gave him a punishing rap on the knuckles. At
once the Past-Master was an informed authority. He talked like a school
child who knows his lesson too well, hurriedly, glibly.
"The fairies are the mimic rulers of the world. Where beauty is, where
purity is, where love is, there is Fairyland. Oberon is the king,
Titania queen. The little people are the only living realities.
We--you--I, these others--are shadows, only shadows!" He paused. "May
I trouble you to pass that candle?" he asked, and lighted a new cigar.
Oldstein was impressed. He wrote his resolutions--there were
necessarily many, as his past social defects had been numerous--with
firmness and slow care, in a good commercial hand. While he did so, the
music was playing, and there were brief, ecstatic, uninspired speeches,
built on the lines of the Lord Mayor's. June waited for higher game.
At last the Toast-master's voice rang out for the last of their orators.
"My lords and gentlemen! Pray silence for the Venerable Archdeacon
Pryde!"
The ecclesiastic slipped a final voice lozenge between his lips and
calmly absorbed it, while the applause which welcomed his rising went
on. The hand-clapping and table-rapping coming unexpectedly and abruptly
to an end, he swallowed the last of the lozenge with a gulp.
"My lords and gentlemen, the toast which it is my privilege to propose
is in an especial manner also the toast of the evening. I am going to
ask you to drink with me the health of our host, the Right Honourable
the Lord Mayor!"
During these words Bim had been clambering up the Archdeacon's right-arm
coat-sleeve. It was a fine piece of mountaineering. He arrived safely
at the summit, and squatted cross-legged on the speaker's right
shoulder, proud and pleased, intending to lead the cheering with waves
of the wand. June decided once more to be an influence at the board, so
she fluttered up to the archidiaconal head, and reverently topped its
raven tresses with the crown; then she reclined on the gentle slope of
his left shoulder. Again the effect of the crown was instantaneous.
The Archdeacon, let it be confessed, had prepared a speech. It was to
be full of adulation and carefully considered impromptus. There were to
have been a Greek epigram, two quotations from Shakespeare, one from
Stow, one from the Archdeacon's own version of the "Georgics," two old
stories from Punch, and a reference--dragged in somehow--to the
Oxyrhynchus papyri. The peroration, as devised, was a golden picture,
with purple slabs, of the wide, wide, circling Empire, with the Lord
Mayor's bounteous table as its hub. That speech was like the heroine of
an old-fashioned love tale, beautiful and doomed.
The speaker gasped when the crown touched him, and cried, "Ahem!" Then
the words came in a torrent, tumultuous, tumbling, liquid, verbal waters
of Lodore. He clenched a fist and looked sternly at his hearers.
"This is no conventional evening. The Lord Mayor--honour to him!--has
set an example of high purpose and pluck, which I shall unhesitatingly
follow. Once upon a time, dear friends, I was a curate, pale and young,
'tis true, but also ambitious and hopeful. I saw the world as a vast
wilderness, waiting to be redeemed from its emptiness, to be adorned
again with blossoming roses. As the immortal Bard of Avon has told
us--but never mind that now! I said to myself in those young days, Here
am I, chosen to share in the greatest work that can be done by man.
Here am I, dubbed by my fellows reverend. The task I have to do is a
great one. I will do it. Gentlemen, I did not do it. For seven months
I laboured as I should have done, then adulation and tea-parties made
mischief of me. I forgot my early aspirations, lost my young ideals,
forgot the sacred character--the responsible privilege--of my calling,
and began that long process of careful courtliness which has brought me
worldly appreciation, a large correspondence, many paragraphs in the
papers, and a useless life. Behold in me an Archdeacon who has lost the
illusions!--an Archdeacon who will find them again!"
Bim waved his wand; and, the Lord Mayor leading, the excited gathering
broke into a round of applause. The Archdeacon looked about him
gratified: not often did his words gain appreciation like this! The
idea that he too should mount the chair the better to speak flashed
through his brain. But that was not to be. Archidiaconal dignity is no
light thing; even the power of June could hardly have lifted it.
