THE HOSPITALITY OF THE CAPTAIN
DR. MOSES MEADOWS, whether that was his name or an Anglicised version of
it, had certainly come in the first instance from a little town in
Germany and his first two books were written in German. His first two
books were his best, for he began with a genuine enthusiasm for physical
science, and this was adulterated with nothing worse than a hatred of
what he thought was superstition, and what many of us think is the soul
of the state. The first enthusiasm was most notable in the first book,
which was concerned to show that “in the female not upsprouting of the
whiskers was from the therewith increasing arrested mentality derived.”
In his second book he came more to grips with delusions, and for some
time he was held to have proved (to everyone who agreed with him
already) that the Time Ghost had been walking particularly “rapidly,
lately; and that the Christus Mythus was by the alcoholic mind’s trouble
explained.” Then, unfortunately, he came across the institution called
Death, and began to argue with it. Not seeing any rational explanation
of this custom of dying, so prevalent among his fellow-citizens, he
concluded that it was merely traditional (which he thought meant
“effete”), and began to think of nothing but ways of evading or delaying
it. This had a rather narrowing effect on him, and he lost much of that
acrid ardour which had humanised the atheism of his youth, when he would
almost have committed suicide for the pleasure of taunting God with not
being there. His later idealism grew more and more into materialism and
consisted of his changing hypotheses and discoveries about the
healthiest foods. There is no need to detain the reader over what has
been called his Oil Period; his Sea-weed Period has been authoritatively
expounded in Professor Nym’s valuable little work; and on the events of
his Glue Period it is, perhaps, not very generous to dwell. It was
during his prolonged stay in England that he chanced on the instance of
the longevity of milk consumers, and built on it a theory which was, at
the beginning at least, sincere. Unfortunately it was also successful:
wealth flowed in to the inventor and proprietor of Mountain Milk, and he
began to feel a fourth and last enthusiasm, which, also, can come late
in life and have a narrowing effect on the mind.
In the altercation which naturally followed on his discovery of the
antics of Mr. Patrick Dalroy, he was very dignified, but naturally not
very tolerant; for he was quite unused to anything happening in spite of
him, or anything important even happening without him, in the land that
lay around. At first he hinted severely that the Captain had stolen the
milk-can from the milk-producing premises, and sent several workmen to
count the cans in each shed; but Dalroy soon put him right about that.
“I bought it in a shop at Wyddington,” he said, “and since then I have
used no other. You’ll hardly believe me,” he said, with some truth, “but
when I went into that shop I was quite a little man. I had one glass of
your Mountain Milk; and look at me now.”
“You have no right to sell the milk here,” said Dr. Meadows, with the
faintest trace of a German accent. “You are not in my employment; I am
not responsible for your methods. You are not a representative of the
business.”
“I’m an Advertisement,” said the Captain. “We advertise you all over
England. You see that lean, skimpy, little man over there,” pointing to
the indignant Mr. Pump, “He’s Before Taking Meadows’s Mountain Milk. I’m
After,” added Mr. Dalroy, with satisfaction.
“You shall laugh at the magistrate,” said the other, with a thickening
accent.
“I shall,” agreed Patrick. “Well, I’ll make a clean breast of it, sir.
The truth is it isn’t your milk at all. It has quite a different taste.
These gentlemen will tell you so.”
A smothered giggle sent all the blood to the eminent capitalist’s face.
“Then, either you have stolen my can and are a thief,” he said,
stamping, “or you have introduced inferior substances into my discovery
and are an adulterer—er—”
“Try adulteratist,” said Dalroy, kindly. “Prince Albert always said
‘adulteratarian.’ Dear old Albert! It seems like yesterday! But it is,
of course, today. And it’s as true as daylight that this stuff tastes
different. I can’t tell you what the taste is” (subdued guffaws from the
outskirts of the crowd). “It’s something between the taste of your first
sugar-stick and the fag-end of your father’s cigar. It’s as innocent as
Heaven and as hot as hell. It tastes like a paradox. It tastes like a
prehistoric inconsistency—I trust I make myself clear. The men who taste
it most are the simplest men that God has made, and it always reminds
them of the salt, because it is made out of sugar. Have some!”
