IN WHICH MR. DABNEY WARMS HIS HOUSE WITH A DISCUSSION AND I AM GLAD
TO GET HOME
Mr. Dabney of _The Balance_ having asked me to his housewarming, I
found myself in his new rooms at about half-past nine, prepared for
an unwonted night of it. He pretends that after my departure for the
altar a period of decadence set in over Bemerton's and he had at last
to leave. All inhabitants of rooms know these fluctuations.
Everything will go smoothly for years and then suddenly comes a
relaxation of energy on the part of the staff. It will come _chez_
Packer without a doubt; but not just yet.
Dabney has moved from Westminster to the Temple, where a gentleman
ought to live--to a noble suite in King's Bench Walk with a sidelong
view of the river across the grass, on which in the cool of the
evening the agile barristers disport themselves at lawn-tennis. He
looks towards Lambeth and has a blessed glimpse over the trees and
roofs of the giant gasometer of the Oval, and he can imagine on a
summer's day all kinds of delectable occurrences in progress on the
other side of it--Hitch at mid-off stopping express trains; Hobbs at
the wicket, punishing and masterful; or whatever he most fancies.
The white wainscotted room when I entered it was full of smoke and
noisy with talk. I contrived to find Dabney's hand in the fog and he
pushed me into a chair. I gathered that public men were under
discussion: the session was well advanced and the unexpected
abilities which it had brought forth and the old abilities which it
had tested and found wanting were being appraised, in the off-hand
smoking-room way. Funny to one outside the machine to hear names
which ought by their eminence to inspire respect--and among the
simple and ignorant do so--tossed about so lightly and discussed so
contemptuously. This man, it is true, was fifty per cent. stronger
than last year; but most of them were disappointments, done.
These terrible fellows sized up everyone and everything, as they
puffed and sipped. And there was nothing they did not know. They
knew all the secrets of the Court as well as of Parliament. They
knew why this man's name was not in the last list of honours and why
that man's was. They knew everyone who drank too much and everyone
who loved unwisely but too well.
Politics, I confess, do not interest me, except as warp and woof of
the newspaper drama of life. I would not like to be a politician;
nor indeed could I. Only a surgical operation would be able to
effect that: some phlebotomizing process, to be followed by an
injection of molten brass into the deplenished veins. But I like to
watch the wire-pullers at work. There was one at Dabney's, the
secretary to some organization: a bulky Rabelaisian cigar-smoker, or
I might almost say cigar-eater, named Rudson-Wayte. Looking at him
through the haze, as he absorbed his tobacco and drank his whisky, I
found myself wondering if on that idle Sunday--the first
week-end--the Creator, when He surveyed His six days' work, had exact
foreknowledge of these two lenitives and the extent to which His
children in the distant days to come would depend upon them.
Rudson-Wayte more even than most men at an editor's housewarming
leant upon both, and they seemed to agree with him, for his head was
undoubtedly clear and hard. In a bout with the gloves or a hundred
yards' sprint no doubt he would cut a poor enough figure on such a
regimen; but then the highly specialized civilization under which he
flourishes has eliminated both necessities. Perfectly easy nowadays
for a London gentleman to live fifty years after leaving College and
never accelerate his steps at all.
Not that Rudson-Wayte was a stranger to the strenuous life; but
always from without. He had looked down amusedly from many a
platform and watched ejections and free fights; but he had not taken
part. His, to observe and make the best of the situation for his
party. He told us of many such experiences and of the strategy which
he had devised for the safety of his speakers. He referred to them
as his men. "Of course, the only thing for me to think of was how to
get my man out of it." And so forth.
"My man was a bit of a stick, not long married, and his precious skin
was rather on his mind. The crowd was ugly too; began breaking the
chair legs off for clubs. He hadn't any way with him at all, but
there were reasons why he should have gone down there to speak, and
he was sound enough on the principal question. Brought down his fist
at the right moments, you know, and had quite a clever way with the
word 'Mister'--for or against. But the game was up now, and things
got worse when we heard that there was a gang outside waiting for us.
There was only one thing to do and I did it. I got hold of four
others of my lot and told them their roles. Then I turned up my
collar, and smashed my hat in so as not to be recognized, grabbed my
man, and we carried him forcibly out by the back door. As I feared,
there were a thousand of them there waiting to duck the whole
platform. The instant we emerged from the door supporting our
burden, who was all collapsed into his clothes, I called out, 'A
doctor! A doctor! Is there a doctor here?' They shut down at once
and made a path for us. Bless you, the British public can't be
trusted to carry anything through. They're always waiting to be
diverted. It touched their old hearts, don't you see? 'Somebody
hurt? Steady on, boys. Let them through first,' and so on. So we
got through and were driving to the next town and the train for
London in no time. London's the mother."
He seemed to me rather a hateful type, this cynical manipulator of
candidates and passions; but Dabney tells me that he is really one of
the best of men, with naturally very simple tastes, domesticated,
musical, and devoted to ornithology. It is one of the bores of
growing old, that one loses the power of dividing the sheep and the
goats. When one is young, bad men are bad men and good men good men.