The ruling fairy, reclining on his left shoulder, her head resting
against his coat-collar, forgot the present in waking-dreams. In her
mind-world she wandered again through glades of Fairyland, sun-lighted,
flower-haunted, and shining with dew; and was singing a song to an
audience of wrens and squirrels. The even flow of clerical oratory,
though so near, seemed to her dream-laden senses merely the sough of the
wind through charmed branches, the roll of a distant sea, the murmur of
waterfalls drumming on swollen rivers--musical, soothing.
"My friends, we need the illusions: even more than dividends we need the
dreams. Have not we, the practical men, lost very much through our mere
matter-of-factness? We have been too careful, we have neglected the
gift of vision, and the world has lost immeasurably thereby. The time
has surely come when Quixote should live again. We want one brave
enough and sufficiently unselfish to tilt against the windmills,
possibly to destroy the ugly shadows which frighten, certainly to
recreate Knight-errantry, and give Mrs. Grundy, the better-half of
Mammon, her right dismissal. Ah, brethren, how much I am asking!
Convention is the greatest of citadels for weak men to conquer. It were
easier to put the Monument into a cigarette-case than remove the
formalities, snobbery and narrownesses--due to lack of sympathy, and
loss of the touch-faculty, as Ruskin calls it--which hinder man's
humanity. What said Tennyson--yes, I must give you this quotation--
"'Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again!'--would
that he were here, to sweeten the selfish world of to-day as he
sweetened the Middle Ages! And not he only. We want the saints--every
one--with their selflessness and rapture, to come again. Oh, that we
could once more see haloes about the heads of men. Joan of Arc, too,
the lily-maid of Domremy, we want her; would that she could return,
bringing the inspiration of her Voices to help us throw off the tyrants
of selfishness, lust, foolish formality, and greed, which burden and
endanger our beloved land!"
The Archdeacon paused--he was thoroughly enjoying his eloquence--to
moisten his lips with wine. Bim touched the golden liquid with the
wand, drawing the speaker's purpose fairywards.
"Joan of 'oo, did 'e say? Joan of what?" asked Emmanuel of the
Past-Master.
"Hush, friend!" was all the answer he received. The Past-Master meant to
say "Shut up!"; but the influence in the loving-cup compelled
euphemisms.
"The Lord Mayor, in a moment of splendid inspiration--yes, splendid
inspiration--bade us so live and do that London should be rendered fit
for the fairies. A delightful idea! Let us live up to that bidding.
But primarily shall we pause and think? What are the fairies? What but
sweet invisibles, the fruits of happy imagination, through whose
influence the buds open and become beautiful flowers, the birds lift
their songs, and all of us are kind. Delightful fancies! Delightful
fancies! Truly it were well for ourselves and our fellows if we could
make this great City, this hub of Empire--may we not regard this
bounteous table as the core of that hub?--this influential centre of the
wide world, a joy to the dainty denizens of Fairyland? We may make it
so; and, friends, we will make it so--I repeat, we will!"
Bim was quite frantic at this bold announcement. To have a real
Archdeacon pronouncing benediction on Fairyland was beyond expression
delightful. No suburban aristocrat paragraphed in a London paper could
have rejoiced more fully. He lost himself in ecstasy, and compelled that
audience to cheer for three solid minutes, till they were hoarse and
began to feel foolish. The Archdeacon took advantage of the well-spread
enthusiasm to eat another voice lozenge.
"The fairies will be with us in our enterprise; the angels also. Both
these spiritual forces are on our side. Dear me! dear me! How
wonderful it seems! Now to facts! Naturally from my office I am most
concerned with the materialism about us, a materialism which finds
expression in the hateful cocksure ugliness abounding in this London of
ours, as well as in the devil-may-care thriftlessness, the drunkenness
and vice, the mean excitements of gambling in its many forms, the
squalor, the poverty, the want, which make wide areas of this unequalled
Metropolis a Devil's City. Everyone here knows, as well as I do, the
shame of it all; and the greater shame which hangs over us, the
practical men, for the existence, persistence, continuance of this state
of things. It is iniquitous, intolerable; yet it goes on. How much
longer shall it continue? For years, or for weeks, or for days? That
rests with us. All here, following the Lord Mayor's example, have
written down resolutions, which, if they are kept, will modify this evil
everywhere, and end it in parts. The more thoroughly we live up to our
intentions, and redeem our voluntary pledges, the sooner the end of
these iniquities will come. For mark this, gentlemen. The greed or the
carelessness--more the latter than the former--of individuals has
wrought the havoc. The unselfishness and scrupulous care of individuals
alone can undo it. It is no good crying for Government to do the work."