And with a gesture of staggering hospitality, he shot out his long arm
with the little glass at the end of it. The despotic curiosity in the
Prussian overcame even his despotic dignity. He took a sip of the
liquid, and his eyes stood out from his face.
“You’ve been mixing something with the milk,” were the first words that
came to him.
“Yes,” answered Dalroy, “and so have you, unless you’re a swindler. Why
is your milk advertised as different from everyone else’s milk, if you
haven’t made the difference? Why does a glass of your milk cost
threepence, and a glass of ordinary milk, a penny, if you haven’t put
twopennorth of something into it? Now, look here, Dr. Meadows. The
Public Analyst who would judge this, happens to be an honest man. I have
a list of the twenty-one and a half honest men still employed in such
posts. I make you a fair offer. He shall decide what it is I add to the
milk, if you let him decide what it is you add to the milk. You must add
something to the milk, or what can all these wheels and pumps and
pulleys be for? Will you tell me, here and now, what you add to the milk
which makes it so exceedingly Mountain?”
There was a long silence, full of the same sense of submerged mirth in
the mob. But the philanthropist had fallen into a naked frenzy in the
sunlight, and shaking his fists aloft in a way unknown to all the
English around him, he cried out:
“Ach! but I know what you add! I know what you add! It is the Alcohol!
And you have no sign and you shall laugh at a magistrate.”
Dalroy, with a bow, retired to the car, removed a number of wrappings
and produced the prodigious wooden sign-post of “The Old Ship,” with its
blue three-decker and red St. George’s cross conspicuously displayed.
This he planted on his narrow territory of turf and looked round
serenely.
“In this old oak-panelled inn of mine,” he said, “I will laugh at a
million magistrates. Not that there’s anything unhygienic about this
inn. No low ceilings or stuffiness here. Windows open everywhere, except
in the floor. And as I hear some are saying there ought always to be
food sold with fermented liquor, why, my dear Dr. Meadows, I’ve got a
cheese here that will make another man of you. At least, we’ll hope so.
We can but try.”
But Dr. Meadows was long past being merely angry. The exhibition of the
sign had put him into a serious difficulty. Like most sceptics, like
even the most genuine sceptics such as Bradlaugh, he was as legal as he
was sceptical. He had a profound fear, which also had in it something
better than fear, of being ultimately found in the wrong in a police
court or a public inquiry. And he also suffered the tragedy of all such
men living in modern England; that he must always be certain to respect
the law, while never being certain of what it was. He could only
remember generally that Lord Ivywood, when introducing or defending the
great Ivywood Act on this matter, had dwelt very strongly on the unique
and significant nature of the sign. And he could not be certain that if
he disregarded it altogether, he might not eventually be cast in heavy
damages—or even go to prison, in spite of his success in business. Of
course he knew quite well that he had a thousand answers to such
nonsense: that a patch of grass in the road couldn’t be an inn; that the
sign wasn’t even produced when the Captain began to hand round the rum.
But he also knew quite well that in the black peril we call British law,
that is not the point. He had heard points quite as obvious urged to a
judge and urged in vain. At the bottom of his mind he found this fact:
rich as he was, Lord Ivywood had made him—and on which side would Lord
Ivywood be?
“Captain,” said Humphrey Pump, speaking for the first time, “we’d better
be getting away. I feel it in my bones.”
“Inhospitable innkeeper!” cried the Captain, indignantly. “And after I
have gone out of the way to license your premises! Why, this is the dawn
of peace in the great city of Peaceways. I don’t despair of Dr. Meadows
tossing off another bumper before we’ve done. For the moment, Brother
Hugby will engage.”
As he spoke, he served out milk and rum at random; and still the Doctor
had too much terror of our legal technicalities to make a final
interference. But when Mr. Hugby, of Hugby’s Ales, heard his name
called, he first of all jumped so as almost to dislodge the silk hat,
then he stood quite still. Then he accepted a glass of the new Mountain
Milk; and then his very face became full of speech, before he had spoken
a word.
“There’s a motor coming along the road from the far hills,” said
Humphrey, quietly. “It’ll be across the last bridge down stream in ten
minutes and come up on this side.”