As one gets older their boundaries begin to get confused and encroach
each on the other; and I suppose that by the time I am seventy I
shall not know any difference between them.
I asked Rudson-Wayte about bribery and corruption--were they extinct?
"As the dodo, I don't think," he replied. "The more you have to do
with politics, the more you realize that human nature is human
nature. Nothing ever changes. People tell you that Dickens was a
caricaturist, an exaggerator. He may have been when he wrote about
some things, but not when he described the Eatanswill election.
That's as true as a Blue Book--every word of it--and always will be.
Human nature doesn't get out of date. Bribery and corruption!--great
Heavens, what else should there be? I don't say that money passes
from hand to hand quite so crudely; but money's not the only medium
of bribery. Every man has his price to-day, as ever, only he often
prefers payment in kind. Why, you can bribe a man with virtue now
and then. The big Nonconformist employers who carry a hatful of
votes--lay preachers, you know--you can get at them by sitting under
them one Sunday. They don't want money or promises: they want
homage. Of course they do. Another man merely wants to be seen
accepting a cigar from your own case; another to take your arm in
public. It's after the election's over that this last type becomes
such a nuisance."
"It's a low game," Dabney said, "and you're a low lot, and I don't
really know why I like you and ask you to sit under a decent roof."
Rudson-Wayte smiled joyously. "No worse than editing a paper," he
said, "and suppressing the truth about everything."
"And who does that?" Dabney asked quiveringly.
"You do, of course, every week. You attack one side for its
turpitude and cynicism and applaud the other side for its high ideals
and self-sacrifice, when you know there's not a penny to choose
between them. They're just the same men, with different views as to
how a business should be managed. You know that: you must know,
because directly one of the big men on the other side--one of your
blackest bugbears--retires, or dies, or loses his wife, you have an
article on his personal charm and private integrity, the whole thing
really proving him an arrant humbug ready to support against his
conscience any policy forced upon him by his party or venal
circumstance. You can't deny it. And again, every now and then when
some non-party question brings two conspicuous opponents on the same
platform in agreement, with compliments to each other, you say how
delightful are these amenities of English political life which permit
private friendliness to exist alongside public hostility; whereas
that is, when looked into a little deeper, really a cause for shame,
because men should be all of a piece. Well, what I say is that if
you can write calmly like that of party politicians, and defend it,
there is no need lor me to be troubled by your condemnation of me for
being concerned in the making of party politics."
Dabney really took it very well, and as a matter of fact I don't know
that he could have made much of a defence even if he had not been our
host. All he said was, "Well, damn the party system anyway."
A young man who had been interjecting remarks very freely here took
the floor.
"Of course," he said, "damn the party system. The whole mischief is
the party system. It's rotten to the core. What we want in
Parliament is the best men, not the machine-made men. But that's all
that the voter can be allowed to vote for. How many independent,
thinking men are there in Parliament to-day? Not half a dozen, and
the few that there are steadily being frozen out. The machine can't
endure them, and the machine is on top. I got a ticket for the House
the other day and saw the conspiracy in action. There was an old man
in our village who used to say that 'very few persons are better than
anyone else,' and I thought of these words as I sat there and watched
all those blighters at work. It was a terrible eye-opener. I knew
that they were obsolete and stupid and pledged to the swindle, but I
had no notion how stupid they were. No candour anywhere. On the one
side bland red-tapism, and on the other the insincere acrimony of the
Jack-out-of-office. Their manners, too, are an outrage--they chatter
while speeches are going on; they shout offensive criticisms; there
is never a moment when some one is not walking about. It's got to be
changed."
"All very well," said Rudson-Wayte; "but you'll never be without it.
Men fall into parties as naturally as they fall into temptation.
There must be pros and cons. If you want to know how deeply rooted
the party system is you have only to read the papers that advocate
its removal. Their objection to party is to the party that is in. I
have observed that when a paper boasts of having no favour for one
party or the other it makes up for it by having an increased
hostility towards one party or the other. No; if you really wanted
to lead a crusade you would call for a party pledged not to add
another law to the Statute Book as long as it held office. That
would be something like. Also it would automatically rid the party
at any rate of the legal element. But this is shop. For Heaven's
sake talk about something else."
"We will," said Dabney, "but it will be shop all the same."
Dabney was right. Everything came round to shop very quickly, and,
tiring of the monotony, I slipped away.
Dabney apologized for the dullness of the evening. "You see, this
time," he said, "I had to ask everyone. We have better talk at our
smaller gatherings. Come when I entertain some novelists."
I said that perhaps I would, and walked homewards correcting my
estimates of our public men by the light of the evening's
revelations. But by the time I reached the Euston Road I had decided
to let them all stand as they were a little longer. Those fellows
were only talking, I said. Strike London dumb for a year and how we
should get on! Progress then!