"Hear, hear!"
"The Ministerial machine is a lumbering instrument. It takes the breath
of gods to inspire it, to get it to move along the right way, and then
is apt to break down suddenly and finally, in an amazingly human manner.
The State is a sleepy inconsequent monster, which when it acts is apt to
do so like a thunderstorm, with violence and but casual good results.
It is individuals--you, I, the man in the street--who can do things, if
we will: and now we must do them. We are pledged to it. Our words have
been taken down by the Mercuries of the Press to be--within an hour or
so--flashed to all parts of England, eventually to reach the farthest
limits of the earth. We are bound, in honour, to keep our words!"
After that mouthful of eloquence the Archdeacon was compelled again to
pause. But the audience, their due excitement heated and quickened by
Bim's insistence, cried incessantly, "Go on! Go on!" while June, far
away from this effort of prose statesmanship, was dreaming of Faerie.
She was back in the Violet Valley. She saw Oberon and Titania, with
their most wonderful court. She heard the silver melody of countless
elf-voices, she hearkened with worshipful intent to the trills and
throbbings of nightingales, she knew the welcome of the flowers, the
breath of a soft wind journeying over grasses; and then, through the
joys of dreaming, those influences called to her--called to her
pleading, to leave her wild mistaken quest in that world of dust and
shadows, and return to the happiness and beauty of the old loved life.
Fairyland, in all its voices, pleaded with her earnestly; it drew her
heart with its magic, and made her yearn to go back again; but--no, it
should not be!
The Archdeacon went on talking. Bim was satisfied now. He lay down
once more to rest.
"I will follow our host's example in telling you what I shall do. My
income is a thousand a year, with a house. What do I want, even after
satisfying the calls of necessary hospitality, with more than four
hundred a year? I shall have to sacrifice some luxuries, true; but I
shall have found a new luxury--the best of all luxuries--of knowing that
through the wider use of my income, comforts--impossible before--will be
enjoyed in twelve poor clergyman's homes. By giving fifty pounds
annually to each of these deserving servants of the Church, I shall
reduce their anxieties, insure that they and their families have a
better standard of comfort, and so make these, my comrades of the cloth,
better and more efficient workmen for the cause. I shall make it a
condition of the gift that every one of them acts cordially with the
other priests and ministers in his parish--whatever their denomination
may be; because, however much we must and shall differ on points of
doctrine--till the truth is found in the world invisible--we all should
be soldiers under the one banner, united for the one cause, though in
different regiments, to forward right, to end wrong, to raise the
fallen, to fight sin, to encourage the weak, to discover and destroy
those causes which, unchecked, lead to the starvation, disease and death
of body, mind, and soul. For this purpose all men and women, members of
the churches, and those who follow the light without belonging to any
organized branch of the Church, should see in one another comrades,
united for the great purpose of making the world shine with beauty, love
and happiness."
Bim, tired through his past enthusiasm, had gradually sunk into slumber.
He grasped the wand firmly, though he was asleep. June, on the left
shoulder, was still in fairy glades. This is why the Archdeacon had
become so serious, and his style and words more suited to his gaiters.
The guests still followed his speech with eagerness, and were
strengthened in their new ideals and brave determinings by his bold,
plain speaking. It was the strangest banquet they had ever attended, but
none of them thought so; and the unconventional addresses seemed just
what should have been expected.