“Well,” said the Captain, impatiently, “I suppose you’ve seen a motor
before.”
“Not in this valley all this morning,” answered Pump.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Mr. Hugby, feeling a dim disposition to say “Mr.
Vice,” in memory of old commercial banquets, “I’m sure we’re all
law-abiding people here, and wish to remain friends, especially with our
good friend the Doctor; may he never want a friend or a bottle—that is
in short, anything he wants, as we go up the hill of prosperity, and so
on. But, as our friend here with the sign-board seems to be within his
rights, well, I think the time’s come when we can look at these things
more broadly, so to speak. Now I know it’s quite true those dirty little
pubs do a lot of harm to a property, and you get a lot of ignorant
people there who are just like pigs; and I don’t say our friend the
Doctor hasn’t done good by clearing ’em away. But a big, well-managed
business with plenty of capital behind it is quite another thing. Well,
friends, you all know that I was originally in the Trade; though I have,
of course, left off selling under the new regulations.” Here the goats
looked rather guiltily at their cloven hoofs. “But I’ve got my little
bit and I wouldn’t mind putting it into this ‘Old Ship’ here, if our
friend would allow it to be run on business lines. And especially if
he’d enlarge the premises a bit. Ha! ha! And if our good friend, the
Doctor—”
“You rascal fellow!” spluttered Meadows, “your goot friend the doctor
will make you dance before a magistrate.”
“Now, don’t be unbusinesslike,” reasoned the brewer. “It won’t hurt your
sales. It’s quite a different public, don’t you see? Do talk like a
business man.”
“I am not a business man,” said the scientist, with fiery eyes, “I am a
servant of humanity.”
“Then,” said Dalroy, “why do you never do what your master tells you?”
“The motor has crossed the river,” said Humphrey Pump.
“You would undo all my works,” cried the Doctor, with sincere passion.
“When I have built this town myself, when I have made it sober and
healthful myself, when I am awake and about before anyone in the town
myself, watching over its interests—you would ruin all to sell your
barbaric and fundamentally beastly beer. And then you call me a goot
friend. I am not a goot friend!”
“That I can’t say,” growled Hugby, “but if it comes to that—aren’t you
trying to sell—”
A motor car drove up with a white explosion of dust, and about six very
dusty people got out of it. Even through the densest disguise of the
swift motorist, Pump perceived in many of them the peculiar style and
bodily carriage of the police. The most evident exception was a long and
more slender figure, which, on removing its cap and goggles, disclosed
the dark and drooping features of J. Leveson, Secretary. He walked
across to the little, old millionaire, who instantly recognized him and
shook hands. They confabulated for some little time, turning over some
official documents. Dr. Meadows cleared his throat and said to the whole
crowd.
“I am very glad to be able to announce to you all that this
extraordinary outrage has been too late attempted. Lord Ivywood, with
the promptitude he so invariably shows, has immediately communicated to
places of importance such as this a most just and right alteration of
the law, which exactly meets the present case.”
“We shall sleep in jail tonight,” said Humphrey Pump. “I know it in my
bones.”
“It is enough to say,” proceeded the millionaire, “that by the law as it
now stands, any innkeeper, even if he display a sign, is subject to
imprisonment if he sells alcohol on premises where it has not been
previously kept for three days.”
“I thought it would be something like that,” muttered Pump. “Shall we
give up, Captain, or shall we try a bolt for it?”
Even the impudence of Dalroy appeared for the instant dazed and stilled.
He was staring forlornly up into the abyss of sky above him, as if, like
Shelley, he could get inspiration from the last and purest clouds and
the perfect hues of the ends of Heaven.
At last he said, in a soft and meditative voice, the single syllable,
“Sells!”
Pump looked at him sharply with a remarkable expression growing on his
grim face. But the Doctor was far too rabidly rejoicing in his triumph
to understand the Captain’s meaning.
“Sells alcohol, are the exact words,” he insisted, brandishing the blue
oblong of the new Act of Parliament.