"One more personal word in my concluding remarks. I have had many
critics, who have not hesitated to say that I lived up to the meaning of
my name. Perhaps I have! Perhaps they were right. But, believe me, I
will study to reduce my pride. I can see now, as I never saw before,
how mistaken I have been in forgetting humility. For a clergyman to be
worldly is for him to be unworthy of his faith. It will be a hard
battle to be rid of old habits and tendencies, the results of long
custom; but I will try. I will endeavour earnestly so to act that the
meanest tramp by the wayside, the poorest child, the humblest old man or
old woman, may see in me one like themselves, a comrade and a helper."
He paused and remembered the peroration, laboriously prepared under the
study lamp; and decided to abandon it. He ended simply.
"It is the Lord Mayor, by his happy lead and example, who has begun what
I believe is to all of us a great revolution. My lords and gentlemen, I
beg you to join with me in drinking his health."
They did so.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*MAN AND SUPERMAN*
The banquet ended with a buzz of tongues. The guests rose, and,
standing in clusters, eagerly gave expression to their views of the
evening's happenings. Emmanuel Oldstein, his nature softened by unusual
fare and strange appeals, went with a rush to button-hole the Archdeacon
and build a monument of promises. The ecclesiastic, greatly daring,
asked him to tea--when the rapturous resolutions were fulfilled.
Such was the beginning of a revolution wrought by one Lord Mayor in
league with a fairy. What could not such powers do, if they would
cooperate more frequently!
Sir Titus gave a general good-night, and retired to his private
apartments, to convert the Lady Mayoress to his views--no light task, as
Sir Titus very well knew. June, with Bim--who as he went seized an
armful of fresh spring flowers--departed, and the mortals went their
ways.
The two from Fairyland stood by the Mansion House railings watching the
carriages draw up and drive away, bearing their excited loads of men
with purposes. Not till the last had gone, and the City resumed its
wonted state of comparative peace, did June and he turn in the direction
of Paradise Court.
How to get there? A solitary motor-cab waited by the pavement on the
other side of the road, the chauffeur talking of tyres and race-horses
to a loafer. The driver was one of the impossible brigade, who mark
their superiority to ordinary folk by disdaining to accept passengers
save when it exactly suited them. June saw this monarch of the road
reject the prayers of five stranded wayfarers for no other reason than
that his views on the coming Derby were not yet fully told.
So she acted. She took her wand and waved it. A puzzled expression
flitted over the face of the man. He mounted the seat of the cab, moved
the steering wheel, jerked a lever, and drove to where the fairy and
gnome were waiting. The loafer and an interested policeman who had
sauntered up looked amazed at this comedy of mystery.
They watched the machine stop, the driver alight and open the door with
a bow of great respect to--nothing. They saw the cab at its best speed
pass rapidly into Cornhill and hurry eastward. When it had glided out
of sight the loafer breathed an incredulous whistle, and the policeman
found words of wonder. "Well, I'm blowed!" was the inadequate all he
could say.
Their astonishment was nothing to that of the driver. He was astounded.
He could do nothing but continue his course, steering the car boldly
along clattering streets, travelling as if guided by an overwhelming
unseen influence, here and there, through tortuous strange ways, until
instinctively he applied the brake and stopped beside a mean
public-house at the entrance to an alley.
Hurriedly, as if fearful of keeping important patrons waiting, he sprang
from his seat, reopened the door of the apparently empty cab, and again
made obeisance.
Then, when the invisible passengers had alighted, he shut the door with
a bang, and swore thoroughly till he found relief.
June did not enter any of the houses, but with Bim dangling at the end
of the wand--his left arm still clasping the flowers--flew up to the
roof, carrying him with her.
At once reaction came. The excitement and the interest of the day's
proceedings had kept her going; but now, when the time for quiet had
come, she passed into a state of torpor and depression. She forgot her
triumphs, lost the exhilaration which success had raised in her, and
knew, even more than after her first arrival, the grossness and almost
hopeless ugliness which beset her. For the first time in a delightful
life, she was visited with the blues.
That was an opportunity for Bim.
The long bouts of sleep had refreshed him, and he proved less sensitive
than June to the effects of their environment. He took the flowers, and
with rapid fingers wove a fairy-bower about her. The white and yellow
cups and one purple violet, refreshed by his affection, revived in
sympathy. June, noting Bim's helpfulness, took cheer and courage again.
For a whole day she remained harassed and weary; but on the following
evening she faced her task again.
She flew languidly to the brink of a chimney-pot and studied the world
around. Black roofs, seedy houses, blank windows and glaring lights on
every side: over all stretched the haze that had frightened her.
"Poor humanity!" she murmured, "doomed day and night, year after year,
from birth to death, to be bricked in like that!"
She did not now waste energy in expressing apostrophe, but made
immediate plans. She attended to the flowers which Bim had rescued from
death.
She touched the cut ends and strengthened their power of life; then
lovingly she arranged the best of them about the dusty base of the
chimney-stack. They were precious possessions, treasures to hoard.
Bim had seen in a forgotten flower-box in a corner of the court mould,
gathered years before from a lost garden. That would do! He went to
get some, while June stood on the flat parapet and looked on the court
below.
Darkness, dirt, decay! How very like life in the town! She looked
above at the wounded sky. Two planets and the moon shone dimly through
London smoke. The fairy yearned to be above that cloud, to swim in the
azure ocean of night, to be closer to the stars, nearer the ideals,
farther from muck-raking men. Up, up, and up!
She spread wings and climbed the skylark's stairway. Up and up she
went, deliriously happy now, thinking the thoughts the laverock sings.
For a while she absolutely forgot weariness and heartache, and only knew
gladness of life and the passion to be nearer the light.
Her wings did not cease their beating till she was out of the haze,
breathing again the untroubled air which is, indeed, to men and to
fairies, life. Then resting on wings outspread, she hung motionless, an
atom of light potential, brooding over the miles of lurid city.
Her heart became heavy and sorry because of the burdens of men. To her
sight, London was a ruined wilderness, lit here and there with yellow
flares. Where the parks stretched was mere blackness, interspersed with
dimly shining slabs of pond and lake as the shrouded moonshine happened
to fall on them. The Thames, except for occasional gleams of reflected
moonlight, was a grey ribbon, a wedge driven through luridness, a
forbidding fact.
The red canopy of haze which in Elfdom had oppressed her stretched
underneath. It was a barrier between man and the stars--heavy and
palpable. The shining worlds which lend magic to the night are so
potent an influence for mind-good, bringing exaltation and the high
dreams, that what hindered their contemplation was an evil to be
banished and destroyed. So June argued, puzzling how to end it. Fairy
cogitation! Yet is it so futile?
She was glad to change her gaze and look above her. There it
spread--star dust, the firmament, myriads of worlds and suns supremely
magnificent, infinite, uplifting, yet, with all the stir of the soul it
occasioned, bringing strengthening humility. If men used their eyes and
minds and saw more of the shine of the universe; if they watched the
constellations in their annual orbits, knew the unique Sirius as a
friend, recognized Arcturus, greeted the Pleiades after their summer
absence, would not ideals be nobler, hopes happier, tolerance of
meanness in its many shapes impossible?
While the fairy rested in her blissful aerial loneliness, she became
aware of a gradual gladness, an added sense of joy--more subtle than had
blessed her spirits since her flight from the Violet Valley--visiting
her. It roused her from reverie to realities.
Fairies--her own people--were approaching, calling her. Their voices
and brilliance were better than pearls and wealth.
"June, our June, come back to us! Come back! Come back!"
The appeal was powerful. With almost the swiftness of light the fairies
flew. It was the company of knights, half a century strong, who had
been commissioned to conduct June after the crowning home to the Land of
Wild Roses. She turned with gladness to greet them. Like was coming to
like. Sympathies were drawing together. They were her own people, her
comrades; they pleaded with her to leave her crusade in the darkness,
and return to delight.
Their presence was welcome, but not even then could she forget the
children and those others whose plight required the gifts of the
fairies. When the elf-world had helped them, she would go back gladly,
but--not yet. She could not leave Sally and her mates of Paradise Court
or the other dim millions whose need of beauty and joy and light she
knew.