“So far as I am concerned they are inexact words,” said Captain Dalroy,
with polite indifference. “I have not been selling alcohol, I have been
giving it away. Has anybody here paid me money? Has anybody here seen
anybody else pay me money? I’m a philanthropist just like Dr. Meadows.
I’m his living image!”
Mr. Leveson and Dr. Meadows looked across at each other, and on the face
of the first was consternation, and on the second a full return of all
his terrors of the complicated law.
“I shall remain here for several weeks,” continued the Captain, leaning
elegantly on the can, “and shall give away, gratis, such supplies of
this excellent drink as may be demanded by the citizens. It appears that
there is no such supply at present in this district, and I feel sure
that no person present can object to so strictly legal and highly
charitable an arrangement.”
In this he was apparently in error; for several persons present seemed
to object to it. But curiously enough it was not the withered and
fanatical face of the philanthropist Meadows, nor the dark and equine
face of the official Leveson, which stood out most vividly as a picture
of protest. The face most strangely unsympathetic with this form of
charity was that of the ex-proprietor of Hugby’s Ales. His gooseberry
eyes were almost dropping from his head and his words sprang from his
lips before he could stop them.
“And you blooming well think you can come here like a big buffoon, you
beast, and take away all my trade—”
Old Meadows turned on him with the swiftness of an adder.
“And what is your trade, Mr. Hugby?” he asked.
The brewer bubbled with a sort of bursting anger. The goats all looked
at the ground as is, according to a Roman poet, the habit of the lower
animals. Man (in the character of Mr. Patrick Dalroy) taking advantage
of a free but fine translation of the Latin passage, “looked aloft, and
with uplifted eyes beheld his own hereditary skies.”
“Well, all I can say is,” roared Mr. Hugby, “if the police come all this
way and can’t lock up a dirty loafer whose coat’s all in rags, there’s
an end of me paying these fat infernal taxes and—”
“Yes,” said Dalroy, in a voice that fell like an axe, “there is an end
of you, please God. It’s brewers like you that have made the inns stink
with poison, till even good men asked for no inns at all. And you are
worse than the teetotalers, for you prevented what they never knew. And
as for you, eminent man of science, great philanthropist, idealist and
destroyer of inns, let me give one cold fact for your information. You
are not respected. You are obeyed. Why should I or anyone respect you
particularly? You say you built this town and get up at daybreak to
watch this town. You built it for money and you watch it for more money.
Why should I respect you because you are fastidious about food, that
your poor old digestion may outlive the hearts of better men? Why should
you be the god of this valley, whose god is your belly, merely because
you do not even love your god, but only fear him? Go home to your
prayers, old man; for all men shall die. Read the Bible, if you like, as
they do in your German home; and I suppose you once read it to pick
texts as you now read it to pick holes. I don’t read it myself, I’m
afraid, but I remember some words in old Mulligan’s translation; and I
leave them with you. ‘Unless God,’” and he made a movement with his arm,
so natural and yet so vast that for an instant the town really looked
like a toy of bright coloured cardboard at the feet of the giant;
“‘unless God build the city, their labour is but lost that build it;
unless God keep the city, the watchman watcheth in vain. It is lost
labour that you rise up early in the morning and eat the bread of
carefulness; while He giveth His beloved sleep.’ Try and understand what
that means, and never mind whether it’s Elohistic. And now, Hump, we’ll
away and away. I’m tired of the green tiles over there. Come, fill up my
cup,” and he banged down the cask in the car, “come saddle my horses and
call out my men. And tremble, gay goats, in the midst of your glee; for
you’ve no’ seen the last of my milk-can and me.”
This song was joyously borne away with Mr. Dalroy in the disappearing
car; and the motorists were miles beyond pursuit from Peaceways before
they thought of halting again. But they were still beside the bank of
that noble and enlarging river; and in a place of deep fern and
fairy-ribboned birches with the glowing and gleaming water behind them,
Patrick asked his friend to stop the car.
“By the way,” said Humphrey, suddenly, “there was one thing I didn’t
understand. Why was he so afraid of the Public Analyst? What poison and
chemicals does he put in the milk?”
“H_{2}O,” answered the Captain, “I take it without milk myself.”
And he bent over as if to drink of the stream, as he had done at
daybreak.
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