She closed her wings and sank to earth, leaving the knights above the
cloud, wheeling and calling to her in vain. They looked through the
veil at the world beneath and reluctantly flew back to Fairyland.
She found Bim busy, home-building. He had gathered some "smoke-dried"
moss from roofs and chimneys, wondering the while at the angular world
he clambered over, and had beaten it into a bed for her, with cobwebs
for coverlet. He was coaxing the newly-planted flowers to feel at home,
and all the while was singing, croakingly and cheerily, as if a draughty
roof over Paradise Court was as near Fairyland as need be. So it was to
him then, while working for June.
She did not interrupt him--his activity and happiness were balm and
strength to her--but descended the chimney into the room.
Sally was fast asleep, so were the two men and the mother of the babe.
The infant was weakly crying. The two other women were awake and
working, toiling by the light of a candle. Their eyes were dazed and
weak through its flickering uncertainties, but the effort had to be. All
the protest they made was to curse and chide the wailing infant. June,
heedless of the economies, touched them to sleep, and prudently put out
the light.
She gave the sleepers dreams to cheer and comfort them. Sally was back
once more in the land of the glorious waterfall. Bill was tramping
along a dusty road with the promise of beer ahead. Then June quieted
the baby by kissing its eyes, giving the hungry mite the comfort of
slumber.
What was to become of that mortal, born to be blighted and doomed?
There she touched our heaviest problem. The fact of life meant misery
to that mite. The fairy noted with sadness its sunken eyes, pinched
cheeks, and limbs no thicker than firewood, and wondered and wondered
what to do. If that child was left so, neglected and starved through
the innutrition that was all its mother could give it, it would die.
Should that be?
She wished that some of the wasted provender from the Lord Mayor's board
could be given to the children who needed food, and decided forthwith to
fetch some for the many infant victims of Paradise Court.
She passed through the window, waving to it to open and shut as she
went, and was away like light on her quest.
She flashed along the silent streets, rose to pass over the City,
brushed with her left wing the dragon on Bow Church steeple, fluttered
for a contemplative moment over the west door of St. Paul's, came to
earth at the Griffin.
She watched omnibuses and cabs go by, and streams of belated people.
She looked eagerly into their faces, but found none quite to her liking.
So she resumed her flight along the Strand and rested on the railings
before Charing Cross.
Two gilded youths came swaggering along, helping and hindering each
other, their arms linked. They had white, empty faces, crush-hats were
villainously aslant on their heads, their black cape coats were open,
showing broad shirt-fronts with shining diamond studs.
They sometimes sang a spasm of chorus, sometimes peevishly quarrelled,
sometimes were uncomplimentary to passers-by. They were adopted sons of
Silenus, swollen with insolence and wine.
June descended to the junction of their linked arms, and poked each
vigorously, thrice, with her wand, putting good purposes into their
muzzy brains.
Their ideas became clearer. They stopped, lurched, and with a fine
effort stood upright like manly men. One assumed his monocle, and said,
"Jove!" They crossed the road, ignoring the rapid traffic as if it were
not, and entered a confectioner's shop, which remained open nightly till
the fairy hour.
Each planked down two sovereigns.
"Buns," said one.
"Milk," demanded the other.
"Chocolate."
"Cups!"
The weary waitresses thought the youths were making fun of them, but
seeing the gold, and glad to be rid of their balance of scones and buns,
they piled all they had before these customers, brought great tins of
milk, and packets full of chocolate, with all the chipped, cracked cups
they could hurriedly find and spare.
One of these unwitting philanthropists stared at the sixpence-halfpenny
change which a conscientious cashier had put in his gloved hand; the
other gazed through his eyeglass, startled by the quantity of their
purchases. June smilingly approved their deeds and intentions.
"We'll have a growler!" they declared together.
A curious crowd of waitresses and passers-by helped them to load the
vehicle, repeated their united command to go "That way"--Eastward--and
sped them on their journey with a laughing cheer.
"What have we done this for?" said the one to the other.
"Lord knows," was the answer, "but we'll do it."
Lulled by the closeness of the cab, the smell of the buns, the rattle of
the cups, and their innate sense of virtuous doing, the happy couple put
heads together and slept, till they were wakened by the rattling and
clattering of the cab passing over a granite causeway.
The Jehu came to his senses first. June, who had been standing in his
chest pocket, where he illegally kept his badge, stopped him by Paradise
Court.
"I dunno why I done it, but I did!" he said to a policeman, who, seeing
a waiting cab, had sauntered up.
Bim came scurrying down from the roof.
"Sit on his head," June commanded him. The gnome perched on the
policeman's helmet. "Make him help!"
The youths dragged at and lifted down their tins of milk. Then the
cabman, policeman, and they boldly entered the court, crept into every
room of every house--there are few locks in Paradise Court, and bolts
are seldom shot there--and put by each sleeping child a cup of milk, a
bun and a piece of chocolate--surprises for their awakening.
The good things were just enough for the number needing them, with five
buns left over, which the cabman pocketed.
The human quartet eventually emerged from the court, radiant with
kindness.
"I could do a drink," said the policeman, darkening his bull's-eye
lantern.
"Same 'ere," said the heated charioteer.
"And so say all of us!" chimed the youths.
The policeman gave a peculiar whistle. An upper window of the
public-house was quietly opened.
"'Oo goes there?" whispered Bung.
"Us, Tim," said the policeman.
"Right-oh, Alfred! 'arf a mo'."
The wearer of the monocle produced some silver.
"My turn," he said; "four whiskies."
While these givers of goodness rewarded themselves, June went to her
nest for sleep.
"This is the beginning of the new Fairyland," she said gratefully to
Bim, who beamed.
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE PROGRESS OF OBERON*
The Lord Mayor's Banquet became history, though in the beginning the
newspapers were inclined to pay slight attention to it. If it had
happened in the dog-days, when attractive "copy" for holiday idlers is
at a premium, it would without any especial effort on the part of the
fairies, have been seized by journalists and made the easy rage of a
summer season. It would have swamped the sea-serpent, rendered the
giant gooseberry an unblown bubble, prevented imaginative pessimists
from indulging annual fears of the future of our daughters and the
failure of our marriages; would have made the ordinary Silly Season a
period of real, recreative, intellectual bliss.
But June, in her decisions, had no concern for any mere editor's
convenience, and caught the powers of Fleet Street just at their busiest
time. Parliament was still mouthing about the Budget, and adding to the
troubles of Tadpole and Taper; a miniature General Election--three
by-elections at once--was in progress; the summer worlds of sport were
getting into swing; an earthquake had played havoc with the island of
Zikki-baboo; the natives of the North-West Frontier of India had been
once more at their sniping, inviting a new punitive expedition to be
despatched; Gertie Feathergirl of the Gaiety had become romantically
engaged to the Hon. Stanley Stallboys, and was making her last
appearances--to the delight of a gushing multitude--before she retired
to private life and the management of a motor business; the Very Grand
Duke of Hotzenbosch had written a postcard, marked private, which
necessitated the rapid commissioning of two flying squadrons: in brief,
everything that could possibly happen at that crowded time was
happening; and news-editors began to wonder why they lived.
Then June came to town, and what had to occur did occur! The Lord Mayor
made his speech, the Archdeacon followed suit. A revolution in ideals
was blowing up. What was Fleet Street to do? Should the circumstance
be made a splash of; or interned in a few facetious paragraphs? What a
pity, said they, it had not been kept till the year was in its
wilderness!
The facts were too important to be buried and ignored. A Lord Mayor is
not original, an Archdeacon not on the heights, for nothing! Editors
can do most things; but any attempt on their parts to smother the
influence of the fairies is as futile as the broom of Mrs. Partington;
it merely demonstrates that they are only human after all.
The banquet and its tendencies had to be reported and commented on, with
headlines. So the papers took it up.
Parliament, Gertie Feathergirl, war, actual and diplomatic, with all
other matters of passing concern, were compelled to take their proper
subordinate places in the daily prints and public interest.
The best of the newspapers, that which you and I support, O reader,
began the Press crusade. It gave four columns of description and appeal
on its principal page; and this was the heading: