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diff --git a/old/68496-0.txt b/old/68496-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4dd3ffb..0000000 --- a/old/68496-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6197 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dwala, by George Calderon - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Dwala - A romance - -Author: George Calderon - -Release Date: July 10, 2022 [eBook #68496] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DWALA *** - - - - - -DWALA - - - - - DWALA - - _A ROMANCE_ - - BY - - GEORGE CALDERON - - AUTHOR OF ‘THE ADVENTURES OF DOWNY V. GREEN’ - - LONDON - SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE - 1904 - - [All rights reserved] - - - - - TO - KITTIE - - - - -DWALA - - - - -I - - -The sun was sinking towards the Borneo mountains. The forest and the -sea, inscrutable to the bullying noon, relented in this discreeter -light, revealing secrets of green places. Birds began to rustle in the -big trees; the shaking of broad leaves in the undergrowth betrayed the -movement of beasts of prey going about their daily work. The stately -innocence of Nature grew lovelier in a sudden trouble of virginal -consciousness. - -There was only one sign of human habitation in the landscape--a worn -patch by the shore, like a tiny wilderness in a vast oasis. Battered -meat-tins, empty bottles, and old newspapers littered the waterline; -under the rock was a tumble-down hut and a shed; from a stable at the -side a pony looked out patiently over the half-door; something rustled -in a big cage. In the twilight under the shed a man lay sleeping in a -low hammock, grizzled and battered, with one bare brown foot hanging -over the edge. He yawned and opened his eyes. - -‘Are ye thar, Colonel?’ - -Another figure, which had been crouching beside the hammock with -a palm-leaf, watching the sleeper, slowly uprose. Hardly a human -figure this, though dressed like a man; something rather akin to the -surrounding forest; a thing of large majestic motions, and melancholy -eyes, deep-set under thick eyebrows. The man sat up and coughed for a -little while. - -‘Whar’s the dinner, Colonel? You’ve not lit the fire yet.’ - -‘Fire crackles,’ said the Colonel. - -The man stretched and spat. - -‘Ah, you was afraid the noise’d wake me, sonny. Wahl, hurry up now, for -I’m as peckish as a pea-hen.’ - -The man refilled his pipe from the big tin that lay in the hammock with -him, while the Colonel, going hither and thither with large, deft -movements, piled a fire, boiled a pot and spread the dinner. Dinner -ready, he brought it to the man; crouching at his feet he watched him -reverently as he handled knife and fork. At the smell of dinner a -number of large monkeys came swinging down from the trees and collected -outside the shed. A captive chimpanzee came out of a tub-kennel and -began to ramble swiftly and silently to and fro on its chain, as if -developing in movement some unwholesome purpose conceived in the hours -of quiescence. The man threw them pieces from time to time, for which -they scrambled and fought in a way that called for interference. - -‘Now, Chauncey, you leave pore Amélie’s whiskers alone. That piece was -meant for her.... Go slow, Marie! and you, William J. Bryan, get up off -Talmage, unless you’ve a yearn for the far-end of my teacher’s help.’ - -When the meal was over the American took out some sewing--some old -clothes of his own, that he was patching up for the Colonel--while the -Colonel ate the scraps that remained, and cleared the things away. This -done, the Colonel came and sat down once more by the man. - -‘Whar’s your Word-makin’ and Word-takin’ gotten to, Colonel?’ said the -American, looking up from his sewing. ‘Hev you bin hidin’ it up that -teak tree agen?’ - -The Colonel looked uncomfortably about him, blinked once or twice, and -scratched his thigh. - -‘Burn my fingers,’ said the man, ‘but I think you’re as like a human -b’y as any ape can get. Slip off yer boots. Mosey up and fetch ’em back -right now, you young hellion, and spell me out “Home, sweet home,” -afore I get to the end of this seam.’ - -‘So I’m a scientific discoverer, am I?’ mused the American, left alone. -‘And I’ve foun’ the Missin’ Link at last, hev I? There’ll be a pile o’ -money in that, I shouldn’t wonder. The Colonel’ll be mighty pleased -when he hears he ain’t an or’nary ape; he’ll be as proud as a Bishop -among the angels.’ - -The Colonel meanwhile came climbing with swift and solemn accuracy down -the teak tree, the box of letters in his mouth. The chimpanzee growled -and chattered with aimless fury as she roamed to and fro. - -‘See here, Colonel, I’ve hed a letter from the Boss. I fotch it in -along with that passel on last Toosday.... Squit that I-talian music, -you dun-coloured Dago’--this to the chimpanzee--‘you unlicensed -traveller in otto o’ roses; shet yer head, I say, and don’t show yer -lunch-hooks at me.... I’ll hev to get rid o’ that dosh-burned critter; -she’ll niver be a credit to the Show.... Whar was I? Why, letter from -the Boss; that’s so. Wahl, thar was noos in that letter fur you an’ me, -Colonel, big noos.’ - -The Colonel turned his melancholy eyes on his master: their expression -never varied, but his breath came quick and fast with an unspoken -interrogation. - -‘I’d bin expeckin’ it fur a lawng time; but I begin to feel sorter -queer now it’s nigh on comin’ true.’ - -‘Are they goin’ to fetch us away?’ said the Colonel. - -‘This vurry next day that is, Colonel; one of his boats will put in -here and fetch me away with the whole of my bag o’ tricks to meet the -Show in London.’ - -‘You’re mighty glad, eh?’ - -‘I’m that, sonny. But I feel sorter queer too. I’ve grown kinder used -to this life, bein’ boss myself an’ all that. And yet, if you come to -think of it, ... by Jelly, it’s the queerest thing of all. Me goin’ -inter pardnership, as you might say, with an ornary ape! Hand me the -matches, sonny--by my foot thar; this blamey pipe’s gone out agen.... -Here was I an’ pore old Jabez dumped down by the Boss, to train some -monkeys for his show. Whin Jabez took the fever and went over the -range I began to be kinder lonesome; got a sorter hungry feel in my -teeth with not speakin’. So I slipped into a kinder habit o’ talkin’ -to you all like humans, jest to ease my gums. An’ all of a sudden, one -fine day, Colonel, you bein’ dissatisfied with yer dinner, you ups an’ -answers me back. I was tolerable astonished at the time, I remember, -tho’ I didn’t let on, maybe, but jest caught you a clip on the ear for -sassin’ yer biggers, an’ passed along. I’d niver hed any back-talk from -an anthropoid before. Of course, as you say, it came nateral-like to -you; you was on’y addin’ one more language to your vurry considerable -stock, an’ I reckon from what you tell me that the de-flections of the -verb are much simpler in Amurrkan than in Chimpanzee for instance; but -the fack remains that you’re the first monkey I iver heard talkin’ -outside of his own dialeck. The Boss was considerable interessted in my -re-port, an’ he’s worked up a theory of how your species got the bulge -on the rest by larnin’ their various lingoes, workin’ trade relations, -and pouchin’ the difference of exchange on cokernuts an’ bread-fruits. -It’s his idee to deliver himself of a lecture on the subject before the -R’yal Institoot, an’ make you sing some o’ your folksongs whin we get -to London.’ - -‘Ah--what like’s London, dad?’ - -‘Wahl, sonny, it’s not so fine a place as Bawston, but it has its -p’ints. The people are easier took in than in Bawston, an’ we find it -a better place for a Show. Then they hev a King in London, which we -don’t hev in Bawston; besides dooks and markises, which we on’y see -in Amurrka in the pairin’ season. An’ Shakspere was born near there -too, an’ the original Miss Corelli. One city’s much like another, -whin you’ve bin three years in Borneo. What a man gits a yearn for is -civalisation.’ - -‘Ci-va-li-sation ... What’s civalisation, dad?’ - -‘It’s a hard word, sonny; but it means purty well everything we don’t -hev here in Borneo. It means leadin’ a higher life, hustlin’ around, -machinery, perlicemen, hevin’ a good time, iced drinks, theaters, -ringin’ a bell fer yer boots, an’ a hunderd other things. Gas lamps, -an’ electric light, an’ beer, an’ wine----’ - -‘Like yonder?’ - -‘That’s it, sonny; like that lot I brought from Bilimano, on’y -stronger. An’ iverybody’s in lovely close; all the women lookin’ -like picters outer “Puck”; all the men wi’ creases down their pants; -pavement down along all the streets----’ - -‘Don’t stop sewin’, dad.’ - -‘Ah, you young scamp, you’re eager to git inter yer new pair, I can -see. Gosh, but the women, they’re hunky.’ - -‘What like’s the streets, dad?’ - -‘It’s a cur’ous thing, but you don’t seem to take so much interest -in the women as I’d hev expected, sonny ... I reckon you were in the -habit, before I caught you, of sorter climbin’ out with gals of your -own species among the banyan-trees down away in Java; and you don’t set -much store by other kinds. That’ll be another p’int for the lecture.... -Think what a man I’ll be over in England, sonny; I’ll be top o’ the -tree over thar, you’ll be proud to know me. I’ll be flyin’ around the -town in a plug hat an’ silver-topped cane, noddin’ an’ affable howdy -to my multitudinous friends from the top of a tramcar. “Who’s that?” -people will say. “Why, don’t you know? That’s the scientific man who -foun’ the Missin’ Link.”’ - -‘Missin’ ... Missin’ what, dad?’ - -‘The Missin’ Link.’ - -‘What’s the ... Missin’ Link?’ - -‘Wahl, I should smile! Ef I hedn’t clean forgotten to tell you. It’s -all in the Boss’s letter. Why--you’re the Missin’ Link, sonny!’ - -‘What’s that, anyway?’ - -‘Wahl, sonny, it means a sort o’ monkey that isn’t quite an ornary sort -o’ monkey ... kinder, sorter.... Wahl, as you might say, sonny, partly -almost more like a man.’ - -‘Like--like you, dad?’ - -‘Wahl, not that exactly--a sorter lower creation altogether. But -there’s a lot o’ scientific folks as says that men are descended from -Missin’ Links.’ - -The Colonel rose to his feet and looked out to sea with dilated -nostrils. - -‘Missin’ Links ... men ... civalisation ... and Colonel’s a Missin’ -Link! Why, then....’ - -‘Go slow, sonny. I on’y said you was a peg higher’n an omary monkey. -Jest sit down quiet an’ figure out “anthropoid” with those letters o’ -yourn. You’d be mighty small potatoes in a civalised crowd; so you’ve -no need to slop over that way.’ - -The Colonel sat down, obediently, to his letters, and they both worked -in silence for some time. - -‘Yes,’ continued the American, ‘I shouldn’t wonder ef they was to eleck -me a member of some of those larned societies of theirs. They’ll be -askin’ me out to champagne dinners, too, no doubt. I shouldn’t wonder -now ef I was to be asked to go an’ dine with the Prince of Wales--him I -was tellin’ you about; distinguished furriners always go to dine with -the Prince o’ Wales.’ - -‘Take Colonel too, dad?’ - -‘Whar to, sonny?’ - -‘The Prince o’ Wales’s.’ - -‘Now that’s downright foolish to be talkin’ like that, Colonel. You’ll -hev to stay with the Show, of course.... You’ll be pleased with the -Show; it’s the most fre-quented place in London; they’ll be givin’ you -buns an’ candy all day long. The Boss was thinkin’ of puttin’ you in -the anamal department, but ef he’s pleased with you I shouldn’t wonder -but what he’d promote you to the human monstrosities. I’ll put in a -good word for you. We’ve bin the best o’ friends, Colonel; you kin hev -the key o’ my trunk any day; but I won’t be able to see so much of you -arter to-morrow. No. I’ve been thinkin’ over the question keerfully, -an’ I’ve concluded you an’ me’ll not be able to travel over together.’ - -The Colonel listened with impassive attention. The American avoided -his eye with some little embarrassment. - -‘There’s all manner o’ difficulties, sonny. In the first place, these -ignorant Christian sailor-lads that’ll come ashore to-morrow won’t -perhaps hardly grasp the situation ef they find me talkin’ ornary sense -with a hairy pagan ape; an’ I think you’d best keep yer head shet until -they’ve gotten used to the looks of you, an’ I’ve hed time to explain -matters. It might create some jealousies in the crew ef you was set up -over their heads to consort with the captain an’ the mate, as I’ll be -doin’. At first sight it seemed to me as ef you’d hev to travel all -alone in the steerage as a third-class passenger.’ - -‘Steerage--what’s the steerage?’ - -‘That’s down in the between decks. Not so bad, sonny: I’ve travelled -that way often myself. But it’s not high-class, like travellin’ with -the captain.... Yes, that’s what I’d meant at first. But there’s -obstacles in the way o’ that too, sonny. I’ve been thinkin’ ef we enter -you as a passenger there may be difficulties at the Custom House with -the Alien Immigrants Act. They’re mighty pertikler.... There, that’s -done!’ he interjected, as he bit off the thread and held up the new -trousers to view. ‘Climb inter those pants, sonny, an’ let’s see how -they look.’ - -The Colonel did as he was told, and the American continued: - -‘You an’ me would be mightily put about to fill in the form of -declaration as to famaly history an’ religion an’ what not, ef it’s the -same as in the States. An’ on the whole I’ve concluded it will be best -to put you back in your old hutch and take you over under the Large -Wild Anamals Act.’ - -The Colonel seemed wholly absorbed in the adjustment of his clothes. -The muscles of his big jaw worked backwards and forwards to a pressure -of the teeth. - -‘They’re a bit baggy behind,’ continued his patron. ‘I’ll hev to take -a reef in the seat. Slip ’em off again; you won’t be needin’ any close -any more till we get over to London.’ - -Instead of obeying, the Colonel walked slowly forward out of the -penthouse to the shade of a young tree where a big wooden cage lay -lumbering on its side. He looked at it and turned it thoughtfully -over with a push of his powerful leg; then laid one hand on the thick -bough above him, the other on the stem of the tree. A slow cracking and -rustling ensued, splinters gaped white, the bough was in his hands, -raised aloft, and descending furiously, smashing the old hutch to -little pieces. The American rose astounded from his hammock. - -‘Quit that foolin’, and come here!’ - -Bang! Bang! Bang! - -‘Come here, you mule-headed monkey.’ - -The Colonel dropped breathless for one moment on all fours, rose to his -full height swinging the monstrous branch over his head and sending -forth a long loud yell like a man in a nightmare, then swept crashing -away into the forest, his weapon thumping like a sledge-hammer as he -went. - -The monkeys in the trees about chattered applause or commentary, a -cloud of sea-fowl flew up from the shore, and the American stood -scratching the back of his head thoughtfully in the midst. Then he -looked round at the trees and the sea and the pony, taking them all -into his confidence with a discomfited smile; pulled himself together -and shouted: - -‘Colonel!’ - -He grew contemptuous at the want of an answer, thrust down the ashes in -his pipe with a horny finger, and returned slowly to his rest under the -shed, consoling his solitude with a slow-flowing murmur of scorn: - -‘All right, my child. You wait till you come back. Civalisation! You! -You ornary, popeyed, bobtailed, jimber-jawed, jerrybuilt jackass....’ - - - - -II - - -The Colonel went through the virgin forest, spending his fury in -motion, swinging forward from branch to branch, running, leaping, -till the fury was lost in the recovered delight of liberty. Childhood -continued, after an irrelevance. - -Here was the old smell of forest earth, the inexhaustible plenty -of bare elastic boughs, the cool feeling of fungus, the absence of -articulate speech, the impossibility of anger. Night came, the grand -and terrible night, with its old familiar fear, long lost in the -neighbourhood of a confident human mind. He rejoiced in his fear as in -a fine quality recovered, rousing it to an ecstasy after long silences, -by murmuring his own name in the darkness in terrified tones: ‘Colonel! -Colonel!’ - -Then there came a rustling of leaves, a low chuck-chuck of prey warning -prey, the sound of a vast retreat, and the slow padding of panther feet -on the forest floor. The Colonel lay still on his bough, tingling with -an unnatural calm, and the Panther breathed deep below him and looked -up. And the Panther said: - -‘I am _the_ Panther, all Panthers in one--a symbol, irresistible.’ - -Waves of strong life undulated down his spotted tail, as though life -passed through him to and from all his tribe; and the Colonel lay in a -pleasant fear and numbness on his bough. And the Panther said: - -‘I will climb slowly to you.’ - -‘And leap suddenly!’ - -‘The glory of my eye shall increase upon you.’ - -‘Numbing my limbs!’ - -‘We will fall and play together on the earth.’ - -‘I shall die!’ - -‘A noble death.’ - -‘I shall be torn and eaten!’ - -‘And your strength shall go into the strength of All the Panthers.’ - -But as the Panther reached the fork of the boughs his paw slipped, -and the numbness left the Colonel, and he leaped upon the neck of the -panther with fingers and teeth, crying: - -‘You are not All the Panthers, but a single creature like myself; and I -will tear you as I tear a young tree when my limbs desire it.’ - -They fell together, a long distance, to the earth, and the Colonel -grasped one mauling hind-paw of the panther with one foot and gripped -him by the belly with the other, and rolled over and over with him, and -strangled him, and tore his two jaws apart to the shoulder as an angry -man might tear a glove. Then he licked his wounds and slung his boots -over his shoulder again, and forgot all about the battle but the joy of -unlimited ferocity. - -So he went forward from day to day, forgetful of the past, and -thoughtless for the future, till he came to the top of the mountain, -and, looking back, beheld the sea. He gazed at it for some time, then -murmured ‘Civalisation!’ and fell into a deep gloom of thought. - -He followed the tops of the mountains to the north, with an obscure -dissatisfaction growing in the dark back places of his mind; the -pleasure of motion was poisoned in each extreme tension by a recurrent -languor. He lacked something, and he did not know what he lacked. He -went idly forward for many days, till he heard the chopping of an axe. -He drew stealthily nearer to the sound, and followed the man back in -the evening to his village--a village of naked men with dark skins, -very orderly and quiet. And the Colonel lurked about by the village and -watched the people, and was happy again. - -For he had tasted the supreme happiness of the animal, the nearness of -Man. The animal that has once had Man for his companion or for his prey -is never afterwards contented with other company or fare. Curiosity had -taken its place among his appetites; the necessity of watching Man’s -inscrutable ways, the pleasure of using his implements and reproducing -his effects. - - - - -III - - -In the dead of night the Colonel descended into the midst of the -village, in boots and torn trousers, and drew water on the long -beam-lever from the well and poured it into the tank, talking gently to -himself while he did it; and the villagers, awakened by the creaking -and rattling, crept to crannies and looked on and trembled. - -And in the morning they gathered in the village square and speculated. -Who is he? The women were afraid to go into the forest; the ripe crops -dropped the seed from their ears in the clearings. - -Night after night he was there, and graciously tasted of their -offerings of fruit and cakes. No one slept by night but the children, -and the priest who dreamed true dreams. The priest was their hope, for -through him alone could the Soochings learn from the gods what must -be believed and done. And day after day the perplexity grew, for the -priest was old and forgot his dreams; and though he sat till sunset -with the doctors of the law about him, he could not recall them. - -But, one day, when they had sat for many hours in silence, watching the -True Dreamer with his head bowed between his knees, trying to remember, -a young priest spoke: - -‘I myself have had a dream.’ - -‘Of what use are your dreams?’ said the old man, looking quickly up. - -‘I dreamed that I saw the True Dreamer sleeping; and over him stood the -vision of a dead man, with the burial cords hanging loose about him, -and a peeled rod in his hand as of a messenger.’ - -A murmur ran round the squatting circle. - -‘It is true,’ said the old man ‘I have seen this vision three times.’ - -‘And the True Dreamer said, “Who is he that cometh by night?” And the -vision answered, “It is the God with Two Names, the inventor of the -blow-pipe, come back to be king over the tribe as in the first time.”’ - -‘Katongo tells the truth,’ said the old man ‘so spake the vision.’ - -‘And the True Dreamer said, “Who shall be his chief priest and -interpret his meaning to the multitude?” And the vision answered, “You -yourself, O True Dreamer; and at your right hand shall stand the young -man Katongo, who is foolish, but full of zeal.”’ - -‘All this was so,’ said the old man. ‘And, furthermore, the messenger -told me the rites by which the God with Two Names may be propitiated. -These rites are a secret which it is unlawful to reveal till the -time be come. But should any of them be left undone, pestilence and -destruction will fall on the whole tribe.’ - -The True Dreamer arose and went back to his house. The news spread -through the tribe, and there was great rejoicing. The old king was -promptly clubbed on the head, and the priests, attended by the state -conch-blowers and heralds, proclaimed the accession of the new monarch -under the title of King Dwala, Him-of-Two-Names, both unknown; drums -were beaten, hogs were killed, and the tribe gave itself up to frenzies -of loyalty and large draughts of the fermented juice of the mowa-tree. - -The Colonel, terrified by the noise, withdrew further into the forest, -and did not dare to return for several days. His absence gave no one -but the priests the least concern, as his place was efficiently filled -by a painted image of ugly and imposing aspect. - -Preparations were hurried on for solemnising the nuptials of the new -monarch--or the image--at the new moon, to the sacred sago-tree which -stood in the middle of the place of assembly. - -Politically speaking, the result of all these events was that the -war party had captured the machine. The question which divided the -Soochings at this time was the relation to be adopted by the tribe -towards the gold-diggers who had lately penetrated into the Sooching -forest. Many members of the tribe looked upon the miners as harmless -idiots, bound by the curse of some more powerful magician to sweat -at a spade, and too stupid to guard their treasures of wonderful -mugs and tins and nails and even large pieces of corrugated iron from -the clumsiest of thieves; but the seriously-minded tribesmen, and -especially the religious party, penetrated their hidden motive of -digging up the Spirit of Tree-Vigour, and bringing upon the Sooching -forest that same blight of sterility which followed the track of the -white men wherever they went. Nothing, in their view, could appease -the already irritated Spirit but the wholesale destruction of these -desecrators. - -The Colonel’s continued absence put the war party in a dangerous -position; the more so as a Jew from the mining camp arrived at this -time with a little cartload of looking-glasses and whisky in the -village, and brought over a number of wobblers to the party of peace. -The True Dreamer worked hard for his party, dreaming judicious dreams -by night, and organising search parties in the daytime for the purpose -of bringing the new king to his throne. - -The Colonel watched the search parties with interest, and at last had -the courage to follow one of them back to the edge of the camp. That -night, as he was amusing himself by the well in the moonlight, he was -astonished at hearing a low clear whistle, and seeing men approaching -him slowly from every side with deep obeisances; he had never yet seen -human beings in this attitude, which seemed to be copied from the other -animals. But it appeared that they meant kindly by it, and he let them -approach until they made a small circle about him. A gaunt old man -stood before him with arms upraised to the sky, pouring forth a torrent -of incomprehensible words. Not knowing what was expected of him, the -Colonel took a mug that lay beside him, dipped it in the tank, and -handed it to the old man, whose eyes gushed over with tears of delight -at this sign of favour; while the rest made a clucking noise with their -tongues and said: - -‘Dwala malana!’--which means, ‘Glory to Him-of-Two-Names.’ - -They invited him with gestures to taste the dishes of fruit which lay -about him; and he did so, to their great joy. The village had all -turned out by now; torches flared and smoked on every side; and it -was in a blaze of light and through a thick avenue of men, women and -children that the Colonel was at last conducted to the temple which -had been prepared for him. The noise of conchs and drums had no more -terrors for him now, and he watched the dances with an intensity of -interest that threw him at last into a state of hypnotic coma. - -The village slept late next morning. When the Colonel awoke he went -out, from force of habit, to prepare breakfast. The guardians who slept -on the threshold sat up and watched his movements awhile in stupid -amazement; his quiet exit by the window had failed at first to rouse -them. - -He was working impatiently and irritably: he was afraid of being late; -nothing was in its place. There was no axe to chop the wood; he had to -break it with his hands. There were no matches, no tins of beef. It -took all the gestures of all the priests to make him understand that -he must not work. In time he grew used to being waited on by others; -he grew used to obeisances and reverence. It was a new interest, and -not more puzzling than most things. One thing disturbed him. Outside -the temple was posted the Royal Minstrel, who played only one tune on -his pipe--the Royal Tune. At first the Colonel had been delighted with -this tune, and had made the minstrel play it to him from morning till -night. But he grew tired of it. Whenever he opened the door, or even so -much as showed his head at a window, the minstrel fired off this thing; -when he went outside the village on any errand the minstrel followed -him playing it. It maddened him, and at last he broke the pipe over the -minstrel’s head and slunk back into his temple, and was very miserable -for the rest of the day. But the people were delighted with this kingly -trait, and the minstrel sold the pieces for a large price. - -A strict watch was kept over his movements at first for fear he should -escape; but after a while this was relaxed, and he used to roam at -will in the forest. He usually returned at night, but not always. He -visited the gold-diggings, but was alarmed by the look of the diggers, -who reminded him of the American; he was afraid they would put him -into a hutch. In another part of the forest he found a white man with a -large family. The women and children were greatly frightened; but the -man invited him into the house and told him he was a Missionary. The -Colonel stayed there two days, and was converted to Christianity. - -Meanwhile the tribe was preparing for war. The women were sealed up -hermetically in huts; the warriors danced and rubbed their muscles with -mowa juice; and late one night they disappeared silently with shields -and spears among the trees. Next day they appeared again, exultant, -with loads of booty; the white men had been utterly routed. - -The stupefaction of the succeeding orgies was partially dispelled after -many days by the frenzy of inspired minstrels, who proclaimed the -imminence of the second Golden Age, and the permanent establishment -of the wise and beneficent empire of the great Prince Dwala, -Him-of-Two-Names, over the whole of the island, and those eyots beyond -which constituted the rest of the habitable world. - -The power of actual motion was finally restored by the rattle of -musketry in the grey light of one dawn, and the snapping of twigs -overhead, followed by the appearance of men in khaki among the trees. -Unarmed and unprepared, the villagers fled into the forest beyond, and -not a soul remained but the old Dreamer, who was seeking new visions -in the quiet recesses of his sleeping apartment, and the Colonel, -who ensconced himself comfortably in the sago-tree to watch this new -human phenomenon. Horses crouched and snorted, dragging guns up the -last slope, with a cluster of men straining at each wheel; infantrymen -advanced and halted and turned at a shouted word; and the Colonel sat -and looked on as at a new dance performed for his amusement. He was -delighted at the burning of the huts, which made the biggest flame he -had ever seen; but he grew tired at last of the long pauses in the -ballet; so he climbed down to the tank and splashed water over the -officers. - - - - -IV - - -The royal prisoner was royally housed. After the jolting journey in the -sultry covered wagon, to the steady tramp of the marching soldiers, -and the frightened crying of the old Dreamer who crouched beside him, -it was pleasant to be in these spacious rooms, to look from under the -sun-blinds into the leafy garden, to sit on the wet stones and dabble -in the black pool in the hall. - -Prince Dwala was shut up in the Old Residence while the Colonial Office -made up its mind what was to be done with him. Compassionate ladies -sent him baskets full of flowers. The rest of the prisoners--the -Dreamer and a rabble of braves hunted down in the hills--were huddled -away in the jail. - -The Prince had many visitors. The Governor came, accompanied by -his staff, young men in cocked hats, who looked as tall and morose -as possible while the Governor lectured him. A young man came from -the ‘Pioneer’ and interviewed him as to his opinion of Western -civilisation; the Prince’s answers were disjointed, amounting to -little more than ejaculations, such as ‘iced drinks’ and ‘theaters’; -but his interest was evident, and the ‘Pioneer’ said that his views -on the subject were ‘quite equal to those of some of the best of our -Indian Princes.’ On the all-engrossing gold question he had been -diplomatically discreet, nor would he commit himself on the equally -difficult question of the British suzerainty over the Soochings. - -He had numerous visits from Mr. Wyndham Cato, the Pro-Boer M.P., who -was staying with the Governor, having arrived in the course of a grand -tour of the Colonies, destined to supply him with ammunition for an -attack on the Government all along the line on the ‘native question.’ -But for Mr. Cato, the case of the Soochings would never have attained -the importance it had. The Governor was disposed to treat the whole -thing as a hole-and-corner brawl, a question of police; he would have -bundled Dwala and his braves obscurely away into a penal settlement -if he had been left alone. Mr. Cato blew the bubble. Bouverie Street -and Whitehall, stimulated by telegrams, reacted one on the other. It -became a public matter. The Governor smiled benignly, and squared it -up to a larger scale. Thanks to Mr. Cato, Prince Dwala was a captive -Prince instead of an arrested malefactor. The Prince conceived a warm -affection for the little man, who let him try on his gold spectacles, -and showed him how his watch wound up. - -‘I have very little influence with the Governor; I have done all I -can, and I am afraid that your deposition is certain,’ said Mr. Cato, -one day, as he and the Prince squatted side by side at the edge of the -pool--Mr. Cato folding little paper boats out of pieces of newspaper, -while the Prince stirred the water with his foot to make them bob -up and down. ‘But, even then, you will still be a Prince, and it is -better to be a native Prince than the hereditary tyrant of a so-called -civilised country, the heir of one of our mushroom dynasties of Europe, -whose only purpose in life is to help a self-elected aristocracy, as -vulgar as themselves, to grind down the sweating millions of honest -working folk. You will still receive your revenues, if there is any -justice left in this disjointed world of ours. I shall agitate to -the best of my power to get some addition to your income from our -niggardly Government. You will be a comparatively rich man, and if you -win your lawsuit you ought to do very well indeed. Nobody has a right -to prevent your going to London if you wish to. I am starting myself in -a few days, and if you will allow me, I shall be very glad to take you -with me.’ - -‘Not in a hutch?’ - -‘A “hutch”? Don’t be absurd. You won’t be a prisoner. You’ll travel as -I travel. And, until some suitable residence has been found for you, I -insist on your coming to stay with us at Hampstead. I am sure that my -aunt and the two sisters who live with me will welcome you most warmly.’ - -The lawsuit to which Mr. Cato alluded was one of his own contriving. -When the first load of gold from the mines was sold to the Bank, the -Solicitor-General for the Colony had put in a claim for a royalty, -which was met by the defence that the mine was outside the limits of -the colony. The miners set up concessions granted by the deceased -monarch of the Soochings. Mr. Cato, a republican at home, but a firm -upholder of the divine rights of ‘native’ princes, hired a lawyer on -behalf of Prince Dwala and claimed the mines as his personal property, -set aside from time immemorial for the maintenance of the dignity of -the Royal House. The tribe at large had never exercised more than the -right of hunting over them. He denied the validity of the concessions, -and asked for a declaration that the fee simple was vested in the -Prince. - - - - -V - - -Prince Dwala formed a frequent subject of conversation at the -Residence. Mr. Cato disagreed on every possible question with everybody -there; but they found him a charming visitor, and the process of -‘draain’ his leg,’ as the Scotch call it, was an unfailing amusement to -the younger members of the party. - -He found them assembled round the breakfast table when he came out on -the veranda next morning, beaming round through his gold spectacles -with that benevolent smile with which he always began the day. Lady -Crampton sat at the end, behind a silver urn--a flighty, good-looking -creature, who might have passed for thirty. Besides her there were -Mademoiselle and the three girls; Dick Crampton, and Reggie the -nephew--secretaries both--deep in the batch of last month’s newspapers, -which had just arrived. - -The Governor and his private secretary were still at work. - -‘When’s the execution, Dick?’ said Reggie, helping himself to ham. - -‘Half-past ten, old man; you’ve lots of time.’ - -‘The usual tortures, I suppose?’ - -‘Just the usual. The Mater’s been up for hours sharpenin’ the spikes of -the rack.’ - -‘Getting rusty, I suppose?’ - -‘Not they! They got blunted over all those land-tax defaulters last -week.’ - -Helen, the youngest girl, tossed her long hair over her cheeks and -exploded with laughter. - -‘Soyez gentille, Hélène,’ said Mademoiselle: ‘les jeunes filles bien -élevées ne rient pas à table.’ - -Mr. Cato adjusted his spectacles, and stared with horror from face to -face. - -‘What nonsense are those boys talkin’ down there?’ said Lady Crampton. -‘For Heaven’s sake don’t choke, Helen! Dick, you naughty boy, do try to -behave.’ - -‘You mind what the Mater says, Reggie.’ - -‘What was Her Excellency pleased to remark?’ - -‘She says you’re not to play the elephas mas gigas ass. Hello, Guv’; -good mornin’.’ - -His Excellency came in, tall and débonnaire, and sat down to breakfast. -After him came his private secretary, a pale and anxious young man, who -said little, and opened an egg as if he expected to find an important -despatch inside it. - -‘Any news, Reggie?’ said the Governor, cheerfully rubbing his large -white hands together. - -‘Fry’s hurt his finger.’ - -‘Bad luck to it!’ - -‘Well, Sir Henry,’ said Mr. Cato, beaming away, ‘I’m going to have a -_good talk_ with you after breakfast about Prince Dwala.’ - -‘Too busy, too busy, my dear Sir. You talk it over with Mr. Batts; _he_ -knows all about everything.’ - -The private secretary looked up darkly, and gave a dry nod at Mr. Cato. - -‘Rum chap that Prince,’ said Reggie: ‘looks uncommon like a monkey.’ - -Mr. Cato flushed with indignation. - -‘_Please_ don’t talk like that, Mr. Crampton. I know you mean no harm; -but it’s just by little remarks like that that we Englishmen nourish -that narrow-minded contempt for natives to which we are all of us only -too prone.’ - -‘Dear little things, monkeys,’ murmured the tactful Lady Crampton: ‘my -sister used to keep one in Kensington, till it took to hidin’ food in -the beds, and had to be given to the Zoo.’ - -After breakfast Mr. Cato and Mr. Batts retired into a dark chamber, and -discussed the question of the Prince’s future. Mr. Batts sat like an -eminent specialist, with folded arms and pursed lips, while Mr. Cato -expounded his views. Mr. Batts held out great hopes of the Government -coming down handsomely. - -‘My dear Sir, we couldn’t have chosen a better moment for the -application. The Colonial Office is bound to spend its grant by the end -of the financial year, under penalty of having it reduced in the next -Budget--it’s a Treasury rule. What I’m telling you is a secret, mind; -don’t let it go any further. Between you and me, my dear Sir, they’re -often glad if some expense of this kind turns up to put their surplus -into; and once they’ve got him over, it’s easy enough to get the item -renewed year by year. They like native potentates; it’s picturesque and -popular. As for preventing white men from going into their country, -that is a policy which I can’t accept. It’s opposed to the natives’ own -interest: their countries could never be developed without European -assistance.’ - -‘How do you mean “developed,” Mr. Batts?’ - -‘Well, take the question of gold, for instance. These lazy beggars the -Soochings would simply leave it lying useless in the ground, as far as -they are concerned. Mind you, I’m not saying that all these Jews and -foreigners who start the thing are the most desirable people to carry -civilisation among the savages. Providence works for good by very -funny means.’ - -‘But the gold belongs to the Soochings.’ - -‘Gold or any other commodity belongs by the law of nature to the man -who works it. It’s a reward for his industry. That’s in Mill. It’s not -by any means such an easy thing working a mine as you might think, -especially in a savage country. First of all, there’s the labour -difficulty to deal with.’ - -‘What do you mean by the “labour difficulty”?’ - -‘Getting labour, of course; native labour to work the mine.’ - -‘But what are the Europeans doing there, if they’re not going to -labour?’ - -‘You’ve evidently not studied the mining question, my dear Sir. Once -the prospecting is over, Europeans don’t _dig_. That would be very -primitive. They have their work pretty well cut out as it is, pegging -out their claims and looking after the men to see they don’t steal. -Of course they have to get natives to dig for them--Soochings in this -case.’ - -‘But why should the Soochings dig for them?’ - -‘Why should they, my dear Sir? Why, we’d pretty soon _make_ ’em! But -it’s no good arguing these big questions on first principles. We -simply follow the policy which has worked so well in other parts of -the world.... Now what’s your figure for the Prince’s salary from the -Colonial Office?’ - -‘Well, what do you say to a thousand a year?’ - -‘Oh, make it two, make it two. That Mandingo man gets two thousand; and -we don’t want to have our native princes priced lower than Africans. -It’s just these things which fix the status of a Colony in the eyes of -London people.’ - -‘Good; two thousand.’ - -‘And as big a lump down as we can screw out of them. I’ll instruct His -Excellency.’ - -‘Then he’ll get his ordinary revenue from his subjects?’ - -‘That won’t amount to much.’ - -‘And the royalties on the gold?’ - -‘Don’t count on that. I saw the Chief Justice last night; he’s going to -give it against you.’ - -‘I shall appeal.’ - -‘To the Privy Council? Well, well: one never knows what will happen -when a case gets to the Privy Council.’ - - - - -VI - - -Mr. Cato found his path unexpectedly smooth. The Colonial Secretary, -delighted at shifting an awkward responsibility on to the shoulders -of a political opponent, telegraphed a gracious acceptance of Mr. -Cato’s offer to take charge of the Prince. The two thousand a year -was promised without bargaining, with another two thousand down for -initial expenses. The Colonial Court, it is true, had decided against -the Sooching claim, but leave was given to appeal; and Mr. Cato took a -lawyer and a packing-case full of evidence with him on board the P. & -O. in order to carry the question before the Privy Council. - -He had taken up the clubs for Prince Dwala on purely unselfish -grounds, but he could not help feeling a personal satisfaction in -the results of what he had done. His whole tour had been a success; -now that he had seen the various kinds of native whom he had so long -championed in Parliament, the rightness of his attitude came home to -him with a picturesque forcibleness. He was like a dramatist who had -seen all his plays acted one after the other for the first time. And -now by this last lucky hit he had put himself over the heads of all -his rivals in his own peculiar line of politics. Prince Dwala’s case -would be famous; his colleagues would help him trounce the Government -for this wicked gold war; the credit of it would be his; every question -would come round to him for a final answer; the oppressed native would -be sitting at home in his drawing-room. As he lay awake in his bunk he -caught himself musing pleasurably over the social distinction which it -might involve. Nonsense! A Prince is no better than any other man, or -very little. Still, other people think so; it would be amusing to watch -their demeanour. - -It was no light matter being in charge of a Prince on board ship. Mr. -Cato found it best during the daytime to keep him as much as possible -in his cabin, where he sat looking patiently out of a port-hole, -saying over new words and phrases he had heard, or making cigarettes -with the little machine which Mr. Cato carried about with him--a -contrivance which inspired him with far greater interest and awe -than the complications of the engine-room. It was the best cabin on -board, by-the-bye, for the Shanghai merchant had insisted on giving -it up to the Prince. It was not that Dwala claimed any outward signs -of respect--he was modesty itself; but his presence caused a certain -_gêne_ among the other passengers, who were uncertain whether to rise -from their seats or not when he entered the reading-room. Then he had -no idea of punctuality, and naturally nobody liked to begin dinner -until he came in. The sailors had no end of a job enticing him down -from the crosstrees, where he had ensconced himself at the sound of the -dinner-bell. Then again, the chief steward was nearly frightened out of -his wits, when he leaned over his shoulder to offer him potatoes, at -the way the Prince grabbed his plate and growled, under the impression -that he wanted to take it away from him. The passengers saw but little -of him till the last night of the voyage, when they insisted on his -presiding at the concert in aid of the Sailors’ Orphanage. They were -all immensely impressed by the grave attention with which he listened -to the comic songs. - -Mr. Cato was very busy all day going through the evidence with the -lawyer; and half of every night he spent following the Prince in his -swift rambles over the ship, seeing that he did not get into mischief. -It was a relief when they landed at last in England. - - - - -VII - - -The first thing Mr. Cato did, when he had settled his guest comfortably -at home in Hampstead, under the kindly care of his two sisters, was to -go and call on Lord Griffinhoofe, his immediate political leader. - -Mr. Cato’s party was divided at this time into many sections. An -official leader had at one time been appointed, but in the confusion -of politics the party had lost the papers and forgotten his name. The -leadership was now divided among a number of eminent men, of whom Lord -Griffinhoofe, ex-Cabinet Minister and member of one of the oldest -and richest families in England, was not the least. It was generally -understood that he would get an important portfolio when a Liberal -Government should be formed, and the urbanity of his manner was held to -fit him peculiarly for the Foreign Office. - -London was out of town when Mr. Cato arrived. The Session was over; but -Lord Griffinhoofe was known to have come back on business for a few -weeks to his house in Piccadilly. Mr. Cato found the blinds down, and a -charwoman washing the steps. He walked in unannounced and entered the -well-known reception-room on the ground floor, disguised at present -with a furniture of linen bags, enfolding monstrous shapes of large -ornaments. Here he found a flushed female, with a bonnet on the side -of her head, sitting on one of the long row of leather chairs. She -smiled and wagged her feathers and roses at him pleasantly, assuring -him that ‘the good gentleman’ would be ‘out in a jiffy.’ Mr. Cato -seated himself modestly in a dark corner and waited. - -After a little while the inner door opened, and Lord Griffinhoofe -himself appeared--a large stout man, with peering short-sighted eyes. -He smiled and nodded when he found himself confronted by a curtseying -female. Then he cleared his throat, looked in three pockets for his -eye-glasses, wiped them, and examined the dirty scrap of paper which he -held in his hand. - -‘Mrs. Waggs?’ he said. - -‘Yes, my lord,’ said the smiling woman in the bonnet; ‘that’s my name, -sir, after my dear ’usband who went to the bad.’ - -‘Well, and what can I do for you?’ - -‘Mrs. Waggs, my lord, that’s my name. I’ve come to be cook, ’earin’ as -you was in want of a temp’ry from my good friend Mrs. ’Amilton, who -washes the steps, pore thing, of a Saturday when the other lidy ’as to -be at ’ome.’ - -Lord Griffinhoofe examined the paper very carefully, and cleared his -throat again. - -‘H’m! It’s very awkward. My wife’s away. I hardly know what to do. -You’re a cook, you say?’ - -‘Mrs. Waggs, my lord. Good plain or fancy with the best of character’s, -though short, bein’ a temp’ry.’ - -‘Can you ... can you dust things, Mrs. Waggs?’ - -‘Dust? Me dust? No thank you, my lord, not if I know it. Thank ’Eaven, -I ’aven’t come down to a duster quite as yet. O no, thank you! Mrs. -Waggs, plain or fancy, on the usual terms, but no dustin’, thank you! -I’m not an ’ousemaid.’ - -‘It’s very awkward. So you want to be cook. Can you make pastry?’ - -‘Anythink in reason, my lord. One doesn’t ask too much of a pore woman -with two children and an ’usband in trouble. Pastry is not my fort, nor -’ave I been accustomed to families where pastry was eaten on a large -scale.’ - -‘Well, well. It’s very awkward. The fact is that I _have_ a cook -already.’ - -‘And well you may, my lord, you that might ’ave dozens for the askin’.’ -Mrs. Waggs burst into tears. ‘But it’s ’ard on a pore woman that’s -trudged miles an’ miles without a drop o’ drink to look for a job, to -be told the place is bespoke.’ - -‘There, there, don’t cry, Mrs. Waggs. I can’t turn my cook out to make -a place for you, can I?’ - -‘An’ my pore ’usband in trouble, ’im that never did an ’ard day’s work -in ’is life before.’ - -Clouds veiled the serenity of Lord Griffinhoofe’s countenance for a -little while, then he passed his hand over his face and emerged with a -bright idea. - -‘How would it be if you saw the cook and had it out with _her_?’ - -Mrs. Waggs, paying no direct attention to this proposal, nor to the -next proposal to come back in a few days and see what could be done -then, but continuing merely to repeat her name and claims, Lord -Griffinhoofe finally decided that the best thing he could do was to -ring the bell and consult the housekeeper. A lean woman in black -presented herself, glanced quickly round, and listened with sour -submission while Lord Griffinhoofe explained the situation and its -difficulties. - -‘Shall I deal with the woman, my lord?’ - -‘I shall be extremely grateful, Mrs. Porter. I hardly know what to do -myself.’ - -Three short steps brought the housekeeper in front of Mrs. Waggs. - -‘Now then, out you go! March!’ - -Mrs. Waggs quailed and rose obediently. - -‘Comin’ here in such a state--the idea!’ - -The housekeeper shut the front-door behind the visitor, and returned -demurely the way she had come. - -‘Thank you, Mrs. Porter,’ said Lord Griffinhoofe, with a nervous smile: -‘I thought you would know what was the right thing.... And what can -I do for you, Madam?’ he inquired, stumbling on Mr. Cato. ‘What, Mr. -Cato! So you’re back. How stupid of them to keep you waiting in here. -Come along! Come along!’ - -He led him into his study beyond. - -‘So you’ve come back for the great fight. It’s a secret--I had a wire -this morning--you mustn’t tell anyone; we’re within measurable distance -of a General Election.’ - -‘Yes; I saw it in the “Westminster” last night.’ - -‘Really! How _do_ these papers find out? It came on me quite as a -surprise. I’ve been promised--practically promised the--h’m! h’m! It’s -a dead secret, mind; you mustn’t let it out.’ - -‘Why, the “Westminster”....’ - -‘They had that in too?’ - -‘No; in fact they mentioned Lord Rosebery.’ - -‘Bosh!’ - -‘Only guesswork, of course,’ added Mr. Cato hastily, seeing an uneasy -flush on Lord Griffinhoofe’s face. ‘Quite impracticable! Not a man we -could work with.’ - -‘A mere talker!’ - -‘With the Eastern Question looming....’ - -‘A man who can’t say No!’ - -‘Russia needs a firm hand....’ - -‘Rosebery’s no more capable of managing Russia than I am of managing a -... well, a ... well.... And what was it you came to see me about, Mr. -Cato?’ - -Mr. Cato entered with great detail into all the facts of Prince Dwala’s -case. The great man rubbed his fat knees and assumed a sagacious look; -his breath came very short, and suddenly he looked as if he were going -to cry. - -‘Wait a moment, Mr. Cato. If I had a bit of pencil, I should like to -put your facts down, so as to get a clear idea. In what year do you say -he was born?’ - -‘I haven’t a notion. These facts aren’t important enough to make a note -of.’ - -‘Then you oughtn’t to tell me them. It only confuses.’ - -‘The important thing is: how far will the Party help him?’ - -‘We shall want a pencil for that. It’s such a nuisance my secretary -being away. He always has a pencil. He takes his holiday now. Couldn’t -we put it off till Parliament assembles?’ - -‘The matter is urgent.’ - -‘Everything seems so urgent nowadays,’ Lord Griffinhoofe smiled sadly, -as if remembering better days. - -‘We must secure the best lawyers at once.’ - -‘Oh, it’s a law case! I see.’ - -‘Yes, I’ve told you so already; an appeal to the Privy Council. -Colonial appeals go before the Privy Council.’ - -‘I remember. That’ll be the Judicial Committee, no doubt. Well, can’t -_they_ settle it?’ - -‘That isn’t the point. It’s a most difficult question of law, and -everything depends on how the question is argued. We must get the very -best counsel we can. The expenses are enormous.’ - -‘Can’t the ... er ... the what’s his name manage it?’ - -‘Prince Dwala? We have no right to ask it of him. His fortune is very -small, for a Prince; and I look upon the British nation and the Liberal -Party as trustees to see that he gets it intact. I myself have already -incurred very heavy expenses.’ - -‘Oh, you shouldn’t spend your own money.’ - -‘That’s just it; I want the Party to help with their funds.’ - -‘Well, well; if the cause is a good one. We might wait a few months, -and see what people think.’ - -‘But the case will be over.’ - -‘One can’t help that. We mustn’t rush things.’ - -Nothing could budge the great man from his attitude of caution and -delay. It was evident that, in the absence of his secretary with the -pencil, he conceived only the vaguest idea of the question in hand. Mr. -Cato went home at last, expressing the heroic resolution to fight the -case on his own money, even if it ruined him. - - - - -VIII - - -Mr. Cato’s work was no light matter. He followed the case in every -stage; he explained it all to the solicitors, and re-explained it to -different layers of barristers. Every new document was submitted to him -for revision. He was tormented all the time by anxiety for the future; -his fortune was not a large one, and he had to reduce his capital to -a very serious extent in order to meet the preliminary expenses of the -case. The Prince, his guest, must indeed miss no comfort in his house; -but in every other respect he enjoined the strictest economy on his -sisters. - -There were other things also to be thought of. The Prince’s ignorance -on many subjects was astonishing; his questions showed it. This was, -of course, natural in a native; but if he was to be a social success -in England, then, in spite of his age, it was necessary that he should -have some education. The Prince raised no objection. He had taken quite -a fancy to Miss Briscoe, who appeared at first in the character of a -guest at lunch, with no suggestion of the governess about her. A big -genial woman of fifty, with thick black eyebrows, and an indomitable -belief in the Christian fellowship of all men in this wonderful world, -she brought light into Dwala’s life. - -For it must be confessed that the Prince’s first impression of this -long-desired civilisation was one of disappointment. It was undoubtedly -dull in Mr. Cato’s house. Mr. Cato was out all day; and though his -aunt was a dear old lady in her way, and his sisters two of the most -charitable creatures in the neighbourhood, nobody would have called -them lively company for a Missing Link. The indoor life told upon his -health; the clockwork regularity of the daily round and the entire -absence of events reduced his spirits to the lowest depth. He had -been accustomed in his childhood to the happy vicissitudes of forest -life; to the pleasure of escaping thunderstorms and beasts of prey; -to the relief of calm sleep after weeks of storm-rocked trees; to the -wild delight after long hunger of finding more than he could eat. It -maddened him to hear these old ladies chattering over tiny pulsations -of monotony as it they were events; to hear them discussing the paltry -British weather under an impervious roof; to hear them talk of burglars -in the next parish as if they were tigers on the lower branches; to -learn that Julia’s quarrel with Mrs. Armstrong had ended in changing -her doctor, when he had pictured her tearing handfuls of fur out of -Mrs. Armstrong’s back. He longed to throttle the smug butcher who -brought the daily tray of meat, robbing life of all the pleasure of -desire. - -When he first arrived the Prince had been so easily amused. It was -enough for him to sit at a window and watch the men mending the road; -to follow the housemaid from room to room and see her make the beds; -to help to screw a leaf into the dining-room table; to dust Mr. -Cato’s books. It was, therefore, a great surprise to his host when he -blurted this out one evening. Had it been one of his nephews from the -country--his youngest sister married the Rector of Woolcombing--Mr. -Cato would have known what to do; he would have treated him to some -of those amusements which are provided for country nephews; taken him -to the British Museum, South Kensington, the Tower of London, or the -College of Mining in Jermyn Street; he would have contrived little -outings on omnibuses, ending with tea at an Aërated Bread shop. But the -Prince seemed too old for these things; the weather was bad; Mr. Cato -was busy, and he had determined to keep him at Hampstead till things -had settled down and he knew his proper social value. - - - - -IX - - -That was one of Mr. Cato’s chief preoccupations. What was the Prince’s -social station in England? How much deference might be demanded of the -world? Who were the people to whose company he had a natural right? One -must neither prejudice his future by assuming too low a value for him, -nor expose him to any rebuff by claiming too much. - -The question was one beyond Mr. Cato’s own competence. His thoughts -turned to his nephew Pendred. Not a country nephew this, with any -implication of humbleness. Quite the contrary; Pendred Lillico, -ex-Lieutenant of the Grenadiers, son of Mr. Cato’s half-sister, who had -married a hitherto obscure baronet in the days of her beauty. Pendred -was a dancing man, a well-known man, a pattern of manners, an arbiter -of fashions. They rarely met: Mr. Cato was secretly afraid of his -nephew; Pendred seldom had occasion to boast of his uncle. - -He arrived on his motor-car--small, fair, translucent, admirable. The -occasion suited him. Appreciation was his _métier_--appreciation of -frocks, laces, china, women, men. He knew hallmarks, pottery-marks, -marks of breeding, marks of coming success. Mr. Cato passed the morning -before his arrival in a restless state; he was nervous as to the -verdict. - -‘How much a year, do you say?’ asked Pendred, in his touching little -glass voice. - -‘Two thousand.’ - -‘H’m ... Borneo.... Can I see him?’ - -‘But that makes no difference, does it?’ - -‘It’s everything.’ - -‘But, surely dukes and millionaires aren’t estimated on their personal -value?’ - -‘Oh, once you get into big figures!’ - -‘But a man’s social value....’ - -‘Social value, my dear uncle, is human value.’ - -‘Well, I’m delighted to hear it.’ - -‘On two thousand a year, that is.... Well, let’s see your man. I think -I shall be able to give you an opinion.’ - -Prince Dwala was seated in an armchair in the library--nursing the -fire, remote, abstracted. So abstracted that he took no notice of -their entrance. Pendred put his head on one side and tried to sketch a -rough estimate; he was puzzled. He put his head on the other side and -attempted a new valuation. Mr. Cato touched the Prince on the shoulder. - -‘I’ve brought you my nephew to make your acquaintance.’ - -Dwala gave a long sigh and looked up. - -‘Nephew ... what’s a nephew?’ - -‘_This_ is my nephew,’ said Mr. Cato, presenting Pendred, who stepped -delicately forward, smiling, with hand extended. - -The Prince drew him towards himself. Then suddenly, without any -warning, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he took -him up in his arms and carried him to the light to make a better -examination. Mr. Cato stood petrified. Pendred lay perfectly still, -looking up with frightened blue eyes. Dwala seated himself on the edge -of the table by the window, and put Pendred on his knee. It was the -first finished product of civilisation that he had seen, perfect at -every point. He smelt him; he stroked his hair and ears; he felt the -fineness of his clothes; and growled a deep guttural growl of delight. - -‘I should like to have a nephew, too.’ - -‘Put him down, put him down,’ cried Mr. Cato, finding voice: ‘you -mustn’t treat Pendred like that!’ - -Dwala glided obediently off the table, set Pendred on a chair, and -crouched at his feet looking up. - -‘Does it talk?’ he asked. - -‘That’s right. Of course he does. Pendred’s a terrible chatterbox. -He’ll talk your head off.’ - -‘Please make it talk.’ - -‘How can he talk when you frighten him to death like that?’ - -‘Don’t be absurd, Uncle Wyndham,’ said Pendred plaintively: ‘I’m not -at all frightened, thank you.’ He pulled out his case of gold-tipped -cigarettes, and lighted one, at which Dwala growled again and clapped -his hands. - -‘Did you have a jolly voyage? I hear you were quite a lion on board. -Terrible long journey. Awful bore travellin’. What do you think of -England?’ - -‘Pretty voice! pretty voice!’ said the Prince, stroking one of his -little boots. ‘Will it eat? He pulled a biscuit out of his pocket and -put it up to Pendred’s lips. Pendred slipped his legs away and jumped -up. - -‘No, thanks awfully. I must be gettin’ home. People to tea. Awful -bore.’ And with this he bolted straight out of the door and through -the house to his motor-car, which was snorting and jumping up and down -outside, in charge of a man in shiny black surrounded by a crowd of -ragamuffins. He was half-way down the road when Mr. Cato emerged in -pursuit. - -The Prince sat by the fire, nodding his head in high spirits, and -ejaculating: ‘Awful bore! Awful bore!’ - -‘How dare you?’ said Mr. Cato, coming in a moment later, and shutting -the door behind him. - -‘Dare what?’ - -‘How dare you treat my nephew like that? Pendred! A gentleman! A future -baronet! Here am I, working my fingers to the bone to get justice -done to you--at it night and day, spending my substance, sacrificing -everything--and then, when I invite my nephew out here, who might have -helped you in your London career, you treat him like that! You drive -him out of the house--he even forgot his gloves.’ - -‘I liked him. I wanted to keep him.’ - -‘You treat him like a child, like a plaything, a doll. You forget that -he is a man.’ - -‘Is he a man?’ - -‘He was twenty-eight in June. Of course he’s a man.’ - -‘I didn’t know. He has no eye.’ - -‘No eye? What do you mean?’ - -‘Nothing here.’ The Prince moved his hand over his eyes. ‘Nothing -behind.’ - -‘I don’t know what you mean. Eye or no eye, I’ll beg you for the future -to be respectful to _everybody_, mind you--_everybody_, high or low. -Social position makes no difference. Now you’ve spoilt everything. -Pendred’s offended. He won’t come back. How can you get on if you -behave like that?’ - -Mr. Cato had heard of a man ‘having a leg,’ but never of a man having -‘no eye.’ It conveyed nothing to him. But the idea was clear and -even elementary to Dwala. Being a beast, endowed with no reason, -having only instinct and that μονὴ αἰσθήματος, or persistence of -impressions, which takes the place of reason in the lower animals, -he was incapable of the rational classification of natural things -which characterises the human outlook. His criteria of species were -distinct but illogical; his categories did not tally with human -categories; they fell short of them and they overlapped them. Species -was defined for him, not by the grouping of attributes, but by an -abstract something--a spiritual essence inherent in the attributes. -He was guided, to put it in philosophical terms, not by ‘phenomena,’ -but by ‘noumena.’ For instance, he knew a horse from a donkey, not by -its size, its ears, or its coat, not on consideration, but abruptly, -instinctively, round the corner, by an effluence of individuality; in -short, by its ‘equinity.’ So too, in the forest, he had always known -a venomous cobra from a harmless grass-snake at any distance, not by -considerations of form or colour--considerations which might often have -led to too late a conclusion--but merely by its ‘cobrinity.’ But this -attitude is liable to error; and Prince Dwala had been led astray by -it. His notion of the essence of humanity was formed from the men he -had first met; it was limited and imperfect. It included an element not -essential to humanity, this ‘eye’ of which he spoke: a thing difficult -to define; something revealed in the bodily eye; not exactly strength -of will or power to command; not entirely dignity or courage; some -reflection rather of the spirit of the universe, a self-completeness -and responsibility, a consciousness of individual independence. This he -had known and felt in the American, in the Soochings, in Mr. Cato, in -the housemaid--it was the basis of his respect and obedience; but it -was wanting in Pendred Lillico. - -It was fortunate that he was disabused of error so early in his career. -He could afford to laugh at his foolishness later--he saw what mistakes -of behaviour it would have led him into; for when he came to know -London better, he found that the mass of people, both in drawing-rooms -and slums, indubitably men, altogether lacked the ‘eye’ which he had -thought essential. - - - - -X - - -At breakfast next morning Mr. Cato groaned a good deal over his letters. - -‘Well, Wyndham, what does Pendred say?’ asked sister Emily. - -Mr. Cato frowned, and shook his head in a menacing aside, enjoining -discretion. - -‘I was afraid so,’ he said, after breakfast, when Dwala had retired -to the study fire. ‘Pendred is very pessimistic. Oh dear, oh dear! -And yet, who can say he is not right after the way he was treated? “I -am afraid that the same thing cannot be said of your _protégé_. Quite -apart from his rudeness to me--of which I will say nothing, if you will -do the same--it is evident that Prince Dwala is not a gentleman. Not at -present, at any rate. There is a _brusquerie_ about him which would do -very well in a Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern, but not in a deposed Borneo -Prince. He doesn’t know how to sit down; nor in fact what to sit on. -He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; all his movements are too -large, and, as Lady Hamish would say, ‘too conclusive.’” Pendred won’t -come to lunch on Tuesday--I was afraid not; he leaves town on Monday. -However, there is a ray of hope. It is really very generous of Pendred, -considering. It is certainly worth trying. “Gentlemen are made as well -as born. Captain Howland-Bowser acquired it because he was determined -to succeed; and now nobody would know he was not a gentleman, and in -fact a very fine gentleman, and received everywhere. Of course it is -a secret. I should never have known if Warbeck Wemyss had not told me -himself. Present the letter I enclose, and let him see that you mean -perfect discretion.”’ - -‘Who is Warbeck Wemyss? Not _the_ ...’ - -‘Of course.’ - -‘The actor?’ - -‘Gives lessons in manners, do you mean?’ - -‘But won’t it be very expensive?’ - -‘Of course Wyndham means the Prince to pay himself.’ - -‘Now Clara, once for all, let me hear no more of these hints. The -Prince shall _not_ pay. We have no right to expect it, poor fellow. We -have done very well without going to the country this year, and surely -we can manage to do it again. If the worst comes to the worst we can -move into a smaller house when the Prince leaves us. You must try to -be more economical; the bills come to far more than they ought to.’ He -closed the discussion by leaving the room. - -Warbeck Wemyss consented, on terms. It was a ‘wrench,’ as Traddles -would have said; but surely it was worth while. The lessons were -a great amusement for the Prince. The going out into the passage; -the entering the library, hat in hand; the surprise on Mr. Wemyss’s -part; the little interchange on health and weather; the play with -his monstrous gloves: the more elaborate lessons; introductions; -forgetfulnesses; the assumption of grave interest while a humble -Wemyss endeavoured to recall to him where they had met before; the -pretended dinners; the new words; the manner of gallantry; the manner -of confidence; the gestures and ejaculations of patience under a long -anecdote--a thousand situations which pictured a new and delightful -universe before his eyes. Dwala had the imitative faculty in -perfection; he almost cried with humble joy when Wemyss clapped him on -the shoulder, and assured him that he would make a gentleman of him in -no time. Mr. Cato was delighted with the teacher’s reports: a little -slapdash at first; rather random in the use of ‘rippin’’ and ‘awful -bore,’ but quicker progress than he had ever seen. - - - - -XI - - -Meanwhile there were other things to raise Mr. Cato’s spirits. -Parliament was back. The Government still held good, it is true, in -spite of all rumours to the contrary; but opposition is exhilarating. -Best of all, the Privy Council was in session. The Crown Officers, worn -out with long obstructive sittings, made a poor fight of it: a dispute -about a bit of land in Borneo was a small matter compared with the -fate of a historic party. The judges were favourably impressed by the -brusque appositeness of Mr. Cato’s counsel. - -When Mr. Cato came back one day in a four-wheeler instead of the -omnibus, his sisters knew that something extraordinary had happened. - -‘We’ve won!’ he cried, sinking, smiling and exhausted, into an armchair. - -Everybody shook hands with Dwala. - -‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said, pressing each hand delicately, and -laying his left hand on the top of it, in a graceful and engaging way -which Mr. Wemyss had taught him. ‘You’re very kind.’ But he had no -understanding of the news. Only at dinner, when a gold-necked bottle -of Christmas champagne was produced and they all drank his health, he -began to realise that it was something solemn and important. - - - - -XII - - -It was more solemn than anybody suspected. The news from the mines had -been good; but it was nothing to what it was going to be. When Mr. Cato -came home in the afternoon, two days later, he found a smart brougham -at the door. On the hall table lay a card: ‘Baron Blumenstrauss.’ The -famous Baron in his house! The drawing-room was empty. He went into -the library. There he beheld an elderly bald-headed Jewish gentleman -in a white waistcoat, with fat little purple hands clasping his spread -knees, gazing with baggy eyes through dishevelled gold pince-nez -at Prince Dwala, who lay back in an armchair, lids down, breathing -heavily. At Mr. Cato’s entrance, the visitor took off his pince-nez and -looked up. - -‘It iss an extra-ordinary ting,’ he said: ‘de shendlemann ’as gone to -sleep!’ - -The Prince awoke at this and leaned forward blinking. - -‘Pray continue. It is _most_ interesting.’ - -‘I am not used to ’ave my beesness bropositions receift in soch a way. -I am Baron Blumenstrauss,’ he said, turning to Mr. Cato, with gurgling -guttural r’s. - -‘Yes?... I am Mr. Cato--Mr. Wyndham Cato ... I ... I live here, you -know.’ - -‘Ah--sit down, Mister Cato. I ’ave read your speeches. You are cleffer -man; you ’ave ideas; wrong ideas, bot cleffer. What can I do wid a -shendlemann dat go to sleep when I make him beesness bropositions? I -offer to make him very rich man, he say “rippin’”; I say four hunderd -tousand pount a year, he shut his eye; I say _fife_ hunderd tousand -pount, he go to sleep.’ - -‘Five, hundred ... thousand ... pounds!’ ejaculated Mr. Cato faintly, -overwhelmed. - -‘Effery year.’ - -‘Why?’ - -The Baron winked ponderously, with an effort, and smiled with exquisite -penetration of Mr. Cato’s labyrinthine slyness. - -‘Nod for nussing!’ - -‘What is the proposition?’ - -‘Are you de shendlemann’s guardian?’ returned the Baron abruptly. - -‘Why no,’ reflected Mr. Cato: ‘I suppose I am not. But I’m his -principal adviser.’ - -‘Ah! I know.’ - -The Baron rose suddenly, snatching up his white-lined hat and lavender -gloves. - -‘Well, goot-bye, shendlemen. I haf laties wait for me at home. Adieu, -mon Prince.’ - -‘_Good_-bye, _good_-bye,’ said Dwala, with careful intonations: ‘I -hope you’ll look in again some time.’ - -‘Goot-bye, I leaf you to your books, your studies. Goot-bye ... Dis -vay?’ he appealed to Mr. Cato, moving towards the door. - -‘I’ll see you out.’ - -‘Goot! You haf charming leetle house. Man can see dat Madame haf -excellent taste.’ - -He stopped at the hat-rack, took down a hat and put it into Mr. Cato’s -hand, nodding and smiling. - -‘Put him on. You come wid me.’ - -‘I wasn’t going out.’ - -‘Come alonk. I make you beesness broposition.’ He hurried him down the -steps. ‘Leedle flower’s all dead,’ he said, half glancing at the wintry -garden. ‘Half-past seex,’ he added, looking at his watch. - -As they bowled along in the smooth brougham, night fell. The Baron -talked; Mr. Cato began to see dimly the gigantic outline of the thing -that he had done. His mind was still numbed with the vastness of big -figures; he hardly perceived the order in which things happened. The -Baron had drawn a paper from some recess of the carriage and put it -in his hand; he was fascinated by the purple unconscious forefinger -striding about it, and the continuous voice in his ear. It was a map, a -copy of the map of the Sooching forest made by the lawyers: ‘As shown -in the map appended hereto, and marked C,’ he repeated to himself. -Yellow squares, and circles and figures in black had grown on the bare -centre since he last saw it. The purple blood-gorged finger was running -rapidly from pit to pit; they were all full of gold, and the finger -was peeping and gloating and chuckling, planning schemes of union and -division, conquest and annihilation. The coachman’s steady back looked -in with its two silver eyes from the box, like the face of a giant -Fate, rumbling and gliding them to inevitable ends. - -The burst of a barrel organ brought him to everyday consciousness. The -Baron was still talking. - -‘“Are de Government mad?” said my friends to me. “Dey might haf taken -de whole ting wid deir retchiment of men; and dey let it all go to one -shendlemann. An’ now dere can neffer be a war for it; it is brivate -broperty. Dey leaf it to de Soochinks? Goot! Someday de Soochinks -rebel; dey oppose de Ettucation law, de Tynamite law, de Church law: de -Government take it away from dem. Goot! Dat is Bolitics. But dey have -made it Broperty: dere is no Bolitics wid Broperty. We shall see big -row. De Government will fall.”’ - -‘They have many things to answer for.’ - -‘It is solid gold!’ - -‘Ten thousand butchered Bulgarians lie at their door.’ - -‘Polgarrians? What are your ten tousand Polgarrians to me, ten hunderd -tousand Polgarrians, ten million Polgarrians? A tousand tons of solid -gold, I tell you. Dey know nussing, your Government. All de land is -one big reef. I haf known it tree munt, you haf known it, efferybody -haf known it; but de Government knows nussing, de Brivy Gouncil knows -nussing.’ - -‘Do you mean that the gold runs right across this map, where these -marks are?’ - -‘Natürlich.’ - -‘I never even guessed it.’ - -‘Is it a choke? Bah! Den why haf you made soch friends of de Brince?’ - -‘What’s your proposal?’ - -‘Wait!’ He put his head out of window and shouted to the driver: -‘Kvicker! Kvicker!’.... ‘I tell you at home. Haf a smoke?’ He held out -a fat cigar-case. - -‘No thank you.’ - -‘Take it! take it! Fifty pount a box.’ Mr. Cato still refused. - -Gates opened before them; they drove over a gravel court, and ascended -broad steps on a red carpet rolled down by footmen. - -‘To de English room.’ - -They flew through a monstrous hall, with three footmen after them; -fountains, palms, mosaics, tiles, pillars, galleries, lights; a -card-table, dwarfed by the vastness; card-players, lounging men, thin -contemptuous women smoking cigarettes. As they bowled rapidly by, the -Baron waved flickering red fingers: - -‘My exguses laties. Come along Max: beesness!’ - -A young Jew arose from the table, threw down his cards, made apologies, -and followed quickly. - -In the English room the Baron cast rapid gestures at the pictures on -the walls: - -‘Reynolds, Cainsborough, Dicksee, Constable, Leader, Freeth. Come -along, Max. Bring champagne,’ he said to the footmen. - -‘Not for me, thank you,’ said Mr. Cato. - -‘Goot! I will drink it mysailfe.’ - -They sat in a blaze of electric light, velvet, gold, Venetian glasses; -everything exhaled a fat smell of luxury. This was the stunning -atmosphere in which the Baron preferred to make his ‘broposition.’ -Papers flitted about the table; champagne and diamond rings flickered -before Mr. Cato’s eyes. - -The Baron planned an amalgamation, a monopoly; harmony and -understanding; big handling and cheap production; the sales regulated; -the market chosen; the rate of exchange manipulated. A mass of -companies, with different names, different directorates, even different -supposititious localities. - -‘If I call him Cato Deeps, and say he is in Mexico, who knows? who -cares? De enchineer? I pay him. De public? De diffidends are all in -Treadneedle Street.’ - -An oscillation of good reports and bad reports, share-prices going up -and down, with the Baron and his friends in the middle of the see-saw, -and money rolling to them from alternate ends of the plank. - -‘Gold is goot, but gompanies are better,’ he said. - -But the Baron must have a free hand; it amounted to a purchase, a -right to exploit. Everything depended on the Prince, and evidently the -Prince depended on Mr. Cato. For the one there waited the 500,000_l._ -a year in perpetuity, guaranteed on his own property; for the other, -directorships, fees, shares, pickings at every corner; a safe income of -at least ten thousand to be had for the asking. He had only to get the -Prince’s consent to the bargain. - -Mr. Cato flipped aside the personal question without a word. But for -the Prince? 500,000_l._ a year. No one could reasonably ask more of -life. Had he a right to refuse it? But these companies! tricks of -promotion! all the garbage of the money market. Had he a right to -accept it? He hesitated. - -The butler came in, and murmured in the Baron’s ear. - -‘Where?’ - -‘Just outside, sir.’ - -‘Gif him a smoke, and tell him to vait.’ - -‘Can I come in?’ said a voice at the door. - -‘Aha, cher Duc!’ cried the Baron with brazen-voiced, brutal _bonhomie_: -‘go to de pilliard room and vait.’ - -‘Can’t you spare a moment?’ - -‘Ne voyez-vous pas?’ The _bonhomie_ passed to imperial fierceness. ‘I -am peezy!’ - -‘Well?’ he said, as Mr. Cato still sat plunged in thought. ‘For you -it is leetle question--for de Brince, leetle question: it is me or -somebody else. Fife hunderd tousand pount, effery year.’ - -Mr. Cato still pondered. He thought he saw his duty clearing before him. - -‘Well? De Duke vaits; I vait. You impoverish de world: you widdraw me -from circulation. Is it Yes?’ - -‘No!’ said Mr. Cato, pushing back his chair. ‘It is No.’ - -‘Ah?... Who will manage de mines?’ - -‘The Prince will manage the mines. _I_ will manage the mines.’ - -‘Goot! You hear, Max? Dis shendlemann will manage de mines.’ - -Max only stared palely at Mr. Cato. The irony was too great for -laughter. He saw a man putting to sea on a plank, unconscious of the -deep voice of the gathering tornado; a child going out with a wooden -gun to make sport of an angry crowd of _sans-culottes_. - -‘Can I get a copy of the corrected map anywhere?’ asked the Child. - -‘Gif him de map, Max,’ said the Baron, with a short, indulgent laugh. -‘My secret achents haf brepared it, Mr. Cato. Gif him de figures, all -de papers. Let him haf efferyting. Goot-bye, Mr. Cato. See him to de -carriage, Max.’ - -‘I’ll walk, thank you.’ - -‘Better drive. Goot-bye.’ - -‘Good-bye.’ - -‘You will haf deeficulties, Mr. Cato.’ - -Mr. Cato went home by omnibus. His heart sank as he looked at the map, -divorced from the purple finger. - -There is lightheartedness in great conflict: we see the larger outline; -our forces are fed by the consciousness of it. A field of gold, still -in possession; a thing still to sell, if need be: it was an impregnable -position. But courage is needed after the battle; we see partially, at -short range. To have rejected a magnificent offer, to have so little in -its place--some papers, an idea, a consciousness that needed an atlas -to explain it. To have rejected the proposals of confident authority -creates a helpless mid-air terror; that is the power of religions. Mr. -Cato felt like a heretic of the Middle Ages, wondering, on the way to -the stake, if after all the Pope were not right. - -He went straight to his bedroom; walked up and down in his slippers, -lay awake for hours in long moods of elation and depression, and fell -asleep at last very cold. - - - - -XIII - - -The wheel had begun to turn. Nothing could stop it now. Next morning -came a fresh-looking elderly gentleman in grey, who announced himself -as ‘of the Colonial Office.’ He looked about him as if he meant to buy -the place; but modestly, as if for someone else. Mr. Cato received him -in the drawing-room. He hoped the Prince was well. The Colonial Office -had heard of the Prince’s improving fortunes. His business concerned -the Prince, but it could most conveniently be broached to Mr. Cato. He -would see the Prince afterwards. - -It had probably struck Mr. Cato that the time had now arrived for the -Prince to set up a separate establishment. The Colonial Office, which -was ultimately responsible for him, felt that Mr. Cato’s kindness must -not be trespassed on. He must not be allowed to monopolise the Prince. - -Mr. Cato had probably noticed that native potentates always had, what -you might call, for want of a better word, ‘keepers’ attached to -their persons while they were in England. The actual title varied. As -a rule it was some tall muscular military man who was said to be ‘in -attendance on His Majesty the So-and-so.’ It was this functionary’s -duty to keep him generally out of mischief; for these Oriental fellows -would play the very deuce if left alone. Well, as far as Prince Dwala -was concerned, the Colonial Office had decided that a Private Secretary -would meet the case, and they had in fact selected the man. - -‘Who is it?’ asked Mr. Cato, repressing a pang of jealousy. - -‘One of the Huxtables--John Huxtable, a son of the Bishop.’ - -This again smelt of large success. Mr. Cato knew nothing of this -particular John; but he was a Huxtable, and Huxtables are, like -Napoleon, not men but institutions. Nature has such caprices. Out of -many million wild rough briars, one rougher and crabbeder than all the -rest is chosen by her for a fathering stock; whatever is grafted on it -thrives. Another is richer, larger, better-flowered, the pride of the -field--it is wise, courteous, a soldier, a leader of men; it is made -a Duke; it is grafted with the delicatest buds of Paestum. But the -bloom is frail and mean; shelter and fine feeding avail not, it has -a good place in the garden, but it is fragrant only in its name. The -Huxtables came of a rough and crabbed stock. Their great-grandfather -was somebody’s gamekeeper. His sons throve in business. His grandsons -were great men--soldiers, lawyers, priests. His great-grandsons, an -innumerable rising generation, were destined for greater greatness. It -had become an English custom to see large futures before them. They -were big and bony, they played at Lord’s, they abounded in clubs and -country houses; their handsome, strong-toothed sisters married well, -breeding powerful broad-browed babies that frowned and pinched. - -This particular Huxtable had tutored a Prince of the blood. He had -been secretary to a philanthropic commission; he would be a Cabinet -Minister, a Viceroy--anything he pleased. For the present he would be -private secretary to Dwala: he would manage him, regulate him, assert -him, protect him, establish him, marry him perhaps, and pass on to -another broad stage in the regal staircase of his career. - -As for the mines, the gentleman in grey had no advice to offer. It was -a private affair of Prince Dwala’s; no concern of the Colonial Office. -Why not consult some big financier? Baron Blumenstrauss, for instance. - -Mr. Cato made no reply. - -‘Well, after all,’ the grey gentleman concluded, ‘it had better be left -to Mr. Huxtable.’ - - - - -XIV - - -The Huxtable came later--a terrifying young man, who said little, -but listened with a tolerant smile--and after him a host of others, -entailed by his plans for Dwala. A house had been found in Park Lane. -The owner, who was travelling in the East, had left the thing intact; -his creditors wished to sell it as it stood. The appointments were -passable; he had been a rather random collector of good things--some -rubbish must be weeded out and replaced, but there was nothing to delay -possession. - -However, it must be paid for. If Mr. Cato would produce his accounts, -the Huxtable would be glad to go through them with him. - -‘Oh, I have no accounts to show.’ - -‘Why not?’ - -‘Dwala has been my guest. There is nothing to account for.’ - -‘But the property in Borneo--you have an account of that?’ - -‘No.’ - -‘This is all very curious. A man has a fortune of some hundreds of -thousands a year, and no account is kept of it!’ - -‘But he hasn’t got it yet. It lies buried in the earth in Borneo.’ - -‘Yes; it consists of mines, I know. But, of course, the fortune was -realisable as soon as the Privy Council gave their decision.’ - -‘Well, it hasn’t been realised.’ - -‘But the decision was given a week ago. Do you mean to say it has been -_neglected_ all this time?’ - -‘“Neglected” is a piece of impertinence, Mr. Huxtable.’ - -‘A week’s income lost means something like 10,000_l._’ - -‘How dare you come to me--me, who has been toiling night and day in the -Prince’s interest--in this authoritative, censorious way--I, who am old -enough to be your grandfather--talking of neglect?’ - -‘You regard it as an aspersion? Well, and what are the results of all -your labour?’ - -‘I have secured him justice.’ - -‘Justice is a matter of law, Mr. Cato: the Privy Council has attended -to that. If you were incapable of realising his fortune yourself, -why not have applied to some big financier--Baron Blumenstrauss, for -instance?’ - -‘I have seen Baron Blumenstrauss.’ - -‘Well, what did he say?’ - -‘He made an offer. He volunteered to buy all the Prince’s rights for -500,000_l._ a year.’ - -‘Then, surely, you have realised it?’ - -‘No, sir, I have not.’ - -‘You don’t mean that you refused his offer? You weren’t expecting -anyone to offer more, I suppose?’ - -‘I refused his offer.’ - -‘On what ground?’ - -‘I regard Baron Blumenstrauss as an immoral man. I regard his business -methods as immoral. If I had accepted the offer on the Prince’s behalf, -I should have been advising him to lend himself to a vile system of -exploitation, which I regard as one of the most infamous curses of our -modern civilisation. I would rather see Dwala starve.’ - -‘You have taken a very great responsibility on yourself, Mr. Cato.’ - -‘I am quite willing to bear it.’ - -A smile flickered round the Huxtable’s nose, and Mr. Cato felt that he -was being betrayed into melodrama. Silence ensued. - -‘Your sentiments are very noble, Mr. Cato,’ said Huxtable at last. ‘I -should say that they did you every credit, if it were your own fortune -that we were talking about. But it is not. And if you think it over, -you will see that your conduct lies open to the very gravest criticism. -By a series of unusual circumstances you find yourself practically -master of the disposal of a vast fortune belonging to someone else. -Instead of accepting an excellent offer for the benefit of the person -whose interests you for some reason claim the right of defending, you -go off at a tangent in pursuit of your own political theories.’ - -‘Political theories?’ - -‘Yes, sir; political theories. Your views are well known. You regard -the ways of the money market as immoral; you preach saintliness in -the conduct of business; you think our social and financial system a -mistake; you are, in fact, opposed to our civilisation as you find it. -Those are your politics. Excellent! Charming! That is what makes your -speeches a success. Moreover, you have a perfect right to practise your -theories with your own property if you please. This Sermon-on-the-Mount -way of doing business would make you a delightful customer in the City, -no doubt. But when it comes to Prince Dwala’s affairs, the case is -different. You are in the position of a trustee.’ - -‘Then is a trustee to be without a conscience?’ - -‘Certainly not; that’s just the point. I wonder you mention it. A -trustee’s conscience ought to be a very delicate affair.’ - -‘Do you mean to insinuate that I have acted without conscience?’ - -‘I don’t insinuate it, sir; I say it straight out. You have acted -unconscientiously.’ - -‘You have the insolence to say that!’ cried Mr. Cato, jumping up, with -tears of fury in his voice. ‘You dare to sit there and tell me I have -no conscience; you ... you damnable young prig!’ - -The Huxtable sat with folded arms, looking at him coldly, -magisterially. This young untroubled man was the World, the -unrighteous, unanimous World, sitting in judgment on him. - -‘You don’t improve your case by losing your temper and being abusive,’ -said the World. ‘Your conscience, your whole conscience, should have -been bent on serving the Prince’s interests; it was your duty to divest -yourself of all personal theories, all prejudices, all principles, and -devote yourself only to getting the best price you could. You are not a -business man, and you had no right to experiment on the Prince’s behalf -with theories of business that never _have_ worked, never _will_ work, -and never _could_ work. Nobody will offer you a better price than the -Baron, because no one can afford a better price.’ - -‘Well, you have succeeded me. There are the mines intact. Go to the -Baron and get him to renew his offer.’ - -‘The Baron will not make the same offer again.’ - -‘How do you know?’ - -‘Because I have seen the Baron.’ - -‘You have seen him!... Then all this long discussion was a trap for me?’ - -‘You can call it a trap if you like, though I think the word is a -damaging one for you. I have seen the Baron, and he at once stated that -he washed his hands of the whole affair.’ - -‘But if his only motive is money, things are just as they were a week -ago. He can still make his money.’ - -‘You only expose your ignorance of the man you were so ready to -abuse--a man of unsullied reputation, by-the-bye. Money is _not_ his -only motive.’ - -‘What other motive has he?’ - -‘Pride.’ - -‘Him?’ - -‘Yes, sir; pride. When a man of that magnitude steps off his pedestal -and comes down to a suburban house to offer his services to a private -individual, he expects to be treated at least with consideration. He is -accustomed to dealing with Empires, Governments, National Banks; not -with obscure gentlemen in Hampstead villas. What happened? The Prince -fell asleep, and you gave the Baron a blunt rebuff.’ - -‘It’s not my business to keep Prince Dwala awake.’ - -‘It’s not your business to settle his affairs while he’s asleep. You -made an enemy of Baron Blumenstrauss.’ - -‘The Baron’s enmity to me is of no importance.’ - -‘Quite true; of no importance. But you made him the Prince’s enemy--an -enemy of the estate. He began negotiating against us at once, floating -companies over our head. He is omnipotent, and you turned him against -the Prince. His pride was hurt.’ - -‘Surely he can swallow his pride!’ - -‘No doubt; but not at the same figure. He offers only 400,000_l._ a -year.’ - -‘Well, what do you mean to do?’ - -‘I have accepted his offer.’ - -‘Ha!... I hope you made a good thing out of it?’ - -They both rose to their feet. - -‘In what way, Mr. Cato?’ - -‘There was, I suppose, some commission attached to the negotiation?’ - -‘No, sir; there was no commission. Baron Blumenstrauss knew me better -than to offer me any such thing.’ - -It was perfectly true. It would have been inapt. There were other ways -in which the Baron could discharge his debt of gratitude to a young man -with a great future. - -‘Where is the Prince?’ said Huxtable. - -‘What do you want with him?’ - -‘I am going to take him into London.’ - -‘His house isn’t ready.’ - -‘Yes, it is. Will you make out your bill?’ - -‘What bill?’ - -‘For the expenses of his keep.’ - -‘He has been my guest, I tell you.’ - -‘As you please. Where is he now?’ - -‘He has gone for a walk with his governess.’ - -‘I will wait for him.’ - -This imperturbable young man sat quietly down in an armchair and -cracked his thumb-joints. Mr. Cato looked at him with silent wonder, -and left the room. He envied the Huxtable his nerves: his own were in a -tumult; he could not have stayed with him a moment longer. - - - - -XV - - -Meanwhile Dwala, all unconscious, was standing on Parliament Hill, -with Miss Briscoe’s tall figure at his side. It must have been some -unwitting prescience which took them there that day. - -London lay at their feet: London, which Dwala had never seen; London, -where his life would lie from this day forth. Not the formless, -endless, straight-ruled London seen by the man in the street; not a -pervading, uniform, roaring, inevitable presence: but London apart; -in the distance; without sound; without smell; set to a foreground -of sun-beaten grass and a gambolling wind from the fields and seas; -a thing with a shape; a whole; bounded, surrounded, grim and grimy, -sprawling down the dishonoured valley; murky, random, ridged and -toothed, like the _débris_ of Ladoga’s ice, piled in the Neva by -December. - -Dwala laughed. - -It was a joke of a magnitude fitted to his monstrous mind. ‘Man is -the laughing animal:’ he had proved himself human. Behold, he had -worshipped Man and his inventions; he had come forth to see the -sublimest invention of all; he had travelled over half the world for -it; everywhere they spoke of it with awe. And now he had seen it. It -was London. - -The hill shook with his laughter. All the birds and beasts in the big -city heard it and made answer--cheeping, squeaking, mewing, barking, -whinnying, and braying together; forgetful, for the moment, of their -long debates on the habits of mankind, their tedious tales of human -sagacity, their fruitless altercations as to whether men had instinct -or were guided only by reason. - -The commotion escaped Miss Briscoe’s notice: she heard only one deep -guttural laugh beside her, and looking up, beheld a grave impassive -face. - -‘There is St. Paul’s: do you see, Prince? How grand it looks, watching -over the great city like a shepherd over his flock. “Toil on, toil on, -my children,” it seems to say: “I am here in the midst of you, the -Church, the Temple builded of the lowly Carpenter, with my message of -strength for the faint-hearted, consolation for the afflicted, peace -for all when the day’s task is done. Toil on, that the great work may -be accomplished at last.”’ - -‘Work? Ah, you may well say work,’ said a voice from the bench beside -them. - -An old man was sitting there; a handsome old man, with a strong, bony -face. His knobbed hands rested on the top of a walking-stick, his -chin on his hands. He wore the unmistakable maroon jacket and black -shovel-hat of the workhouse; corduroys clothed his lean and hollow -thighs. - -‘Bless you, there’s work for everyone as _wants_ to work. See that -chimney down there, that biggun? That’s Boffin’s, where I was. Three -and fifty years I worked at Boffin’s.’ - -‘Was it a happy life?’ asked Miss Briscoe. - -‘Happy? Bless you, the times I’ve had there when I was a youngster. -Always up to larks. There’s three of my grandsons there now.’ - -Miss Briscoe admired his furrowed, placid face. ‘Take this,’ she -whispered. - -The old man looked coldly at a shilling. - -‘No, thanky ... but if the gentleman has some tabacca on him, I could -do with a bit.’ - -As they neared the bottom of the hill, Mr. Cato came hurrying towards -them. There were tears in his eyes, and wet hollows in his cheeks. - -‘Well, Dwala my boy, I’ve brought you news. You’re going into London -to-night, to your new home.’ - -Dwala put up his face to the sky and laughed again. - - - - -XVI - - -Dwala was a social success, an object of multiple affection. His large -grave ways, his modesty, his kindliness, made him personally beloved. -He was, of course, always a ‘native’; there was no escaping that. But -to be tolerated, if you are tolerated everywhere, is social greatness. - -One thing he lacked, they said--the sense of humour. The tiny shock -that makes a human joke was too slight for his large senses. But -humour, after all, is a rather bourgeois quality. - -He was adopted from the beginning, pushed, trumpeted, imposed, -by that powerful paper the ‘Flywheel.’ He had captivated Captain -Howland-Bowser, its correspondent, at the first encounter. The -‘Flywheel,’ descending after a century, from its Olympian heights, into -the arena of popular favour--by gradual stages, beginning with the -great American ‘pill competition’--had put itself on a level with the -rest by adding a column of ‘Beau Monde Intime’ to its daily issue. The -thing was done on the old Olympian scale. The column was not entrusted -to a chattering magpie-newswoman, or to a broken-winged baronet, as is -the way with lesser sheets; but to an eagle of the heights--the famous -Captain Howland-Bowser, our modern Petronius, the Grand Old Man of -Pall Mall; the Buck from Bath, as envious youngsters called him; the -well-known author of ‘Furbelows’ and the ‘Gourmet’s Calendar.’ - -The fateful evening is recorded in his ‘Memoirs of a Man about Town,’ -that farrago of entertaining scandal, which proved a mine of wealth to -his sorrowing wife and family, to whom he bequeathed the manuscript -when he died, as a consolation for a somewhat neglectful attitude in -life: - -‘It was at Lady L----’s that I first met Prince D----, that “swart -monarch” whose brilliant career, with its astonishing _dénouement_, -made so much stir in 19--. I remember that evening well. We had supper -at the Blackguards; _homards à la Cayenne_ with _crème de crevettes_, -_cailles Frédérique_, _salade Howland-Bowser_, &c., &c. Tom Warboys -was there, gallant Tom; Harry Clarke, of Sandown fame; Lord F---- -(Mrs. W----’s Lord F----); R----, the artist; poor H----, who shot -himself afterwards; and a few others. W-rb-ck W-m-ss came in later, and -delighted the company with some of his well-known anecdotes. We formed -a brilliant little group in the dear old club--Adolphe was in his -zenith then. The Prince was in great form, saying little, but enjoying -all the fun with a grave relish which was all his own. R---- was the -only blemish in the galaxy; _il faisait tache_, as the volatile Gaul -would say. H---- was getting hold of him at the time to choose some -pictures for the Prince’s “’umble ’ut” in Park Lane. R---- raised a -general laugh at his own expense when I pressed him for an estimate of -Grisetti’s “Passive Resistance,” the gem of our little collection. The -knowingest men in London were agreed that it was not only one of the -wittiest pictures of the year, but the girl the man was kissing was the -most alluring young female ever clapped on canvas. R---- valued it at -twenty pounds--the price of the frame! We roared. It had cost a cool -two thousand, and was worth at least five hundred more. So much for -experts! He was very chapfallen the rest of the evening. - -‘However, _revenons à notre mouton_, as the gay Parisians said, -when the siege was raised and _bottines sauce souris_ went out of -fashion. It was at the supper-table that Prince D---- revealed that -extraordinary delicacy of perception which first opened your humble -servant’s eyes to what a pitch refinement can go. His manners, -by-the-bye, were unimpeachable: stately, and yet affable. _Non -imperitus loquor._ But the amazing thing was his palate. There are -delicate palates in London--though many who pose as “men of culture” -have little or none--but the delicacy of Prince D----’s was what I -should call “superhuman,” if subsequent events had not proved that this -extraordinary gift had, by some topsy-turvy chance, fallen to the lot -of one who, I suppose, after all, we must now acknowledge “sub-human.” - -‘I had just brought to what I thought, and still think, perfection, -a mixed claret, on which I had been at work a long time. The waiter -had his orders. “_Fiat experimentum_,” said I, and three bottles, -unmarked, were brought. Every one at table was given a liqueur glass of -each to taste. The company mumbled and mouthed them, and each one gave -a different opinion--all wrong. The poor “gamboge-slinger” admitted at -once that he didn’t know port from burgundy: I had suspected as much. - -‘“Well, Prince,” said I, “what’s your opinion?” To my astonishment I -saw that he hadn’t touched a drop. He sat quite still, leaning back in -his chair; his nostrils quivered a little. Suddenly he put out one of -his long fingers--his hands were enormous--and touched what I shall -call, for short, “Glass A.” - -‘“That is a good wine,” he said, “the same as we had at home night -before last.” He turned to poor H----. - -‘“Château Mauville,” said H----. - -‘“And that,” he said, touching Glass B, “is thin and sour; it smells -of leather. And that,” he said, touching Glass C, “is a mixture of the -two, and very good it is.” Saying which, he drank it off and licked his -lips. - -‘“Gentlemen!” cried I, jumping up; “this is the most extraordinary -thing I ever heard. Without tasting a drop, the Prince has guessed -_exactly_ right. It’s Château Mauville, which I have mixed--a sudden -inspiration which came to me one morning in my bath--with an inferior -Spanish claret, tinged with that odd smack of the wine-skin, which I -thought would fit in with the rather tea-rosy taste of the Mauville.” - -‘You can imagine the excitement which this event produced in that -coterie of _viveurs_. From that moment his success in London was -assured. The story got about, in a distorted form of course, as these -things will. I was obliged to give the correct version of it in the -“Flywheel” a few days later. - -‘It was I that introduced him to Lord X----, who had been complaining -for years that there wasn’t a man in town fit to drink his Madeira. -Trench by trench the citadel of public opinion was stormed and taken. -How well I remember,’ &c., &c. - - - - -XVII - - -Prince Dwala succeeded by other qualities than those attributed to him. -His wealth raised him to a high tableland, where others also dwelt; -it was not his fine palate which raised him higher, nor was it his -manners. His manners, in point of fact, were not perfect; his manner -perhaps, but not his manners. The finest manners were not to be learnt -in the school of Warbeck Wemyss, as he quickly perceived; that was -only a preparation, a phase. Captain Howland-Bowser, who believed his -own success to be due to that schooling, was mistaken; he underrated -himself: his success was greatly due to his fine presence, but still -more to the fact that his intelligence stood head and shoulders higher -than that of most of those with whom he was thrown into contact; and he -had confirmed his pre-eminence by his literary fame. - -Prince Dwala’s popularity was chiefly due to the zeal, the zest, the -frenzy, with which he threw himself into the distractions and pursuits -of the best society. He missed nothing: he was everywhere; wakeful, -watchful, interested. He was a dancing man, a dining man, a club man, -a racing man, an automobilist, a first-nighter. His dark head, groomed -to a millimetre, his big figure, tailored to perfection, formed a -necessary feature of every gathering. - -Nor did he hold himself aloof from the more serious pursuits of the -wealthy: he was at every meeting, big or small, that had to do with -missionary work, temperance, philanthropy; he visited the Geographical -Society, the Antiquaries, the Christian Scientists, and the lady with -the crystal globe in Hanover Square. - -He was up early, walking through the slums, or having his -correspondence read to him. Tired rings grew round the Huxtable’s eyes; -the Prince was as fresh as paint. He was studying ‘the Human Question.’ - -We will not follow him through all the details of his social life: -the limbo of frocks and lights, the lovely people, the unlovely, the -endless flickering of vivid talk, the millions of ideas, all different -in outline but uniform in impulse, like the ripples on the Atlantic -swell. We come at once to the great day when he met Lady Wyse. - -Strange that such a meeting should have marked the day for him as -great. Not strange that it should be so for you and me: for us it has -inner meanings, implications of success; it marks the grandeur of our -flight; it has high possibilities. Who knows but we may catch the fancy -of the lovely creature, be admitted freely to her familiar fellowship; -penetrate thereby to the very innermost arcana of the Social Mystery? - -But for him--a monster of the forest, an elemental being--that -happiness should date from his first meeting with a woman whom we must -call after all frail, the fine flower of all that is most artificial -and decadent in England: that was strange. But so it was. - -He had studied; he had seen; he knew the human question to the bottom. -But what to make of it? Was this all? Discontentment gnawed him. He -suffered a deprivation, as once in the forest, when he lacked Man. Now -he had had Man, to the full; he was sated. What more? - -Lady Wyse understood his want, and helped him to supply it. He must -reduce himself, limit his range to the human scale; he must put off -his elemental largeness and himself be Man; be less--an Englishman, a -Londoner. - - - - -XVIII - - -Lady Lillico’s evening was crowded. ‘This is quite an intellectual -party to-day,’ she said, shaking hands with Dwala and Huxtable, and -leading them down the avenue which opened of its own accord in the -forest of men and women. ‘Such a number of literary people. _How_ -do you do, Mr. MacAllister? It’s an age since we’ve seen you; and -this is your wife, isn’t it? To be sure. Let me introduce you to -Prince Dwala.... That was Sandy MacAllister, the author of “The Auld -Licht that Failit”--all about those dear primitive Ayrshire people; -everybody’s so interested nowadays in their fidelity and simplicity and -religiousness and all that. The Kirkyard School, they call it. It’s a -pity his wife’s so Scotch. Lord Glendover is here....’ - -‘Cabinet Ministers, Oho!’ said Huxtable. - -‘And Lady Violet Huggins, and the Duke of Dover, and Sir Peter -Parchmin, the great biologist, and Sir Benet Smyth, and _both_ the Miss -Dillwaters. And who else _do_ you think I’ve “bagged,” Mr. Huxtable?’ - -‘I can’t guess.’ - -‘Lady Wyse!’ - -‘Really? I congratulate you.’ - -‘Isn’t it splendid? She’s been so rude.’ - -‘Next thing I hear you’ll be having....’ - -‘S’sh.... General Wapshot, that fierce little man over there, came with -her; we didn’t ask him, but he always goes wherever she goes. And isn’t -it dreadful, Prince, I asked Wyndham to get Mr. Barlow to come--the -new poet, you know; and it turns out that he’s a pro-Boer too, and -_insists_ upon reciting his own poems? There he is at this very moment.’ - -In their course down the room they were passing the door of a smaller -apartment, given over for the evening to a set entertainment. They -could see a rumpled young man waving his arms in there; they caught a -whiff of him as they went by. - - ‘Theirs not to do or die! - Theirs but to question why!’ - -he was saying. - -‘I don’t know _what_ Mr. Disturnal will think; that’s him, there’--she -indicated a muscular ruffian with a square blue jaw, priest or -prize-fighter, one would have guessed, who was leaning against the -door-post listening over his shoulder with a sardonic smile. - -‘But, of course, you know all our celebrities already, Prince. He’s the -most coming man on the Conservative side, they say; a staunch upholder -of the Church, with all the makings of a really great statesman. It was -he who saved us only last week over the second reading of that dreadful -Prayer Book Amendment Act, by borrowing a pole-cat in Seven Dials just -in the nick of time, and hiding it in the Lobby, so that the supporters -of the measure couldn’t get in to vote. What a pity Julia isn’t here! -I’m sure he’s looking out for her. She’s just gone into the rest-cure; -quite worn out, poor thing. We live at a terribly high pressure, -Prince; people take life so seriously now. Oh, there’s the dear Duke -singing one of his delicious songs.’ They were passing the door again -on the return journey, and the ping-pang of a banjo came frolicking out -on the air with a fat voice lumbering huskily in pursuit: - - ‘Oh, I always get tight - On a Saturday night, - And sober up on Sun-day,’ - -sang the Duke. Laughter followed with the confused thunder of an -attempted chorus. Mr. Disturnal had shifted his other shoulder to the -door-post and was looking in, with open mouth and delighted eye. - -‘Isn’t it amusing?’ said Lady Lillico. ‘That tall man with the white -moustache over there is Captain Howland-Bowser, quite a literary light. -You know him? He married one of the Devonshire joneses; the Barley -Castle joneses, you know, with a small j.’ - -Pendred passed at this moment, with a hungry lady of middle years -hanging on his arm; he slapped the Prince familiarly on the shoulder -as he went by. The awkwardness of their first encounter had been quite -lived down by now. - -‘Oh, please introduce me!’ begged the lady. - -‘What, to the Prince?’ said Pendred. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t like him.’ - -‘I should _love_ him.’ - -‘He has a most repulsive face.’ - -‘I _love_ a repulsive face.’ - -‘He drinks like a fish.’ - -‘I _love_ a man who drinks. Oh, Mr. Lillico, we mustn’t be too -censorious about the conduct of great people; they are exposed to -innumerable temptations of which we know nothing.’ - -This was the famous Miss Dillwater, whose _métier_ in life was -loyalty--loyalty to every kind of Royal personage, but more -particularly to the unfortunate. From her earliest childhood her dreams -had been wholly concerned with kings and queens; in the daytime she -thought over the clever answers she would make to monarchs whom she -found sitting _incognito_ in parks, and pictured herself kneeling in -floods of tears when summoned to the palace the next morning. She had -pursued Don Carlos from hotel to hotel for years; and only deserted -his cause at last to follow King Milan into exile. Every spring she -returned to London to lay a wreath on the grave of Mary Queen of Scots, -and to conspire with other dangerous people for the restoration of -Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, our rightful monarch, to the throne of -England. Tears coursed down her cheeks when Pendred introduced her, and -it was a considerable embarrassment to the Prince when she seized his -hairy hand and pressed it fervently to her lips. She followed him about -the rest of the evening, with a melancholy smile on her wan face. - -‘Oh, Mr. Lillico,’ she said, in an aside to Pendred; ‘I can never thank -you enough. He’s wonderful. That great jaw! those big teeth! those long -arms! that brow! He reminds me of one of Charlotte Brontë’s heroes. I -do love a _man_!’ - -The Prince was one of the magnetic centres of the gathering; the -particles regrouped themselves as he moved about from place to place. -There was one moment when he was comparatively deserted; everyone was -crowding round a lady in black; angry cries issued from the group. Lady -Lillico hurried up to him. - -‘Pray come over here, Prince, and listen to what Miss Dillwater’s -sister is saying. She is about to reveal _the_ great secret about Guy -de Maupassant and Marie Bashkirtseff. She’s a great literary authority, -you know. I’ve not read anything by either of them myself as yet, but -I’m _deeply_ interested. We are all Bashkirtseffites or Maupassantists -now.’ - -But unfortunately, they were too late for the secret; they came in only -for the broken crumbs of it. - -‘I was Marie’s _greatest_ friend,’ Miss Sophie was saying; ‘and you -may depend upon it, what I tell you is true. _That_ is the reason why -they never married. I am a delicate-minded woman, and nothing should -have dragged this secret from me if I had not felt the overwhelming -importance of it to literature.’ - -‘The charge is false!’ bellowed a furious voice. - -‘The thing will have to be looked into.’ - -‘Well, whatever anyone says,’ cried a stout woman, ‘I never _have_ read -this Bashkirtseff lady’s diary, and I never _will_.’ - -‘And, pray, why not, Madam?’ snorted back an elderly gentleman. -‘Maupassant is a fraud! After what I have heard to-night, I disown him. -His books ought never to have been published.’ - -‘Hear, hear! And with him goes Zola, and all the rest of them. What do -you think, Lord Glendover?’ - -‘Oh, me? I never can see what people want with all these foreign -fellers. John Bull’s good enough for me.’ - -Attention was distracted at this point by a new interest which had -arisen on the outskirts of the group. Sir Peter Parchmin, the great -savant, the petticoat pet--he had made a fortune in fashionable medical -practice, but was forgiven it on his retirement, at fifty, in virtue of -his new claims as a researcher in biology--was wriggling faint protests -at the violence of a throng of ladies who were propelling him, with the -help of a tall octogenarian buffoon, towards the centre of the public. - -‘What’s up?’ - -‘Parchmin’s going to tell us the latest news about the Missing Link,’ -said the big buffoon. - -‘Oh, a story about the Missing Link!’ exclaimed Lady Lillico. ‘This -is most exciting. Sit down everybody, and let us hear it. I _adore_ -scientific things.’ - -‘Oh, what _is_ the Missing Link?’ said a young lady. ‘I’ve so often -heard of it, and wondered what it is.’ - -‘Well, ladies,’ said the Biologist, taking the centre, and reconciling -himself very readily to the situation. He fondled and smoothed his -periods with undulating gestures of the long sleek freckled hands. -‘You’ve all of you heard, no doubt, of Darwin?’ - -‘Oh, yes,’ everybody chorussed. - -‘What, Sir Julius Darwin, who bought Upton Holes?’ - -‘No, no, Lord Glendover,’ explained Lady Lillico, ‘one of the -Shropshire Darwins--a very well-known scientist.’ - -‘Ah!’ said Lord Glendover, sinking back and losing all interest. - -‘Well, when he traced the relationship between Man and the ... er, -Anthropoids....’ - -‘Oh, please don’t use technical terms, Sir Peter!’ cried Lady Lillico. -‘We’re none of us specialists here.’ - -‘Well, let us say the manlike apes ... when he had traced the -relationship, there was still one place left empty in the ... er ... so -to speak, in the genealogical tree.’ The Biologist emitted this with a -grin. ‘No remains have ever been found of the hypothetical animal from -which man and the apes are descended: and this link, which is still -lacking to the completeness of the series, has therefore been called -the Missing Link.’ - -A very young soldier, with a handkerchief sticking out of his sleeve, -leaned forward at this point, blushing deeply: - -‘Then do I understand you, sir, that we are not actually _descended_ -from monkeys?’ - -‘No, not actually descended.’ - -‘How very curious!’ - -‘Fancy! This is something quite new.’ - -‘They certainly ought not to have attacked Genesis till they were more -sure of their ground.’ - -‘How amusing of them to call it the Missing Link!’ - -‘Sort o’ pun, eh?’ - -‘But what’s the story, Sir Peter?’ - -‘I’m coming to that.... Now, we may roughly put the date of the Missing -Link from which we are descended at about three hundred million years -ago.’ - -An ‘Oh!’ of disappointment ran round the ladies. The representative of -the ‘Flywheel’ gave a ‘Humph!’ and walked off, to look at himself in -the glass. - -‘But wait a moment,’ said the Biologist. ‘Though improbable, it is -not impossible that the species from which, by differentiation, arose -men on the one hand and apes on the other, should have continued its -existence, _undifferentiated_, at the same time. And the rumour is that -there is at least one specimen of the race still alive; and, what is -more, that he was lately in the possession of an American, and on the -eve of being shipped to England for exhibition.’ - -‘What an extraordinary thing!’ - -‘It’s _too_ fascinating!’ - -‘Like those Babylonian hieroglyphics at the British Museum.’ - -‘Yes; or radium.’ - -‘Or that rhinoceros in Fleet Street.’ - -‘But how _old_ he must be!’ - -‘It is said that he escaped to the forest,’ continued the Biologist; -‘and his keeper lost all trace of him. We mean to raise a fund for an -expedition to find him.’ - -‘What’s the good of him?’ asked a surly man--one of the -Bashkirtseffites--abruptly. - -‘The good, sir? It would be the most important thing in Science for -centuries!’ - -‘What good will it do the community, I should like to know? Will it -increase our output, or raise the standard of comfort, or do anything -for Civilisation?’ - -‘Ha! now we’re getting into Politics,’ said Lord Glendover, rising, and -thereby giving an impulse which disintegrated Sir Peter’s audience. - -Howland-Bowser detached Prince Dwala from the group as it broke up, -and drew him aside, with an air of important confidence. - -‘If you go to the refreshment room,’ he said, ‘_don’t touch the -champagne that’s open_. Ask the head waiter--the old man with the -Newgate fringe; if you mention my name, he’ll know. It’s the ... ah ... -ha....’ - -While he was speaking two figures emerged vividly from the mass, coming -towards and past them. Eyes darkened over shoulders looking after them. -The straight blue figure of a smooth slender woman, diffusing a soft -air of beauty and disdain; and half at her side, half behind her, the -Biologist, sly and satisfied, hair and flesh of an even tawny hue, -the neck bent forward, equally ready to pounce on a victim or suffer -a yoke, balancing his body to a Lyceum stride, clasping an elbow with -a hand behind his back, bountifully pouring forth minted words and -looking through rims of gold into the woman’s face, as it were round -the corner of a door, like some mediæval statesman playing bo-peep with -a baby king. - -Lady Lillico was pursuing with tired and frightened eyes. - -Howland-Bowser cleared his throat and shifted his weight on to one -gracefully-curving leg. Lady Lillico had caught them in their passage. - -‘Oh, Lady Wyse,’ she said, with a downward inflection of fear, as if -she had stepped in a hole, ‘may I introduce Prince Dwala? Prince Dwala: -Lady Wyse.’ - -The blue lady’s eyes traversed Howland-Bowser in the region of the -tropics with purely impersonal contempt; he outlined a disclamatory -bow, and fingered his tie. The eyes reached Dwala and came to anchor. - -‘Oh, you’re the Black Prince,’ said Lady Wyse; ‘the Wild Man from -Borneo that everybody talks about?’ - -Lady Lillico quailed, and vanished through the floor. Howland-Bowser -looked round the room, chin up, and walked off with the air of an -archdeacon at a school-treat. - -‘How delightful!’ pursued the insolent lady slowly. ‘Of course you’re a -Mahommedan, and carry little fetishes about with you, and all that.’ - -Her eyes were directed vaguely at his shirt-studs. Looking down from -above he saw only the lids of them, long-lashed and iris-edged, -convexed by the eye-balls, like two delicate blue-veined eggs. She -raised them at last, and he looked into them. - -It was like looking out to sea. - -She looked into his: and it was as if a broad sheet of water had -passed swiftly through the forest of her mind, and all the withering -thickets, touched by the magic flood, had reared their heads, put forth -green leaves, blossomed, and filled with joy-drunk birds, singing -full-throated contempt and hatred of mankind. The energy to hate, -seared with the long drought of loneliness, was quickened and renewed -by this vision of a kindred spirit. - -For she too was a monster. Not a monster created, like Dwala, at one -wave of the wand by Nature in the woods; but hewn from the living rock -by a thousand hands of men, slowly chipped and chiselled and polished -and refined till it reached perfection. Every meanness, every flattery -that touched her had gone to her moulding; till now she was finished, -blow-hardened, unmalleable; the multiplied strokes slid off without a -trace. - -Her position was known to all; there was no secret about it. The great -blow that had severed the rough shape from the mass was struck, as -it were, before the face of all the world. They might have taken her -and tumbled her down the mountain side, to roll ingloriously into the -engulfing sea. Instead of that they had set her on a pedestal, carved -her with their infamous tools, fawned round her, swinging Lilliputian -censers, seeking favour, and singing praise. - -She was a monster, and no one knew it. And now at last she had met -an equal mind: her eyes met other eyes that saw the world as she saw -it--whole and naked at a glance. There was no question of love between -them; they met in frozen altitudes far above the world where such -things were. They were two comets laughing their way through space -together. - -All the Biologist saw was an augur-smile upon their lips. - -‘Come along,’ said Lady Wyse, slipping her white glove through Prince -Dwala’s arm. ‘Let’s get somewhere where we can talk.’ - -‘Then what becomes of me?’ grinned the insinuating savant. - -‘Oh, you?’ said the lady. ‘You can go to the devil!’ - -Captain Howland-Bowser looked enviously after them as they left the -room. - -‘Your Borneo Prince has made no end of a conquest, Baron,’ he said, -finding Blumenstrauss--whom he hated, by-the-bye--at his elbow. ‘H’m! -H’m!’ - -‘Aha, my dear Bowser, wid nine hunderd tousand pount a year one can do -anysing.’ - - * * * * * - -What they could have to say to one another in the window-seat, no one -could imagine. They were neither of them great talkers; everybody knew -that. Yet there was Prince Dwala, with his grave face tilted to one -side, eagerly drinking in her words, answering rapidly, decisively; and -Lady Wyse giggling like a school-girl, blinking away tears of laughter -from her violet eyes. Such a thing had never been seen. How long had -they known one another? Never met till this evening. Nonsense; he’s -there every afternoon. - - * * * * * - -Whatever the subject of the duologue may have been, the effect of it -on Lady Wyse was of the happiest kind. She was metamorphosed; radiant, -and, for her, gracious; transfused with life, she seemed taller and -larger than before. - -The Huxtable’s grim face was wreathed, in spite of him, in smiles; a -flush of pleasure peeped out from under his bristling hair as Lady Wyse -stopped Dwala before him and demanded an introduction. - -‘I’ve heard of you so often, Mr. Huxtable. My father knew your uncle -the Judge. I hope you’ll come to some of my Thursdays.’ - -The scent of her new mood spread abroad like the scent of honey, and -the flies came clustering round her. Chief among them Lord Glendover, -the Cabinet Minister, who had made four remarks in the course of the -evening--all of them foolish. Tall, lean, hairy, brown and grizzled, -he was one of those men who, though neither wise, clever, strong, nor -careful, convey a sense of largeness and deserved success. He would -have been important, even as a gardener; he would have ruined the -flower-beds, but could never have been dismissed. His only assessable -claim to greatness lay in the merit of inheriting a big name and -estate. He was, in point of fact, quite stupid; but his opinions, -launched from such a dock, went out to sea with all the impressiveness -of Atlantic liners, and the smaller craft made way respectfully. - -Sir Benet Smyth winged after him, buoyant with the grave flightiness -of diplomacy, and luminous with the coming glory of his tour of the -Courts. For the Government, despairing of reforms in the army, was -meditating a wholesale purchase of foreign goodwill, a cheap scheme -of national defence, founded on the precept, _les petits cadeaux font -l’amitié_. The details were not yet made known, but rumour had it for -certain that the Spanish Infanta was to get the Colonelcy of the Irish -Guards, the Mad Mullah was to get the Garter, and President Roosevelt -was to get Jamaica. It was also said by some that the Government was -going to strike out a new line in honorary titles by making the Sultan -of Turkey Bishop of Birmingham: but this was not certain. - -Sir Benet and Lord Glendover sat down with Dwala, the General, the -Biologist, the Baron, and Huxtable, in a semi-circle centring on Lady -Wyse. - -‘We’ve been wondering, dear Lady Wyse,’ said the Biologist, ‘what was -the subject of your engrossing conversation with the Prince.’ - -‘I can guess de sopchect,’ said Baron Blumenstrauss. ‘It was loff ... -or beesness.’ - -‘You were so animated, both of you.’ - -‘Den it was bote. De Breence would nod be animated by beesness, and de -laty would nod be animated by loff!’ - -‘Ha, ha!’ said Lord Glendover, vaguely discerning the outline of an -epigram; ‘that’s a right-and-lefter.’ - -‘You’re quite right, Baron,’ said Lady Wyse: ‘it was both. We’ve -been making a compact, I think you call it. The Prince puts himself -unreservedly into my hands. I’m to do whatever I like with him.’ - -‘Gompacts ...’ began the Baron, and broke off. - -The Biologist looked as if he would like to kick him, but lacked the -physical courage. - -‘I’ve been telling the Prince he’s too modest,’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘P’r’aps you didn’t lead him on enough,’ suggested the diplomat; at -which the Biologist vented a sickly grin, and Lady Wyse hit him very -hard with her fan. - -‘Too modest about himself, I was going to say, if I had a chance of -ending my sentences with all you wags about. A man of his talents -oughtn’t to be contented to loaf about doing nothing. He might be -anything with his intellect--a great writer, or a scientist, or a -diplomat, or a financier.’ - -‘Or a tinker or a tailor, or a soldier or a sailor,’ said the Biologist. - -‘Do you think that I’m joking, you idiot?’ said Lady Wyse, emitting a -cold shaft of light that went to his backbone. - -‘No, of course not, dear Lady Wyse! I was only thinking....’ - -‘Soldier or sailor--confound you, sir!’ said the little General -fiercely. ‘There’s no need to drag in the services.’ - -‘No, no,’ said Lady Wyse: ‘we were talking of intellect.’ - -‘One isn’t a scientist by wishing it,’ said the Biologist. ‘One has to -go through the mill. Besides....’ - -‘Well, a diplomat, then. He’d look sweet in a cocked hat.’ - -‘Ah, no really, Lady Wyse, I pro-test,’ said Sir Benet; ‘you don’t know -what a grind one has.... Besides....’ - -‘Ah! I forgot,’ said Lady Wyse, playing with her fan. ‘Prince Dwala’s a -black. Isn’t he what’s called a black, Sir Benet?’ - -‘Well, really, Lady Wyse!’ - -‘Don’t mind me,’ said Dwala. - -‘No, no!’ interposed the Biologist: ‘it’s quite a misuse of terms -I assure you. The word is applied loosely to Africans; but it is a -mistake to use it in speaking of the Archipelago. The Soochings, as I -understand, belong to the Malayan family, with a considerable infusion, -no doubt, of Aryan blood. “Dwa-la,” “Two Names,” is practically Aryan. -So that the Prince belongs, in point of fact, to the same stock as -ourselves. In fact, Lady Ballantyne mistook him for an Englishman....’ - -‘She’s as blind as a bat,’ said Lady Wyse. ‘Still, black or white, he -belongs to a very old family.’ - -‘One of the oldest in the world,’ said Dwala. - -‘Well, never mind. Shall we make a writer of him? I’m sure that doesn’t -require any preparation.’ - -‘Ha, ha, that’s good!’ bellowed Lord Glendover. ‘Here, -Howland-Bowser’--he beckoned the journalist, who was hovering near the -group. ‘Lady Wyse says any fool can be a writer.’ He gripped him by the -biceps, presenting him. - -‘You know Captain Howland-Bowser, don’t you, Lady Wyse, our great -literary man?’ - -‘No,’ said Lady Wyse, looking calmly at her fan: ‘never heard of him.’ - -‘Aha, Bowser!’ said the Baron, with a nod. - -The Captain withdrew in good order, discomfited but dignified. - -‘You’re very discouraging, all of you,’ pursued the great lady. ‘I -suppose the Baron is now going to tell me that you have to study for -twenty years before you can set up as a money-lender.’ - -‘Dere is only one brofession,’ said the Baron thoughtfully, ‘where one -can be great man widout knowing anysing; bot it is de most eenfluential -of all.’ - -‘What’s that?’ - -‘Bolitics.’ - -‘Capital!’ said Lady Wyse. ‘We’ll put Prince Dwala in the Cabinet.’ - -Lord Glendover rose from his chair at this, in what might almost be -called a ‘huff.’ His gaunt, important face hung over the group like the -top of an old Scotch fir. - -‘I don’t know whether this sort of thing is thought funny,’ he said, -putting up his large mouth to one side to help support the eye-glass -which he was busy placing. ‘But if you imagine, Baron Blumenstrauss, -that men are entrusted with responsibility for the welfare of -thirty-eight millions of human beings without the most careful process -of selection, you are most confoundedly mistaken. I never heard such -a statement! You’d like to have an entrance examination instituted for -Cabinet Ministers, I suppose?’ - -‘Excellent ideea!’ said the Baron. - -‘Sit down,’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘Then all I can say is ... you’re an Anarchist! I’ve served my country -for forty years,’ he pursued, in a voice broken with emotion, resuming -his seat. ‘When I came down, a bright young boy, from Oxford, instead -of running about amusing myself, as I might have done, I slaved away -for years in an Under-Secretaryship....’ - -‘This is all in “Who’s Who,”’ said Lady Wyse. ‘We’re talking about -Prince Dwala now.’ - -It was embarrassing and even painful to the smaller quantities of the -group to see that great noble child, Lord Glendover, being shaken up -and dumped down in this unceremonious way. The diplomat played with his -hat, while Huxtable and the Biologist kept very still, with their eyes -on the ground. Dwala himself might have been looking on at a game of -spillikins for all the interest he showed. - -‘Cabinet Meenister is beeg to begeen?’ propounded the Baron tentatively. - -‘It’s impossible!’ murmured Lord Glendover. - -‘I don’t know whether you clearly understood what I said about a -“compact” just now,’ said Lady Wyse, sitting back, beautifully inert, -with her hands in her lap. ‘It’s meant to be taken quite literally. The -Prince and I have entered into an offensive and defensive alliance. -Whatever we do, we do in common. We have decided that he is to be -a Cabinet Minister. You see? If it’s impossible, make it possible. -You understand me now, no doubt? I’m pretty clear. You’ll have to -exert yourselves, all of you.’ Her eyes travelled slowly from face to -face, looking in turn at Lord Glendover, the Diplomat, the Baron, the -Biologist, and Huxtable. - -‘Yes, you too, Mr. Huxtable.’ - -Then she suddenly yawned a cat-like yawn, and sauntered forth to where -Lady Lillico stood. - -‘Good-bye; I’ve had a charming evening. Is this your boy?’ - -‘Yes, this is Pendred.’ - -‘He looks very presentable.’ She nodded and passed on. - -Lord Glendover and the Diplomat still sat in their places when the -little group dispersed. Lord Glendover rubbed his knees. Their eyes met -at last, with the sly surprise of two naughty boys who have just had -their ears boxed; smiling defiance, altruistically--each for the other; -inwardly resolving to incur no graver danger. - -Lord Glendover had only one tiny grain of hope left; he was uneasy till -it was shaken out of the sack. He caught Lady Wyse near the door. - -‘Do you know that Prince Dwala isn’t a British subject even?’ - -‘Isn’t he? Make him one.’ - -‘How am I to make him one?’ - -‘Oh, the usual way, whatever it is. Find out.’ - -In the next room she was stopped again. The Biologist came writhing -through the grass. - -‘I’ve thought of a little plan, dear Lady Wyse, for starting Prince -Dwala on his political career.’ - -‘Have you? I hope it’s a good one.’ - -‘First rate. Our member, Crayshaw--he sits for London University, you -know....’ - -‘Hang the details! Ah, there he is!’ - -Prince Dwala, with his henchman at his side, was lying in wait for Lady -Wyse by the second door. - -‘Take the ugly duckling away,’ said Lady Wyse; ‘I want to talk to the -Prince.’ - -The Biologist buttonholed poor Huxtable and walked him off. Dwala and -Lady Wyse stood face to face again. - -‘Well?’ she said. - -‘Well?’ he answered. - -They remained for some time in a large, light, comfortable silence. - -‘I’d been looking forward to another talk with you,’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘Had you?’ - -‘But I see that we really have nothing to say to one another.’ - -‘Absolutely nothing.’ - -‘And never shall,’ she added. ‘It wouldn’t matter if we never met -again.’ - -‘Not a bit.’ - -They stood looking brightly at one another for a minute or two. - -‘What fun it is!’ - -‘Grand!’ said Dwala. - -She nodded and went home. - - - - -XIX - - -Hitherto, Dwala had been great, but great only in the relative sense, -in comparison with you and me and the Man in the Street; great to the -capacity of a vast austerely-fronted house in Park Lane; overwhelming -for us on the pavement who fancy him within, infusing that big block -with a huge cubic soul; who catch glimpses of him whirling out of -the big gates to take tea, no doubt, with Ambassadors and Duchesses, -and whirling in again with some real live Royalty--so rumours the -little crowd outside as the stout policeman touches his helmet. Not -immeasurable, however, to the big-calibred folk who eat with him, -talk with him, see him starting on routes of acquaintance which they -have long since travelled: even to Huxtable, mere man, a calculable -quantity. - -But a new movement was beginning, an upheaval; volcanic forces were -at work; the throes of earthquake, striking premonitory awe into the -hearts of men, presaged a rearrangement of geography. And slowly the -Great World became aware that a new mountain was rising in its midst. - -The Dwala Naturalisation Bill, introduced in the Lords, had run a -calm and rapid course, and Dwala was an Englishman. The journals -recorded it without exultation: it was placed among the ‘Items of -Interest’ in the ‘Daily Mail.’ But soon there followed articles on -his scientific interests: it appeared that he was already an eminent -philatelist; Huxtable had bought big stamp-collections for him at the -sales--Huxtable had innocent tastes which he was now able to enjoy by -proxy. The Prince was interested in Antarctic Exploration--at least, he -had signed a cheque for a thousand pounds for the Relief Expedition; in -astronomy, too, for he had promised a new telescope to the Greenwich -Observatory. His claims to represent Science in Parliament--since he -had decided to go into politics--were indisputable; and there was -ground for the rumour that London University had settled upon him -for their representative, provided that one or two stipulations were -fulfilled. If not, the Government had a safe seat for him in Cornwall. - -His private life became a matter of public interest. He had bought -Wynfield Castle in Yorkshire; he was fitting it with lifts and electric -light; the Saharan Emperor had promised to come over for the shooting -next autumn; Sir Benet Smyth, who had arranged the visit, would be -there. There was no truth in the rumour of his engagement to Lady -Alice Minnifer, Lord Glendover’s daughter; the rumour was at any rate -premature. - -Politicians began to frequent his ways: he was not destined to be an -ordinary humdrum Member, paying a heavy price to be driven in and -out of lobbies by a sheep-dog; he was going to be a power. Of what -nature, nobody knew exactly; his opinions could only be guessed. -That mattered very little. All the public has to do is to get the big -man and plant him in office; party discipline will do the rest. There -were fifteen parties in Parliament, and only two lobbies for them to -vote in; leaders with opinions were a drug in the market; better the -large unifying vagueness of a mind with none. Why he was to be great -no one clearly knew; the fiat had gone forth from some hidden chamber -of the citadel; or it had descended inscrutably from heaven, or risen -on the breath of the sweating multitude: anyhow, there was a general -agreement of unknown origin to magnify the name of Dwala. These things -are mysterious, and the responsibility cannot be fixed till the time of -recrimination comes. - -Huxtable was happy. Well he might be, lucky dog! His uncles smiled and -slapped him on the back in public in their big successful way. Lady -Glendover remembered his face; Pendred Lillico went about boasting that -young Huxtable had been his fag at Eton. These things were pleasant to -the Huxtable mind; pleasant also the graciousness of Lady Wyse, who -distinguished him at her Thursdays above his betters in the social -hierarchy. - -Yet there were things in Park Lane that he could have wished different. -Of course he had done what he could to the right human furnishing of -the big house; he had secured his patron the necessary atmosphere of -awestruck service, silent efficiency and unassuming pomp. There was -the stout butler, who looked like a conscientious low-church Bishop -left over from a dinner-party, eager to please but uneasy at finding -himself still there. He went about the house silently in flat slippers, -seeking a clue to his identity, and looking out of window from time to -time, as if he meditated escaping in search of his See. Tall scarlet -footmen, with white legs, borrowed from some giant balustrade: stately -animals, ‘incedingly upborne,’ like Vashti in ‘Villette’--alert but -always perpendicular, eager as midshipmen to the domestic call, -blighting visitors at the entry with the frigid consciousness of social -difference. For the rest of the economy, invisible hands and watchful -eyes; she-brownies that came and went unseen; bells that rang in -distant corridors, summoning punctual feet to unknown observances; -green-baize doors that swung and hid the minor mysteries of the great -life. - -These things were good. But what of Hartopp and the little girl? - - - - -XX - - -Huxtable’s advertisement in the ‘Morning Post’ had brought applications -from 130 valets. It brought also a letter from a country clergyman, -beseeking another chance for Prosser--ex-burglar, son of a country -poacher, a reformed character--lately returned to his father’s humble -home in penitence from Portland, after five years of penal servitude. -The blameless, colourless remainder had no chance against him. Dwala -was delighted. Prosser came--a little pale man, trim and finicking, -with shining eyes; nothing of the brutal house-breaker in him; a man -of patient, orderly mind, who had gone to Burglary as another man -might go to the Bar, because he had ‘influence,’ and no aptitude for -any other calling. With his father to back him, he had a connection -ready-made among the ‘fences,’ or receivers of stolen goods. He had not -thought himself justified in throwing away such chances with a wife and -child to keep. He studied the arts of valeting and butlering; entered -gentlemen’s houses with a good character from a friendly ‘fence,’ and -left them with the jewellery and plate, till he was lagged over a -wretched little job in the suburbs, and taken to Portland Bill, where -one of his mates--a fraudulent low-church company-promoter--converted -him and showed him the wickedness of what he had been doing in all its -coarse enormity. - -His wife had gone to the bad during his absence, and the little -girl had been adopted and cared for by another friendly ‘fence’--an -afflicted villain of the name of Hartopp. So much he had heard; but -he had not enough the courage of his new innocence to go into that -dangerous neighbourhood to find her. - -Dwala elicited these facts in cross-examination. He was deeply -interested in this new side of life; and we must, perforce, follow him -into it, though it has little apparent relevance to the present course -of the story. - -For Dwala’s political eminence is a ‘set piece’ which took some time -in the preparing; and in order to give the stage carpenters time to -get through with their work, it is convenient at this point to get -done with one or two necessary ‘flats.’ Besides, the social heights to -which Fate brought him are giddy places for those who have not strong -and accustomed heads, and it is safer to descend now and then and amble -in the plain, among the greasy multitude that crawls so irrelevantly -below--despicable to the mountaineers, who look down and mark the -wind-borne cheers, risking their heroic lives at every step among the -precipices, yet asking nothing more of the valley than a distant awe, -and a handful of guides and porters, with baskets of meat, well-filled, -and topped with bottles of good champagne. - -Prosser passed under the trees to Hyde Park Corner, bound on his daily -walk. His eyes were bright, and the world swam by as unimportant as a -dream; for Prosser, in the respectable seclusion of his room, had taken -to drinking--steady drinking day by day, without resistance or remorse. -Life, to which he returned from jail with such hungry imagination, -had suddenly revealed itself to him in its ugly arid nakedness: his -conversion and good resolutions had stripped it of all its meaning; -now it was an old worn billiard-table, with no balls or cues to it; -cumbering the room, importunately present, grim and terrible in its -powers of insistent boredom. To hide from it--to crouch and hide with -his head between his hands, against the dirty floor--that was the only -resource since he had renounced the game and sent the balls away. He -drank and was happy; not actively happy, but deviating this way and -that into dreamy vacancy and strong disgust, escaping the awful middle -way of boredom. He felt his control going, and he smiled triumphantly -at the coming of his hideous mistress. Often he thought of walking into -the servants’ hall and boasting of his secret. But the coarse activity -of real life dispelled the longing as soon as he neared his audience. -He remained trim, upright, and serenely deferent, with shining eyes -and pursed dry lips. - -At Hyde Park Corner a little crowd was gathered about a musician--an -old man, with a leg and a half and a crutch, and a placard ‘BLIND’ on -his chest. He had just finished a last shrill _bravura_ on the penny -whistle. A respectable wet-eyed girl in black went round with a bag and -collected money. - -‘_Pity_ the poor blind!’ shouted the musician in a sudden angry -imperative. - -Prosser wagged his head in a soliloquy of recognition; and gazed -giddily at the little girl. - -‘Nobody got a penny for the poor blind?’ asked the angry voice. - -‘’Ark at ’im,’ said a woman. ‘Why, the gal’s got a nole ’at full!’ - -‘What girl?’ said the old man sharply. - -At that moment the girl dodged through the little crowd and -disappeared, bag and all, down Piccadilly. - -‘Stop her! stop her!’ cried one or two ineffective voices. - -The old man dashed his penny whistle angrily on the ground, buried his -face in his hands, turned to the wall, and broke into shoulder-shaking -sobs. - -‘What, ain’t that your gal?’ asked a compassionate stout man in black, -with a worn leather bag, touching him gently on the heaving shoulder--a -dentist from the slums, one might guess him at. - -‘Small girl in black, was it?’ asked the blind man. - -‘Yes, I think so. I didn’t exactly notice.’ - -‘Sort of orphan-looking girl, very quiet?’ - -‘Yes, that’s her.’ - -‘That girl’s a----little blood-sucker!’ said the old man. ‘Wherever I -go, there’s that girl comes and collects the coppers kind people mean -for me. Leave me alone, all of you! Clear out! I’ve broke my whistle -now, and haven’t a copper to get another, let alone a crust of bread -these three days.’ - -‘What a shime!’ commented the crowd. ‘Call ’erself a gal! I’d gal ’er! -A reg’lar little Bulgarian, that’s what she is!’ - -‘Now, then, move on there,’ commanded a big policeman, bearing down on -the crowd, confident in his own broad momentum, like a punt among the -reeds. ‘What’s all this?’ - -‘They’ve been robbin’ a pore blind man, that’s what it is,’ said the -benevolent dentist; at which the policeman rounded on him sharply with -extended, directing arm. - -‘Now then, _you_ move on there!’ And the dentist retired submissively -in the direction indicated, hovering in safety. - -A benevolent, bent old gentleman, lately helped by the porter down the -steps of one of the big bow-windowed clubs, came hobbling up on three -legs, and stopped and asked questions. The policeman saluted. The -little crowd closed round them; the black helmet in the midst leaned -this way and that, arbitrating between misfortune and benevolence. -Judgment and award were soon achieved; the black helmet heaved and -turned about, and the crowd scattered obediently east and west. - -‘What a nice old gentleman!’ said one of many voices passing Prosser. - -‘Give ’im a sovring, did he?’ - -‘Don’t you wish _you_ was blind, Miss ’Ankin?’ - -‘Lot of sov’rings _you’d_ give me!’ - -‘Gow on!’ - -‘What did they take ’im up for then?’ - -‘On’y takin’ ’im over the road, stoopid.’ - -Prosser stood and watched the old man cross in the constable’s grip; -saw him loosed into Grosvenor Place; followed, and watched him as he -clumped his way along the blank brick wall, leaning forward from the -crutch, grotesquely and terribly, towards his extended arm, which beat -the pavement with a stick before him, driving pedestrians to right and -left, crying furiously as he went ‘_Pity_ the poor blind!’ and stopping -now and then to mumble the sovereign and chuckle to himself. - -Near Victoria Station he stopped, and thrashed the kerb. A girl slipped -out from somewhere and took his arm; the same girl who had so lately -robbed him. - -‘That you, Joey?’ said the blind man. - -‘What luck, Toppin?’ - -The old man grinned. - -‘Got a plunk, Joey; benevolent gent.’ - -‘My, what a soft!’ - -‘Just take me over to Victoria Street. Wait at the Monico; ain’t safe -here.’ - -Over the road he gave the sovereign into her keeping, and she frisked -up a side street. Prosser followed him down Victoria Street, helped -him silently over the crossings, and was still dreaming of one like -himself, meeting an old friend and lacking the energy to acknowledge -him; when the blind man turned suddenly and grabbed him by the arm. - -‘What’s your name?’ - -‘Prosser,’ he faltered. - -‘I thought so. You’ve been drinking, you ---- fool. Where have you been -all this time since you came out?’ - -‘I ... I’m in service.’ - -‘Ah?’ - -‘I’ve turned over a new leaf. Was that my little girl?’ - -‘That was Joey. Why?’ - -‘I only wanted to know.’ - -‘Ah! making conversation, as it were. Yes; you’re gentry now, of -course--joined the respectable classes.’ He fumbled Prosser’s coat as -he spoke, feeling round the cloth buttons to see if they were sound -and fat. ‘One has to talk for talking’s sake when one belongs to the -gentry. Well, I’m off. Don’t waste your elegant conversation on me; -go back to the Duchess.... _Pity_ the poor blind!’ He was off again, -crying hoarsely along the big grey blocks, and Prosser pursuing timidly. - -‘Stop, stop, Mr. Hartopp! You didn’t mind my mentioning the little -girl?’ - -‘_Pity_ the poor blind!’ - -His appeal to the public was launched with an abrupt intonation which -implied a final ‘D---- you!’ as plain as words. - -‘It’s _my_ little girl after all,’ said Prosser. - -‘Don’t talk like a d----d drunken maudlin fool!’ growled the blind -man, stopping short again. People looked over their shoulders as they -went past, ladies from the Stores drew aside into the road and hurried -by, seeing this maimed old man leaning back over his extended crutch, -blaspheming at the trim underling who stood so mild and weak behind -him. - -‘I know your sort! rotten gutless puppies that lose their grit as soon -as they get under. Portland; good conduct marks; conversion; piety; -ticket-of-leave, and then drink, drink, drink! “Gone into service!” -“My little girl!” Ugh! What do you want to do with your “little girl”? -Would you like the little pet to “go into service” too? and wear a -little muslin pinafore, with pockets in front? Speak up, man, speak up. -Don’t stand there like a sodden hog, dreaming over your next big drink -while I’m making conversation. Don’t you hear me, you elegant toff?’ - -Prosser started guiltily. - -‘I’d been thinking perhaps my employer would find her a nice home -somewhere.’ - -‘A little cottage in the country somewhere, eh? with geraniums in the -window and a little watering pot all her own, eh? And what about me? -I’d make a pretty footman if you’d recommend me, and stand on the steps -in a salmon-coloured suit and help the gentlefolk in and out of their -carriages.’ - -‘He’d do something for you, I’m sure. He’s a very kind master.’ - -‘“A very kind master!” Oh, good Lord!... _Pity_ the poor blind!’ - -‘Mr. Hartopp, Mr. Hartopp!’ - -The old man stopped again and faced right round. - -‘Prosser, if you follow me an inch further I’ll knock out your mucky -fuddled brains with my crutch all over the pavement. I swear I will. Go -home and soak, you sentimental skunk.’ - -Prosser stood still for some time watching the angry figure bobbing -down the road. Then he turned up by the Turkish Baths and made his way -home. - -That evening he related the whole of his adventure to Prince Dwala, not -even omitting the confession of his own intemperance. - -‘So you drink, do you? Drink too much of course, that is.’ - -‘You’re not angry, sir?’ - -‘Of course not. Not a bit.... It must be awfully expensive?’ - -‘I can’t help it, sir. I don’t want to help it. Of course I’ll have to -go?’ - -‘Go where?’ - -‘Leave you, I mean, sir.’ - -‘Oh, please don’t do that, Prosser. You shall have as much as you need. -Don’t have more than you really need. I’m sorry it’s you, of course, -because I like you so much. But now you explain it to me, I don’t see -how it could have been helped. I’m awfully sorry about it. That’s a -very wonderful old man.’ - -‘Mr. Hartopp? Yes, sir.’ - -‘Do you think he’d come and live here?’ - -‘He wouldn’t take service, sir.’ - -‘No, as a friend, I mean. You see, Prosser, this house is much bigger -than I really need. I have to live in it, of course, because I’m so -rich; besides, there’s poor Huxtable to think of.’ - -‘You needn’t pity Mr. Huxtable much, sir.’ - -‘No, that’s true: I suppose he’s very happy. Do you know anything about -Mr. Hartopp’s past life? One isn’t born a “Fence” I suppose?’ - -‘Oh no, sir, it takes a very intelligent man to be a Fence. Mr. -Hartopp’s a very intelligent man, and had a first-class education.’ - -‘What’s his story, then?’ - -‘Story, sir? There’s no story as far as I ever heard. Nothing out of -the ordinary, sir.’ - -‘How did he become blind?’ - -‘Overwork, sir. He was a schoolmaster as a young man down in our -part of the country, and overworked his eyes like at his work, sir. -That’s how he lost his place. He had a fever, and they took him to the -Workhouse Infirmary. It’s that what made him go to the bad, they say, -sir; he’d always had a horror of the rates. He often talks of himself -as a pauper, as if it was a disgrace like. He’d worked his way up like, -sir, and couldn’t stand being mixed up with pauperism. So when they -discharged him he came up to London and went to the bad.’ - -‘Drink, I suppose? It always begins that way, I’m told.’ - -‘Mr. Hartopp, sir? Oh no, sir, I never knew him drink anything, sir, -nor smoke neither. Drink and tobacco he says are ... some funny word, -painkillers sort of, to keep the workin’ classes from yellin’ out while -they’re bein’ skinned alive. He’s a very funny man, sir, always makin’ -jokes. Not but what he’s fond of good livin’ too, sir. When trade was -good one time he used to go regular every day and lunch at the Carlton. -I only found out by chance; I was that surprised. Up till then I’d -always took him for a Socialist.’ - -‘How did he lose his leg?’ - -‘His leg, sir? I really don’t remember how that was. It wasn’t very -long ago, I know. Blind men often get knocked about like in the -traffic.’ - - - - -XXI - - -Dwala left his valet abruptly and spent many hours walking up and down -the picture-gallery, deep in thought. Some of his slow ideas were -coming suddenly to maturity. - -Men--these strange wild beasts that lived wholly in a delirium of -invented characters, assigning fantastic attributes to one another -and acting solemn plays where everything was real--blood, knives, and -misery--everything but the characters themselves--had thrust on him -the strangest mask of all; they had made him great. And now, at the -touch of one small hand on the lever, all the machinery of the theatre -was in motion to make him greater still, with the greatest greatness -of all--for so to his rude mind, unskilled in the abstract mystery of -Royalty, seemed political greatness, the power of ordering men’s days -and nights. - -Himself, he was nothing--nothing to anyone but himself; for others he -was a suit of irrelevant attributes; no one cared what he thought or -felt or was; his Ego had no place in their scheme. He had been always -the same; and all his differences were of human making. First Man -clapped on him the attribute of Monkey, and purposed putting him in -a cage and offering him for an entertainment. Then Man clapped God, -King, Prisoner, and Millionaire on him in quick succession; now they -were preparing Statesman for him to wear. Empty garments all of them, -by the very essence of things: Nature makes no Gods, Kings, Prisoners, -Millionaires or Statesmen. All fanciful unsubstantialities of men, real -only in their effect on men, as laws of gravity are real only in the -eagerness of little things to be impelled; empty shells, inhabited by -irrelevant I’s that live in corners of them, apart and unconsidered; -vacancies, chosen at random for a centre of genuflexions, services, -obediences, gold, velvet, paper, and different sorts of food. A wise -Providence has ordained that Man’s eyes should be blind to the vision -of real naked Nature-given personality: were it suddenly otherwise, the -long-wrought classifications of the ages would disappear at once in a -confusion of particular differences; all leadership and direction would -be lost; just as Science would shiver to a heap of individual facts if -she were robbed of her slow-built generalisations. - -Dwala saw that he could never merely put aside his mask and say, Behold -me as I am. Such revelations are unthinkable to the human mind: one -might as well say, Behold me, for I have disappeared. He could renounce -Statesman if he liked, stay Millionaire, go back to God or King or -Monkey; but until he went away from men, and hid himself in the wild -forest, he could never be plain self again: he must inhabit either a -palace, or a temple, or a cage. - -What was he going to do, he asked himself, in this new mask that Man -was preparing for him with so much labour? The answer was evident; -Lady Wyse knew it too. He was making a Joke, a big slow Joke; men were -rolling it painfully up the board for him, panting and groaning, and -when it reached the top he would tip it lightly over and see it fall -with a crash like a falling mountain. Surely that would make him laugh? - -And after? Well, that was a little matter. They would kill him, -perhaps; he would die laughing at them, laughing in their angry -shame-lit faces as they stabbed him. More probably they would let him -go. They would hardly exhibit him in Earl’s Court: ‘Pithecanthropus -erectus, ex-Cabinet Minister.’ He would get back to the woods of Borneo -again, and laugh among the trees. In any case, he would have had his -Joke. - -Meanwhile other attributes had been laid on him for which he had no -use: power to demand a million little satisfactions, gross and fine, -for which he had no taste. Space to sleep and wake, food enough to -nourish him--that was all he wanted till the great Joke reached the -tumbling point. A thousand minor jokes would crop up by the way in the -endless inequality of masks: jokes too slender for his own handling. -Must all this go to waste? Why not enjoy by proxy? To his large mind it -was indifferent _who_ was the agent of enjoyment: himself or another, -as they had the fitter talent. Therefore he had long been vaguely -seeking someone who could replace him in the present; an ambassador in -the courts of luxury; someone vivid, eager, strong and discontented, -some Enemy of the World, who could exploit for him the minor meannesses -of men, a preparatory humiliation, a handy touchstone for everyday use. -Surely Hartopp was the man? - -Dwala went with a candle in the middle of the night to his valet’s -bedroom and awoke him from uneasy sleep. - -‘I’ve made up my mind I must know this Mr. Hartopp, Prosser.’ - -‘I’m afraid you mightn’t like him if you saw him, sir,’ said the valet, -sitting up in his night-cap, with hollow eyes, as of one rescued only -for a while from some fear to which he must return anon. - -‘I don’t know. We’ll go and look for him to-morrow. You know where he -lives?’ - -‘Whereabouts, sir. Somewhere off Shaftesbury Avenue.’ - -‘All right. We’ll go and look him up to-morrow. That’ll be rippin’. -Good-night.’ - - - - -XXII - - -Neglecting his engagements and Huxtable’s remonstrances Dwala sought -Hartopp for many days in vain. With Prosser at his side he visited the -places where children play, open spaces, archipelagos of pavement, -washed by the roaring traffic of St. Giles’s: for it was among the -children that Prosser gave most hope of finding him. - -‘It’s one of his curious ways, bein’ with children, sir; his -dram-drinkin’ he calls it. He’s goin’ to raise a Revolution of the -children one of these days, he says. He don’t set much store by the -grown-ups: over-civilised he says they are, while the children are all -young savages.’ - -Hartopp had risen to lofty heights in Prosser’s estimation, since he -had realised Dwala’s plans about him; he was a Socrates now, whose -every saying had a strange new value in remembrance. - -At last they found him. They were standing one sunny summer day in -Shaftesbury Avenue, when Prosser cried: - -‘There he is!’ - -A throng of tiny Bacchanals came skipping and whooping out of Endell -Street, and in their midst the old Silenus, clumping and swinging -jovially along. It was a gay chatter of question and answer, gibe and -repartee, flying to and from Silenus to the nymphs, while laughter -flickered here and there at random. - -They crossed the broad roadway in open defiance of the traffic, and -landed on the island where Dwala stood. - -‘Five o’clock!’ cried the old Fence as St. Giles’s clock rang out: -‘time you were home for your teas!’ He grinned, and fumbled in his -big yellow pocket. ‘What are you waiting for, you little animals? -Your mothers are all drunk by now, and you’ll get what for if you’re -late.... Scramble!’ he shouted, suddenly flinging a handful of pink -sweatmeats up in the sunshine and down in the dirt, while the children -wallowed and fought with cries of joy. - -‘Here’s two toffs,’ said one of the knot of elders, drawing off as -Dwala and Prosser approached. - -‘Mr. Hartopp,’ murmured Prosser, touching his hat. - -‘Aha, my sentimental friend, are you there? I smell you. What’s the -news? Have you brought something sweet in chiffon for your darling -little daughter to drive in to the Opera to-night?’ - -‘Hoping you’ll excuse me, Mr. Hartopp, I’ve brought Prince Dwala, my -employer, who was anxious to see you.’ - -‘Oho! the “kind master.” Come to see how the “pooah” live, my Lord?’ - -‘I’ve come to ask if you won’t come and live with me.’ - -‘Live with you, d---- you?’ - -‘Yes, live with me, at home.’ - -‘Why?’ - -‘Because I like you.’ - -‘The h---- you do! Why?’ - -‘Because I believe you’re what’s called a “blackguard.”’ - -‘What’s this feller you’ve got hold of, Prosser? Is he a detective, or -a philanthropist, or a lunatic?’ - -‘He’s what’s called an “eccentric” I believe, Mr. Hartopp.’ - -‘Where do you live?’ asked the Fence abruptly. - -‘Park Lane,’ answered Dwala. - -The Fence whistled. - -‘What number?’ - -‘Number --.’ - -‘Number --?... I’ve got the plans of that somewhere. What’s the plate -like, Prosser?’ - -‘Very handy, Mr. Hartopp,’ answered the valet, falling into old tracks -of thought. - -‘It’s beautiful plate,’ said Dwala: ‘all the most expensive kinds. -You’d have it on the table every day at meals if you came and lived -with me, Mr. Hartopp: of course you wouldn’t see it, because you’re -blind, but you’d know it was there. It’s a lovely house altogether, -I believe: everything’s as expensive as we could get anywhere; there -are five footmen, and heaven only knows how many housemaids. What I’m -looking for is somebody who’d really enjoy all these things. I can’t. -It’s such a pity you’re blind, because you’ll miss a lot; in fact, I -had half a mind not to ask you, because you were blind. But I was so -awfully fetched by the way you threw those sweetmeats to the children.’ - -‘You’re another d----d sentimentalist, I see. Does he drink too, -Prosser?’ - -‘No, I don’t drink,’ said Dwala: ‘I have so many other amusements.’ - -‘What’s your income?’ - -‘Four hundred thousand pounds a year.’ - -‘Four hun.... Good Lord! you ought to be ashamed of yourself.... Here, -Thomas, Andy--anybody there?’ he cried out, hobbling excitedly towards -the iron seats. - -‘I’m here, Bill!’ came a voice from the distance. - -‘All right, I don’t want you.’ He hobbled back again, and blew three -calls on a dog-whistle which hung from his neck. ‘I’ll call Joey.’ Joey -came frisking up from nowhere, as dirty as mud could make her. - -She turned formal at once on seeing the ‘nobs,’ and put out her tongue -at Prosser. - -‘Joey, old girl, you see these two d----d fools here? One of ’em’s a -Prince of ancient lineage.’ - -‘What, that great big ugly bloke?’ - -‘With four hundred thousand pounds a year!’ - -‘Lor’!’ said Joey, politely. - -‘Borrow a hanky from some nice little girl and prepare for hysterics, -for the other one’s your long-lost father!’ - -‘He drinks,’ said Joey, edging away. - -Hartopp laughed. ‘It’s wonderful what a lot these children know. Now -look here, Joey.... Joey’s included, of course?’ - -‘Yes, Joey’s included,’ answered Dwala. - -‘You wouldn’t like to be a real lady, would you, Joey?’ - -‘Wouldn’t I!’ said Joey, shyly but decisively. - -‘What! Be a rotten West-End kid?’ - -Joey giggled an affirmative. - -‘Wash every day?’ Another giggle. - -‘Ain’t she sweet?’ murmured Prosser. - -A sudden idea flashed over Joey’s face. - -‘With him about?’ she asked. - -‘Yes, I’d be about, Joey,’ said Prosser. - -Without a moment’s hesitation Joey fled through the traffic and down -St. Martin’s Lane. - -‘Well?’ said Dwala: ‘what’s your decision, Mr. Hartopp?’ - -‘Go to h----!’ said the blind man, hobbling resolutely away. The Prince -and Prosser, after standing a little longer, turned and went sadly home -again. - - - - -XXIII - - -As Dwala and Huxtable were sitting at breakfast one morning, a week -later, the butler leaned down in his gentle fatherly way over the -Prince’s shoulder, and told him that a man had been asking for him. - -‘A blind man, sir, with a little girl with him; very respectable. They -came about half-past seven.’ - -‘Where are they?’ - -‘They went away again, sir.’ - -‘Did they say if they were coming back?’ - -‘Not a word, sir; they just turned round and went into the Park when -they heard you wasn’t up.’ - -Dwala then propounded at length to Huxtable all his ideas about Hartopp -and Joey. Huxtable listened quietly, with an occasional colourless: -‘Quite so, quite so.’ He retired to his room after breakfast, and -walked up and down a great deal. His ideas cleared after some hours of -perambulation. He arrived at the same conclusion as Prosser. Prince -Dwala was an eccentric. He thought over the cases of a number of peers -and millionaires he knew about who had been eccentric, and suddenly -realised that eccentricity was more than respectable; it was _chic_: -it belonged to the grandest school of behaviour. It was not what he -had expected in coming to Prince Dwala; his own part would be difficult -and call for care. It was like the Boer War; that had been eccentric -too; but for that very reason it had been the making of his cousin Jim, -who was now in command of a brigade. When he came down to luncheon he -looked at Dwala with an interest almost tender. - -Meanwhile Hartopp and Joey had not come back. Dwala had been out into -Park Lane three or four times in the course of the morning, looking -vainly up and down for them. There was only a patient four-wheeled cab, -with two big new leather trunks on it, standing a little way off the -gate; the driver opened his eyes heavily each time Dwala emerged, and -then returned to sleep. - -It was one of those solemn summer days which visit London like dreams: -one of those days when Hyde Park, with its smooth lawns and ancient -dignity of trees, seems like the revelation of a purpose in this -fantastic world--a purpose to which the surface of aristocratic life, -with its carriages and frocks and parasols, seems so well attuned, -that one is convinced that the whole mass of it must needs be as -respectable as Nature. - -They came at last: Dwala was on the steps to meet them: Hartopp in a -well-brushed black tail coat; Joey looking ugly in a tight velvet frock -and feathered hat, her hair drawn back into a pig-tail, all clean but -her hands. - -They both looked tired and saddened. Dwala felt a sudden disillusion, a -reduction of something big to small dimensions. - -‘Is that your cab outside?’ he asked. - -Joey nodded. ‘But we’ve not decided yet. We’ve only come to have a -look.’ - -She ran up the steps, and stopped, peering into the dark entry, awed by -the motionless forms of the big footmen. - -They went all over the house with Dwala, from bottom to top, -conscientiously, doggedly, examining everything. Joey insisted: Hartopp -followed, mumbling morosely. Joey listened to all explanations with -that air of undue, almost effusive, attentiveness, which marches so -nearly with boredom. They saw Huxtable once on a landing: he was -passing from one room to another, in spectacles, with a bundle of -papers; he always wore spectacles till tea-time. He looked at them -drily, externally, as one looks at events in another family. - -A kind of depression, a melancholy hush, weighed on the whole house and -household, as if someone had just died. One thing only was certain: -they all knew that the pretence of a probation was an empty one; -Hartopp and Joey had come to stay. - -Hartopp was aware of this, and wondered at his own blank listlessness. -The Enemy of Society felt suddenly as a wild bull might, which had -spent a long hot day goring a big cathedral and was now being led -quietly to a pew. There is a magic in our masquerading: it is with deep -feelings of solemnity that man shuffles off one disguise and gets into -another; the fraudulent company-promoter, growing rich, enters upon his -fortune almost with the same ennobling awe as a young girl going to her -Confirmation. - -Hartopp made an effort: he stopped Dwala as they went downstairs. - -‘Let’s understand one another clearly, Prince What’s-your-name. If I -come, I come as a free man: Joey too. We come as gentry, or we don’t -come at all. The servants are to treat us with respect as such. Do you -see?’ - -‘Of course, of course.’ - -‘We’ll have the best of everything: eat what we like, drink what -we like, spend as much money as we like. Do you see? No d----d -philanthropy.’ - -‘I promise you solemnly.’ - -‘That’s right.’ - -The cabman was paid off and the boxes were brought in. - -‘Both Joey’s,’ said Hartopp: ‘I’ve brought nothing.’ - -‘I’ll have a fire in my bedroom, please,’ said Joey. - -Huxtable came in at tea-time and recounted three amusing anecdotes, at -which Joey stared in awe and the old man chuckled faintly. The butler -inquired if the young lady would like a maid to unpack her boxes. Joey -declined: she would do it herself. - -She went out primly after tea, to see to it, jangling keys on a -string. Huxtable went back to some mysterious ‘work.’ - -Then the air cleared suddenly. The blind man unbent with a touch of -humour. It is humour that keeps the door in the wall through which -alone we may hope to peep into our neighbour’s garden. We have passed -that ivy-grown, impenetrable portal a thousand times, when suddenly one -day we find it open, and instead of a dog growling in an arid patch of -weeds, we find a friendly neighbour grinning in our face. - -‘Do you know what’s in those boxes?’ said Hartopp confidentially. - -‘No; what?’ - -‘Wood pavement.’ He exploded with laughter. ‘Her things weren’t fit to -bring, but she wouldn’t be seen arriving without luggage; so she put -that in to weight them down. That’s what the fire’s for. She’ll keep -’em locked till she’s got it all burnt--a little day by day. Don’t let -her know I told you.’ - -It was a great nuisance, Dwala said, he had to go out that evening. -Huxtable must entertain them. As for himself, he was dining with Lady -Wyse. - -‘Is Lady Wyse a friend of yours?’ - -‘A great friend.’ - -‘The one whose name’s always in the paper?’ - -‘I suppose so.’ - -‘Well, take my advice and don’t let Joey know.’ - -‘Why not?’ - -‘She’d look down on you.’ - -‘Why? Lady Wyse is a very charming woman.’ - -‘You say that because you’re a toff. She’d hear a very different name, -if she came down our street. I’d tell her straight myself.’ - - - - -XXIV - - -It was quite a small party at Lady Wyse’s. Disturnal was there, the -rising young High Church M.P.; Sir Peter Parchmin; his wife, and a -few miscellaneous ladies; General Wapshot; a Man with a Clever Face; -an Eminent Scientist; and a Philosopher. This last was not a speaking -character; a little wizened man with a bald head; he had made a -reputation in his youth by retiring into solitude for three years and -coming back with the apophthegm, ‘Give me a pebble and a protoplasm -and I will make you a universe.’ Nobody having given him either, his -plans had rested there. They put him in a Chair at Cambridge, and he -had never opened his mouth since. He and the Eminent Scientist were -men with that peculiar knack the learned have of looking out of place -in any clothes they wear, but convincing you somehow that they would -look more out of place without them. Lady Wyse had invited them quite -at random, because she thought they would be interested in a scientific -scheme which Sir Peter was to propound that night; she could not surely -be expected to distinguish different sorts of savants? - -Lady Parchmin was a tired but talkative blonde, who made one feel sorry -for Sir Peter in a kind of abstract way; yet she was a saint, and he -was an immoral man. He pretended to pursue Lady Wyse from mean and -interested motives; but there he lied. His love for Lady Wyse was the -only genuine sentiment he had ever felt--that was why she tolerated -him; she was a strong ennobling thought, like Wagner music remembered -or imagined in a railway train; his wife, the eternal passenger who sat -before him, dim and dowdy, on the other seat, was only a monument of -dull duty and a long-forgotten fancy. - -Dinner was drawing to a close. Wine and fruit were going round; the -butler had marched his squad away. - -The Man with the Clever Face suddenly distinguished himself--Lady -Wyse had introduced him as ‘the well-known Mr. Holmes,’ but neither -Disturnal nor the General nor the Eminent Scientist remembered to have -heard of him before. Lady Parchmin had been recounting her emotions on -seeing a newspaper placard as she drove to dinner. - -‘“There,” said I when I saw it, “I’m sure it’s the man I saw them -arresting this morning.”’ - -Mr. Holmes broke silence for the first time. He fixed his penetrating -gaze on Lady Parchmin’s hair, and said: - -‘You must have said that to yourself then, for you drove here alone.’ - -She put her hands up quickly to her head, saying: - -‘Good Heavens! How do you know that? I did. Peter walked.’ - -‘How extraordinary!’ murmured the guests. - -‘Do tell me how you told?’ said Lady Parchmin. - -Mr. Holmes looked round the table with a dry, triumphant smile; then -leaned confidentially towards Lady Parchmin, and explained: - -‘I saw your husband’s goloshes in the hall.’ - -‘You must be a detective!’ said Lady Parchmin. - -‘I am,’ he said. - -‘How funny!’ - -‘Odd thing to meet at dinner, isn’t it?’ said their hostess languidly. -‘Now then, Sir Peter, out with your little scheme.’ - -Sir Peter cleared his throat and rearranged his wine-glasses. He looked -at Dwala. - -‘I think you were present, Prince, at an evening at Lady Lillico’s, -where I was made to deliver a little lecture on the Missing Link?’ - -Dwala looked steadily into the Biologist’s eyes: he saw nothing there -but an enterprise and the desire to please; but he was conscious of a -secret triumph of amusement emanating from Lady Wyse. - -‘Yes, I was there.’ - -‘I mentioned, if you remember, a scheme for an expedition?’ - -‘Yes, to find the Missing Link.’ - -‘Quite so. Well, our plan is this--I’m empowered to speak for the -University--the new writ is issued, and we can proceed to nomination at -any moment. Now, of course, we don’t _sell_ our nomination; you quite -understand that?’ - -Mr. Disturnal caught his roving eye, and nodded brightly. - -‘But we’re determined to have a scientific man, or a man interested in -science. The University is delighted to accept you; but you must prove -your interest in science in the way that they select. Well, they’ve -selected a way, and if you accept their conditions, you’ll be nominated -on Saturday, which is the same thing with us as being elected.’ - -‘What’s the condition?’ asked Dwala. - -‘That you guarantee the Missing Link Search Fund by handing in a cheque -for 50,000_l._, the balance, if any, to be returned when the search -is over. Mr. Holmes here is going out to Borneo in charge of the -expedition; and a scientist or two will go with him. Do you accept?’ - -Dwala glanced at Lady Wyse. - -‘Certainly. I’ll send you the cheque to-night.’ - -‘And what do you propose to do with the Missing Link when you’ve got -him?’ asked Mr. Disturnal. - -‘Ah!’ said the Biologist, consulting the eye of the Eminent Scientist: -‘that’s a big question.’ - -‘Can’t you imagine,’ said Lady Wyse, ‘what a scientist would do with a -strange animal?’ - -‘I’d put him in a bag and drown him, by Gad!’ said the General genially. - -‘Ah, you’re not a scientist, General,’ said Lady Wyse. ‘Sir Peter would -thank Providence humbly for his opportunities, and set about studying -the creature’s soul. Can’t you imagine him walking politely round it -asking questions?’ - -‘Lady Wyse is joking, of course,’ said the Biologist. ‘If I got hold of -the animal, I know perfectly well what I should do.’ - -‘What’s that?’ asked Mr. Disturnal, in his bright, intellectual way. - -‘I should examine his hippocampus minor.’ - -‘Well, really!’ said Lady Wyse, pushing back her chair: ‘we women had -better be going.’ - -‘It’s a curve in the brain,’ almost shouted Sir Peter, hurrying to the -door handle: ‘the thing Owen and Huxley fell out about.’ - -‘Bring the men up quick,’ said Lady Wyse. ‘I and your wife’ll have -nothing to talk about upstairs but you, and we’ll both be bored to -death.’ - - * * * * * - -Mr. Holmes, who went early, had a great send-off; he was going -straight to Plymouth that night to superintend the preparation for the -expedition, which had only awaited Dwala’s promise. Sir Peter Parchmin -made a speech, and Mr. Holmes made a speech, and everybody waved -handkerchiefs on the balcony as he drove away. - -‘Well,’ said Lady Wyse, as Dwala sat down beside her at last: ‘what do -you think of my little joke?’ - -‘It’s too human.’ - -‘I thought you’d be amused.’ - -‘It takes a great deal to make me laugh.’ - -‘Are you afraid people will discover your secret?’ - -‘I think you’re rash.’ - -‘I’m not. I’m calculating. Arrived where you are, you could sit all day -on a churchyard wall yelling your secret in people’s ears, and they -would pay no attention to it.’ - -‘Unless an honest man came by, or a clever one.’ - -‘An honest man wouldn’t be clever enough to hear it, and a clever one -wouldn’t be honest enough to repeat it.’ - -‘Don’t endanger a joke for the sake of a ... an epigram.’ - -‘Do you know, Prince, I have a sort of presentiment our joke will never -come off.’ - -‘Shall I never have a good laugh before I die?’ - -‘Who knows? Something may turn up.... But why do you cough like that? -Are you ill?’ - -‘No. I often cough like that.’ - -‘It would spoil everything if you were ill.’ - -With a little gesture Lady Wyse summoned the watchful Parchmin, and -bade him bring his fellow-savants. - -‘What’s the matter with Prince Dwala?’ she asked. ‘He coughs in a funny -way. Examine him.’ - -The command covered the whole trio. The Philosopher assumed a frivolous -look. The Eminent Scientist disclaimed competence: he was Chemistry or -something. - -‘Nonsense!’ said Lady Wyse. ‘What’s the good of being a scientist?’ - -Dwala towered serenely while the Biologist and the Eminent -Scientist--having exchanged grimaces of apology--walked round and -round him, with their ears to his sides, one behind the other, as if -it were a game, with an occasional murmur from the Biologist of ‘Cough -again’--‘Say ninety-nine.’ - -The little bald Philosopher stood opposite, with his eyebrows raised -and his hands behind his back, tipping himself patiently up and down on -his toes, like a half-witted child. The Biologist, meeting the Eminent -Scientist accidentally at a corner, made a parenthesis of his mouth and -shook his head. Coming to the perpendicular soon, he recommended care -and a healthy life. - -‘Do you think there’s anything the matter with the Prince?’ Lady Wyse -asked Parchmin, aside. - -‘I couldn’t say,’ said the Biologist. ‘I should like to examine him -properly first.’ - -‘How properly?’ - -‘One can’t tell anything through a shirt-front.’ - -‘Take him in there,’ she commanded, pointing to the door of the next -room, ‘and examine him _thoroughly_.’ - -Dwala hesitated. ‘Isn’t he ... clever?’ he murmured. - -‘It’s all right,’ she smiled back; ‘he isn’t honest.’ - -A few minutes later, when the guests were gathering about Lady Wyse -to say good-bye, the door of the side-room burst open, and Sir Peter -Parchmin came tumbling out, white with horror. He seized the General, -who was nearest to him, in a wild embrace--half as a leaning-post, half -as a protection--crying: - -‘Good Lord! He’s got a ta ... ta ... ta....’ - -‘Confound you, sir!’ said the General; ‘do you take me for Lady -Parchmin?’ - -The Biologist only clung the closer, babbling feebly in his ear: - -‘He’s got a ta ... ta ... tail!’ - - * * * * * - -It was true. Dwala had a tail. Now I am aware that in these days of -learning, when many an ordinary College Don knows as much science as -the elder Pliny, this will seem almost incredible; and in the eyes -of some it will throw doubt on the truth of my story, for it is well -known that the anthropoid apes have no tails. But then Dwala was not an -anthropoid ape, but a Missing Link. The fact is that in the old times -there were as many varieties of _Pithecanthropus erectus_ as there are -nowadays of _Homo sapiens britannicus_; but the physical differences -between them were far more clearly marked than ours. The aristocracy of -the race, to which Dwala’s family belonged, were distinguished from the -plebeians, not merely by the greater stoutness of their bony structure -and the superior coarseness of their fur--distinctions which a -demagogue might have argued down to nothing--but also by the possession -of tails, a thing about which there could be no mistake. Among the -lower classes even the merest stump, the flattering evidence of an old -scandal, entitled the owner to a certain measure of respect. - - * * * * * - -‘Confound his tail!’ exclaimed the peppery General, pushing him away. -‘Who’s got a tail? the dog?’ - -‘Dog?’ murmured the Biologist, in the dazed, indignant tones of a man -under the influence of a drug. ‘No! Prince Dwala!’ - -The General dropped rigid into an armchair, and bobbed up and down on -the springs of it. A shocked silence fell on the room, as if something -grossly indelicate had been shouted out. Men blinked and lowered their -heads; women stared and raised them. There was a movement as of looking -for things lost, an untranslated impulse towards the stairs. - -Lady Wyse, the one thing alive in this wax-work show, went quickly to -the door and put her back against it, hand on handle, to prevent the -figures from escaping. - -‘Sir Peter is talking like an idiot,’ she said, in low, clear tones; -‘he knows perfectly well that Prince Dwala no more has a tail than any -one of _us_ has.’ - -The horror of the fact suggested passed directly into indignation -at the suggestion of it. They turned on the Biologist, demanding an -explanation. The little General voiced the public feeling. He shot up -out of his chair, and shook the tall savant violently by the lappels of -his coat. - -‘Have you been drinking, sir? Do you know that there are ladies -present?’ - -A chorus of inarticulate wrath went up. They crowded scowling round -the frightened Parchmin, women with folded arms, men with their hands -thrust deep down into their trouser pockets. - -‘Now then sir, explain yourself!’ said the General; ‘what do you mean -by a tail?’ - -‘Da ... da ... did I say a tail?’ - -The General shook him again. ‘You know you did!’ - -‘I ... I ... I ... I didn’t mean a tail,’ stammered the Biologist; ‘not -in the ordinary sense....’ - -‘You said _tail_, sir!’ - -‘I didn’t mean an ... an ... an actual prolongation of the caudal -vertebrae.’ - -‘Well, what did you mean, then?’ - -‘I only meant he had....’ - -‘Go on.’ - -‘I thought I detected....’ - -‘Go on--go on.’ - -‘That if the Prince wasn’t careful ... there was a sort of incipient -hardening of the skin which might lead to what German doctors call a -“tail.” It’s a purely technical term. I ... I ... apologise, I’m sure, -for having spoken inadvertently.’ - -‘He ought to be ashamed of himself!’ was the general verdict. - -‘What a dreadful thing to happen at a dinner-party!’ - -‘At Lady Wyse’s too, of all places!’ - -They all turned their backs on him, and crowded round Dwala, who -emerged serenely at this moment from the next room; shaking hands -warmly with him, as if he had just achieved a triumph. Mr. Disturnal -smiled him a meaning smile as he said good-bye. - -Dwala and the Biologist were the last to go. - -‘Good-bye,’ said Lady Wyse to Sir Peter. ‘I suppose you’ll stop the -Expedition now?’ - -‘Stop the Expedition? Why?’ - -‘Great heavens! Then you haven’t guessed the secret after all?’ - -The Biologist stared at her with wild eyes for several seconds, then -suddenly twirled and fell like a sack on the floor. When they had -bathed him back to his senses at last, he sat up on his hands and said: - -‘Prince Dwala must blow his brains out!’ - -Lady Wyse rang laughter like a bell. - -‘Why?’ asked Dwala, greatly interested. - -‘Any English gentleman would.’ - -‘I forbid it!’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘Why?’ - -‘He’d spoil his hippocampus minor.’ - -‘Pah!’ exploded Sir Peter bitterly: ‘you always take his side.’ - - - - -XXV - - -Arrived in his own hall, Dwala became aware of a faint shrill voice -talking rapidly and jerkily, accompanied by an even whirring noise. -He opened the library door. The room was lighted brilliantly. To the -left sat Hartopp, in evening dress, in a big armchair, with his leg on -another chair; a champagne bottle and glasses were on a table beside -him; he was smoking a fat cigar, and grinning as he listened. Below -him, sitting on the floor, with her pale face thrown back against the -chair, was Joey fast asleep. In the middle of the room sat Huxtable, -serious and concentrated, managing the gramophone: one hand hovered -over it, deft, square, and muscular, lightly adjusting some moth’s -wing of a lever in the instrument. Beyond him, in the background, was -a stout, serious, important looking man, with his face blacked--a -nigger minstrel in red and black striped trousers, with a tiny doll’s -hat pinned on the front of his head--who rose respectfully at Dwala’s -entrance, a glass of champagne in one hand and a banjo in the other. - -Evidently Huxtable had been doing his best to entertain the guests. - - - - -XXVI - - -Dwala was duly elected, and took his seat in the House of Commons. - -This Parliament, which had come in with loud blowing of trumpets as -a truly representative assembly, was but a poor thing after all, the -rickety child of a long line of dissipated ancestors; a perplexity of -Imperialists, Federalists, Separatists, Food Taxers, Free Traders, -Church Reformers, Church Defenders, Labour Members, Irish Members, and -Members frankly representative of private aims--men who sat for cotton, -or coal, or simply beer. No Prime Minister could have ruled the country -with it. - -The Government was in a tottering condition. Round after round they had -been so heavily punished by the Opposition, that it was all they could -do to stand up, dizzy and defensive, to await the knock-out blow. The -Irish Party, sated with concessions, had got altogether out of hand, -and at last gone frankly over to the other side. O’Grady, their leader, -like an elusive knight in a game of chess, sprang here and there -about the board, attacking in two or three places at once; while the -big-wigs of the Liberal Party sat solidly on their squares, breathing -destruction down appropriated lines. Tory Rooks and Tory Bishops -trembled every time O’Grady moved, and pawns went down like nine-pins, -sacrificed in the hope of deferring the inevitable check-mate. The poor -Premier, designed by Nature for a life of contemplation, marvelled -at the inconsiderate unrest of public men, and sought a decent -opportunity of withdrawing to the urbane refinements of private life. - -Meanwhile, what is called ‘the business of the country’ must be carried -on. Posts worth several thousand pounds a year cannot be left begging -for an occupant; as Ministers went under in the attack, new Ministers -must be found, not among the jealous multitude of small-bore country -squires and city manufacturers, but among the big guns of longer range. -Dwala was eminently one of this park. His apparition in politics -had been so sudden; the influence of his backers was so strong; his -stooping from big opportunities of pleasure to the tedium of Parliament -was so much of a condescension, that the Party felt he had a right to -a handsome recompense. Besides, the last vacant post could only be -filled by a representative of one of the great seats of learning. Dwala -was made President of the Board of Education. He said nothing, he did -nothing; others talked and worked; and all agreed that he was a great -success. He was the best-informed Minister in the Cabinet. Others acted -and did harm; he studied and did none. - - - - -XXVII - - -Much time passed. The Government stagnated, but the national life went -on, like a river piling its waters against the tottering dam. - -Then came the Great Crisis in which the Prime Minister went down. The -nation was no longer on the brink of ruin, as the ravens had so long -croaked, but in the very midst of it. - -There is an all-powerful Guardian of Truth, who avenges every lie. -Master, not of the world, which runs by rule, but of the Inward Meaning -of it, which is beyond the range of law; Master, not of enterprises -and institutions, but of the living souls of things which they rudely -symbolise; as the Poet is Master, not of words and verses, but of the -thing obscurely hidden in them; as the Musician is Master, not of notes -and harmonies, but of the soul made audible in them, like an invisible -gossamer thread revealed in dew: He teaches by destroying. The history -of Man is the history of the Master’s contempt for lies. The seer of -the Inward Truth sings its glory to a world of fools, who mistake -his symbols for the Truth itself and the seer for the Master of it, -building states and religions of the symbols; whereat the True Master -laughs, and the building tumbles, crushing men in its ruins. - -Ruins of lies fell upon England, crushing those that dwelt there as -they fell. England had reverenced forms and insulted realities. With -antiquarian fervour run riotously mad, we had thrust full-blooded, -growing realities into the shrunken and tattered livery of old -forms, stifling the life out of them; realities of Pure Ethic and -Awe of the Insoluble Secret into old liveries of Christian dogma; -realities of Anglo-Saxon gospel of universal Freedom into liveries -of insolent insular Imperialism; realities of Democracy into old -liveries of Feudalism, raising Tailors to high places due to sages and -centaurs--summoning Lords of the Shears and Thread to put patches over -the rents burst in the garments by the swelling life within, when we -should have torn the old fripperies away and let the Titan loose from -his bondage. - -England was rich in men and minds and money; but the different owners -of them stood face to face clutching their wealth, hissing defiance, -petrified with jealousy, while the worms crept in and devoured it, and -England starved. Good Government costs but little; but these men, rich -in hands and brains and the plunder of the centuries, wrangled who -should pay for Government, each preferring Anarchy to Government at his -own cost; and the foreigners coursed over the seas and took everything -but the bare land from us; the foreigners had no need to take that from -us for our ruin, for life is not the thing that stands still in its -place, but the thing that comes and goes, and while we boasted of our -fleet--as the paunchy brewer boasts of his cellar full of vats--and -while we boasted that no one dared to invade our country, the pride -and the boast turned bitter on our lips, and we found ourselves the -starving masters of a sun-sucked ash-heap. - -So came the great Famine, punishing the lies; men, women, and children -died in their thousands; the poor birds died also, and the dogs and the -horses--losing their long faith in the wisdom of imperial man. The -Titan’s livery hung loose about him; and the Lord High Tailors shook -their heads over their steak and onion, and said that the waist needed -taking in. - -Men had not died without a struggle; there had been riots and fighting -and theft; empty bellies had gone of their own accord through broken -windows to fill themselves with guinea loaves, and thence to the -crowded gaols to pick oakum into ropes to hang their leaders with; -women died patiently, like overloaded horses that fall on the climbing -hill, with a last look of the white bewildered eye entreating pardon of -their masters for having failed to drag the burden to the top. Children -died believing in their mothers; women died believing in some God or -Fate; men died believing in nothing but the Police. - - * * * * * - -At last the Famine abated; the ships of corn came hurrying in. Men are -men after all; and what is the function of the Colonies if not to -forgive the senile sins of England--to overlook the insults of the Old -Dotard’s vanity, and help him in his hour of need? - -For England is at once Titan and Dotard. Youth and old age, submissive -strength and tyrannous impotence--these are the two forces which make -the parallelogram of public life. The hard old father hobbles nobly -on his ebony cane in the sunshine of the castle terrace, unwilling -to shuffle off his gout and agues and be at peace, because he envies -possession to this rugged giant of an heir-in-tail, whom he keeps -carrying burdens, like Caliban, in the cattle yard. Happy the day when -we shall bear the old man at last, with ceremonious countenances, to -the expectant churchyard, and pack him solemnly away in his ancestral -vault. - -The habit of trusting in symbols instead of realities is not easily -put off. Those who have lived in darkness cannot face the sun of truth -at once; when the castle falls they run, not to the fields, but to the -stalls and sheds. When the vengeance of disaster comes upon a nation, -men fly instinctively from the owlish darkness of their ruined symbols -to the twilight of other symbols. - -Dreading above all things the multiple solitude which hastens every way -at once; craving before all things that sureness of direction in space -which makes the intensity both of hope and of prayer; fixing their -eyes on a personality as the distracted peasant fixes his eyes on an -image or an eikon, the crowd betake themselves, of a sudden unanimous -impulse, all in one way, shouting the name of a saviour or a scapegoat, -clearing confusion by the embodiment of vengeance and deliverance in -limited thinkable dimensions. They burn the witch, and clamour round -the prophet. - -But of forty million men, who can say which is the true prophet? - -In times of peace the mass of men live like fish in tanks, aware of -dim shades that come and go beyond, recking little of what is outside -their own tiny range of weed and gravel. To be great with the mass is -not to be a collection of definite great facts, but only a constantly -recurring vagueness. ‘I know his name,’ is the sum of ordinary -knowledge of great men. But with constant repetition the name of a man -or a cause takes on an awe-inspiring, trust-compelling quality, and the -fishes cry ecstatically: ‘Napoleon!’ ‘Buller!’ ‘Chamberlain!’ ‘Carter’s -Little Liver Pills!’ ‘Hurrah!’--and this makes fame. While the great -Poet is starving obscurely into immortality, the crowd without is -staring awestruck at the famous Laureate’s feather-nodding coach, as it -rolls him to oblivion in St. Paul’s. Why are all these people craning -and jostling in the roadway? Is it because they loved the Laureate’s -poems? Did he touch some chord in their hearts which the poor Poet’s -fingers were too delicate to handle? Not a bit! They know the one -man’s verses no better than the other’s; they stand lamenting for the -Laureate simply because they have so often heard his name. - -And now Dwala’s was such a name. His mind and character were still -unknown, even to journalists; but the wavering darkness of his name -had long been familiar to the fish in every tank. For months they had -read of him in papers and magazines: his wealth, his success, his -eccentricity, had been the talk of England. Then he had gone into -Parliament and figured large in the comic cartoons. Others, after -short notability, had lost favour by their speeches or their deeds; -Dwala had left his reputation to grow of itself, like a tree. They -felt his largeness. He was talked of everywhere as the capable man of -the Cabinet. A Minister, he was remarkable even among ordinary Members -as the man who never spoke. He was the ‘strong and silent man in a -babbling age.’ - -In the hour of despair the people clamoured, with as much reason as -they usually have for such clamouring: ‘Prince Dwala alone can save us! -Down with Glendover! Down with Whitstable! Down with Huggins! Dwala -for ever!’ The papers talked of a new era and a new man, who was to -‘cleanse the Augean stable’ and set Old England on its legs again. - -For the lobby and the drawing-room all this had to be translated into -a new language, full of such terms as ‘popular in the House’--‘the -support of the Church Party’--‘keep things going’--‘able to -entertain’--‘stop the mouth of the Irish Members.’ The division of -‘politics’ from national life which such phrases indicate does not -arise from any cynicism in the ruling classes, but from our system of -government itself. The evil begins in the polling booth, where men are -elected, not to sit for England, but to sit for a party or for local -wants. The interest of the nation is the only interest unrepresented in -the House of Commons. - -Deafened with the shouts of the people, afraid to venture to his -official home through the angry crowds that filled Whitehall, the -Premier tendered his resignation, and retired--poor scapegoat--to his -gardened grange, to finish his book on Problems of Pure Thought. - - - - -XXVIII - - -Disturnal came and went with an air of genial mystery. The cab that -carried him from Lady Wyse’s to Prince Dwala’s carried the fate of the -nation on its two wheels. He came to assure Dwala of the support of -the powerful Catholic Anglican party, of which he was business manager. - -‘Of course, I’m only a layman,’ he said, with his broad muscular -clean-shaven smile; ‘but you may take it the thing is done. The Bishop -of Windsor will have to come and see you, just as a matter of form. -He’s our President. He’s a dear old thing; you’ll like him. You’ll only -have to give him some lunch, and pat him on the back and send him home -again. I’ve settled it all with Lady Wyse.’ - -The Bishop came to lunch--really a ‘dear old thing’; a crumpled and -furrowed saint, with the wise brow of a Scotch terrier, fitted for -better things than to be managed by a scheming Jesuit like Disturnal. -Dwala respected him as a man; Huxtable as a Bishop; Hartopp as neither. -The mere title of Bishop was enough to provoke the fury of that pewed -ox. The old Fence broke in on the respectable conversation of the -lunch-table with ribald questions and sly allusions to Lady Wyse, and -parsons, and hopes of the Archbishopric--all of which amused him very -much, and only bewildered the good prelate, who had no notion what -he was driving at. Hartopp soon pushed his plate away, and sat with -his chin resting on the table and his pale blind eye-balls turned on -the Bishop, chuckling to himself, like the head of some decapitated -sorcerer in the ‘Arabian Nights’ making fun of a wicked Caliph. - -His conversational successes pleased him so much that he grew gay and -gallant when Dwala brought up Lady Wyse herself an hour later to his -rooms to introduce her. - -That crafty lady had prepared the way for friendship three weeks before -by sending him ‘The Doings of Thomasina,’ over which the world was -laughing--written by a lady of fashion, and absolutely true to life, -so Huxtable assured him. It had been the delight of many evenings when -Huxtable read it aloud to him and Dwala. - -‘If people went on like that in Seven Dials,’ he said, ‘there’d be -black eyes all round, and a lickin’ for the girl at the end of every -page.’ - -But he chuckled hugely, relishing it as a light upon the manners and -customs of the nobs. - -He had the first floor to himself now, eight rooms in a suite. He was -very strict in his sense of property, rushing out like an angry spider -from his lair if he heard sounds of intrusion. But this afternoon -he needed company as an outlet for the pride of his conversational -performance, and he hobbled forth on the landing with a grin when he -heard voices on the stairs. - -‘Ah, Lady Wyse, is it? We had some talk about you at lunch to-day, my -lady. “Lady Wyse is an old friend of mine,” says the Bishop. “Ha, ha,” -says I; “she’s a fine woman by all accounts.” And then I laughed, and -Huxtable up and asked the Bishop about the state of the Parsons’ Relief -Fund. “Parsons,” says I; “why I read the Bible right through once when -I was a boy, for a bet, and the word parson isn’t mentioned once in the -whole of the book. I suppose you hope to be Archbishop some day?” says -I. He pretended not to hear; but I wasn’t going to let him off. “Didn’t -Lady Wyse say anything about you bein’ made Archbishop?” I says. “Not -a word,” says he. “Didn’t she wink?” says I. “One doesn’t wink at -Bishops,” says Huxtable. “Ah,” says I; “you don’t know Lady Wyse”; and -I and the Bishop roared with laughter. The old man knows a thing or -two.’ - -Lady Wyse listened patiently, and charmed the Fence outright, without -exertion, by sitting down at the piano--_his_ piano, which nobody might -touch without his leave--and playing him ‘Simple Aveu’ and ‘The Song -which Reached my Heart.’ The proletariat, who abhor sentimentality in -real life, like nothing else in art. The sound of the music drew Joey, -a sad little creature now that she saw the possible limitations of the -pleasure of wearing new hats and steaming slowly in a motor-car round -the Park. Hearing her footstep four rooms off, while he was leaning, -full of noble emotion, over the plaintive piano, Hartopp rushed -thumping away, knocking over little tables as he went, and cursing to -himself. - -‘Who’s that?’ - -‘It’s only me, Toppin.’ - -‘What do you want?’ - -‘I come to hear the music.’ - -‘What do you mean by comin’ in without askin’? Have you cleaned -yourself up?’ - -‘Not partic’lar.’ - -‘Then clear out! I’ve got visitors. Wait till you’re sent for.’ - - - - -XXIX - - -They had tea in Hartopp’s room. Lord Glendover came in to inquire after -Dwala’s health, which had been visibly failing the last few days. - -‘We’ve cleared the last obstacle now,’ said Lady Wyse, marching up and -down the room. ‘To-morrow Dwala will step into the Premiership. Hooray -for the new Premier!’ - -She waved her cigarette triumphantly in the air. - -‘The Church Party practically held the balance, don’t you see? -Well, they were ready to follow Lord Whitstable, or Huggins, or -Strafford-Leslie, or Prince Dwala. Lord Glendover, of course, was out -of it. Well, Whitstable’s shelved: he’s incompetent, and he knows it.’ - -‘It’s very hard on him,’ said Lord Glendover. - -‘Still, he gets the Governorship of Australia,’ said Lady Wyse; ‘and -that’s fifteen thousand or so a year; not so bad after all. He’s -responsible for the loss of thousands of lives in Africa.’ - -‘Yes; but think of the poor beggar’s feelings!’ - -‘Huggins’s hopes were ruined by his case against the Red Sea Shipping -Company. It came out that his firm had been exporting arms to the Mad -Mullah.’ - -‘But quite innocently!’ said Lord Glendover. ‘He’s a business man; he -didn’t know it was against the law.’ - -‘So there was only the Prince and Strafford-Leslie left in the running. -Strafford-Leslie offered an Episcopal Council for Church Jurisdiction; -and we ... well, we really offered nothing.’ - -She laughed. - - - - -XXX - - -His appointment as Prime Minister was in the papers two days later, -with a throng of leading articles shouting Evoë! - -A spirit of busy gaiety ruled over the big house in Park Lane; such -a spirit of Bohemian ease as comes where private theatricals are -preparing. The policy of the Empire and the distribution of places -centred there. Everything bustled cheerfully; doors stood open; people -came and went; meals were snatched on corners of littered tables: -the servants were infected; footmen ran up and down the stairs like -school-boys; housemaids tittered at baize-doors, and forgot pails on -landings. - -And in the midst of it, still and listless, sat Dwala--the new Prime -Minister. Something strange had happened; he saw the world fading and -losing interest before his eyes. What was the thing he had looked -forward to so eagerly? A joke? What is a joke? In this new obscurity -his mind could not piece the thing together aright. Some sort of -surprise and ridicule? No matter. He was sorry for these pitiful actors -now; there was something so futile about all this busy scheming in a -world of shades. To show the unimportance of importance? Was that his -joke? Pooh! the joke itself was not important enough to amuse him now; -five minutes’ fun for a Hartopp; nothing more. - -Strange that the world should have altered so! He had noticed something -amiss with it that day he went to Windsor to receive his appointment -as Prime Minister; an unnatural clearness, like the clearness of a -landscape before a storm. - -As he stood on the platform at Paddington, looking at the crowd of -pleasure-seekers--men and women in boating-costumes--he had seen them, -not as creatures of flesh and clothes, but as translucent wraiths, -grinning and gibbering in one another’s faces; the only real live -being there, the Guard--Odysseus playing Charon in Hades--watchful, -responsible, long-glancing down the train, touching his hat, receiving -obols from the shades. - -Tears came into Lady Wyse’s heart as she sat and looked at him. She -guessed the truth, which he did not suspect; death was going to take -from her the companion-mind which had made her wilderness green again. -But that belief she put away from herself and him. - -In other things they thought together, these two minds: his, the -elemental, the slow, the encompassing; hers, the polished, the swift, -the penetrating; his, like the thunder rolling, huge and formless; -hers, like the music of the master’s fiddle, delicate, exact, -exhaustive. Both saw their old scheme for laughter vanish like a mirage -in the desert as the traveller approaches; and in its place, from the -heart of all things, welled up the new thought, the greater thought, -suited to the solemn grandeur of their friendship. - -Dwala was at a table, coughing feebly; opposite him Huxtable, busy -with ink and papers. Lady Wyse sat talking intermittently, absently, -listlessly, with Lord Glendover by the empty tea-cups. She rose, and -strayed over to Dwala’s table, where she stood awhile picking up papers -and throwing them down again. - -‘What this?... “The best hundred books.”’ - -‘That’s for the prospectus of Glenister’s new “Dwala Classics,”’ said -Huxtable. - -‘“The Bible, Shakespere, Confucius, Hi-ti-hi, Kipling, the Q’urân, The -Doings of Thomasina” ...’ - -She tore it up and threw it on the floor, paying no heed to Huxtable. -Then she picked up another paper and read it out aloud: “I am in favour -of inducing the Colonies to put heavy duties on all foreign goods. This -will promote a friendly feeling between England and her dependencies.” - -‘That’s rather neat,’ said Lord Glendover. - -‘Dull, I call it,’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘It’s out of the draft for the new pronouncement,’ said Huxtable. - -She took a pencil, and amended it. - -‘“I am in favour of inducing the Colonies to put heavy duties on one -another’s goods. This will promote a friendly feeling between England -and foreign countries.” That’s better, don’t you think, Lord Glendover?’ - -‘Yes, I think it is,’ said the noble Lord; ‘I like that touch about -“foreign countries.”’ - -Huxtable leaned forward as if about to speak; but sank back and cracked -his thumbs. She stood biting her pencil for a little time, and then -tore the pronouncement also in pieces, and threw it on the floor. She -walked up and down, and stopped in front of Lord Glendover, with -folded arms, and with tears standing in her eyes. - -‘It is a pitiful, pitiful thing,’ she said; ‘you are all so good, one -is obliged to believe in the Devil.’ - -‘That don’t hang together, you know,’ said Lord Glendover gravely. - -‘It is like some hideous game, where each child has to speak a harmless -word in turn, and the whole sentence is rank blasphemy and wickedness. -Each of you goes through a foolish, innocent routine, with a clear -conscience and the applause of the poor multitude; and the result is -misery, misery, misery. Not random misery, here and there, such as you -harmless creatures might chance on by the way, but a fearful consistent -scheme of deeply-calculated, universal misery--a thing of hellish -contrivance, worthy of the fiery genius of the sulphur pit. What am I, -and what is this poor Lord Glendover? Makers and unmakers of men? Pah! -We are pitiful pawns in the awful game, dreaming we move of our own -accord only because the other pawns do not jostle us. Why do we stay -cumbering the board? God knows! And yet without us there would be no -game. It lies with us, it lies with us to put an end to it.’ - -She spoke with lifted arm and ringing voice, like a prophet of -repentance; while Lord Glendover leaned back in his low chair, looking -up over his brown clasped hands with frightened eyes. There was -something comical in this big creature’s dependent, child-like look. -Lady Wyse smiled suddenly at him: - -‘We must kick over the board, my little man, and spoil the Devil’s -game.’ - -The scared look spread downwards to his mouth. He did not understand -any of the words she spoke; but a vague instinct of wisdom and alarm -shot through him, as through a baby hare, which thought it was play, -and suddenly finds death baying on every side. - -‘You don’t mean reconstruction, do you, Lady Wyse? Dwala’s not going -to....’ - -The awfulness was too sudden-spreading to be crumpled back into words. -She smiled again. - -‘Revolution, my child, revolution! We’ll make Old England stand on its -head and shout.’ - -‘Good Gad! But he’s bound to us in honour. Dwala’s a gentleman--we look -to him. We’d never have put him up if he hadn’t been pledged in honour. -He can’t go back on us now.’ - -‘He’s pledged to nothing, any more than I am; any more than a ship is -that you may charter to carry a cargo of slaves to Jamaica. And if the -ship is turned round in mid-Atlantic, and carried back to the coast of -Africa, what use is it your crying out: “You’re not a gentleman, you -ship! We trusted you, we chartered you to carry our blacks to slavery, -and here you are taking us back to be eaten by the cannibals.” I’m -sorry for you, Lord Glendover, quite sorry enough. You’re a good man, -and not more stupid than most. You might have been a decent farmer, or -bricklayer, or gamekeeper; but you’ve gone along the beaten track that -leads to villainy--unconscious, irreclaimable villainy. You don’t see -it, and you never will. Go home and be obscure. I’m sorry for you; but -I’m sorrier for the forty million blacks that we have on board, and -now we mean to carry them back to Africa.’ - -Lord Glendover went away, gloomy and bewildered, feeling great national -misfortunes gathering in the air. He visited his colleagues, and -considered how the country could be saved. - -But salvation was not to come from Lord Glendover. - - - - -XXXI - - -Parliament was dissolved, and the Great Policy was launched. The -obscurity had been suddenly lifted from Dwala’s mind: a hectic strength -and clearness took its place. He and Lady Wyse did not so much invent -the New Charter as discover it: it was the revelation of a thing -existent; as they sat pen in hand the words came to them from some far -place, illuminating and inevitable. - - - - -XXXII - - -A month had passed. The General Election was over. The great drought, -the heaviness, the dull unrest was ended. The Dragon of the myth, -the monster which slowly sucks up the waters, condemning the land to -infertility and pestilence, was slain, and the waters gushed forth -again to fruitfulness. The myriad warriors who had helped to pierce his -flanks went coursing over the plain, with a brandishing of spears and -cries of ‘Victory!’ St. George turned in his long sleep and opened his -heavy eyes. Well did he know those triumphing shouts. Was the race of -dragons ended now, or would a new dragon spring from the blood of the -old as heretofore? - - - - -XXXIII - - -Success is a strong wine. It was running vividly in Dwala’s veins. -Every least thing he did seemed to him fate-ordered and conclusive. Oh, -the pride of it, the joy of it, the ease of it! The acclamations and -the consciousness of right! - -The new Civilisation was like a poem, the scheme of which has come -whole and organic to the poet, and which germinates therefore without -constraint into its natural, necessary verses. The right men and the -right ideas fell of themselves into their places, like particles -forming a system of crystals. Dwala had found the basic idea, which -all this turbid mass had been so long awaiting. He created life and -received it. That same life flowed into his fibres, from the movement -of the multitude, which flows into the peasant-woman’s baby out of the -dust gathered on the busy highway. - -Lady Wyse, seeing the easy joyful motion of his limbs and hearing the -deep vigour of his voice, put her presentiments away. Dwala himself -looked back in wonder at that grey mood when the world had faded from -him. He was like the traveller who stands in the garish whirl of the -fair, wondering if this can be the place that looked so grim on Sunday. -He was enjoying the strong rush of life which a kindly Heaven sends to -the consumptive as consolation for their early death. - -He had new friends about him now. The Glendovers, the Disturnals, and -the rest of that crew had vanished into the Unknown; they were growing -turnips, shooting partridges, or riding on motor-ears somewhere in the -Outer Darkness. Hartopp and Prosser were still there; Joey had run -away to Seven Dials; Huxtable had packed his boxes, and stayed on in a -condition of provisional irresolution. - -On Dwala’s third floor lived an ascetic pensioner--a certain Mr. Bone, -an American, a traveller in the East, a friend of Lady Wyse--connected -by some mystery of familiarity with Dwala’s past. Rumour had it that he -was an adventurer who had been Dwala’s Prime Minister in his days of -sovereignty. - -Dwala’s palace, in fact, was fast turning into a monastery, where the -Abbot, with his little cell by the hall-door, was the least luxuriously -housed of all. - -Prosser, as I said, was still there, but he was no longer there as -valet. The acceptance of such personal service was inconsistent -with the Prince’s New Humanity, and Prosser was quite incapable of -performing his duties properly. For some time he had contented himself -with a life of ease in his own room. But _his_ politics also had -changed: he did not see why he should be worse off than Hartopp, and, -by force of gradual asking, acquired the whole of the second floor, -over Hartopp, for his portion. He had everything he could think of -wanting in his rooms; but even that did not content him. He had thought -that wealth was all he needed to make him happy in his sober intervals; -but soon found out that he was mistaken. His career had given him a -longing for _other_ people’s property; things lost their interest for -him once they became his own. He craved for the excitements of the -past. Scissors, and ashtrays, and other glittering things got a way -of disappearing wherever he went about the house. One night Dwala was -aroused by the screaming of a police whistle from one of Hartopp’s -windows over him, and going up he found the Fence sitting on Prosser’s -chest in the window-seat, and blowing for all he was worth. A broken -cupboard and a trailing jemmy explained the situation. - -‘All right, guvnor, I’ll go quietly,’ said Prosser, in a squeezed -husky voice; ‘I’m nabbed right enough this time.’ All the household -crowded in at the doorway with scared faces; policemen appeared, -and the alarm ended with the lights being turned up and everybody -sitting down together, policemen and all, to a scratch supper in the -dining-room, and laughing uproariously, as if something very funny had -occurred. - -The best of Prosser was that he never made any unpleasantness about -being arrested. He would surrender at discretion to the housemaid or -the boot boy, and offer to ‘go quietly.’ The policemen outside entered -into the joke of it, and were ready on the doorstep to come in for -their supper and half-crown whenever the episcopal butler ran out of -a night--as he always did--to fetch them. The American was the only -one who missed the fun of the thing; he swore that if he found anyone -prowling about his rooms he would punch his head and hand him over, bag -and baggage, to the police. - -Dwala himself was already tired of the joke, when the butler--rather -dishevelled--came in to the picture-gallery where he was pacing up -and down, one afternoon, with a sheaf of spoons in one hand and the -crestfallen Prosser in the other. - -‘Why don’t you steal something big and have done with it?’ Dwala said, -when he and the ex-valet were left alone. ‘One of these pictures, for -instance; they’re very valuable some of them, I know. Now here’s a -tremendously fine thing, I’m told. Who’s it by? The name’s written on -the frame.’ - -‘Rubens, sir.’ - -‘Now you take that, Prosser, some night. I don’t want it a bit, I -assure you. It’s worth something like fifteen thousand pounds, I’m -told.’ - -Prosser returned it after a couple of days. - -‘I can’t sleep with it in the room, I can’t, sir. When I shuts my eyes -I seems to see all them ladies rollin’ up and down and every way till -I’m fairly giddy. But I promise you, sir, I won’t go in no more for -little thievin’s, I’ll keep my eyes open for something big.’ - - - - -XXXIV - - -Sir Peter Parchmin was a rare visitor. He disliked the company which -Dwala kept; he couldn’t get on with Mr. Cato, who was always in and -out of the house. He was growing visibly older in the effort of keeping -his countenance, while his colleagues gloated over despatches of the -Missing Link Expedition, which kept writing hopefully from Borneo that -it was on the eve of achieving its object; Mr. Holmes had seen curious -scratches on trees, or had heard peculiar noises at night; once they -sent home a button which he had discovered in the forest. The hopes of -the scientific world ran high. - -‘You must get those people to come home, Sir Peter,’ said Dwala to the -Biologist, on one of his visits. ‘He’s a terrible fellow is that Mr. -Holmes; I shouldn’t feel safe in going back while he’s out there. He’d -have me, tail and all, in no time.’ - -‘But good heavens, dear Prince, you’re not thinking of leaving us?’ -said the Biologist. Joyful relief soared upwards from his heart; he had -barely time to clap a distressful expression over it to keep it from -escaping. - -‘Yes,’ said Dwala, ‘I’m going home. I have my own life to live, you -know. I’ve been a slave over here, working for the good of Man. My -work is done; I have delivered my message; and now I’m going back to -my wild life in the forest while I’m still young and strong. I mean to -... to throw all this off’--he flapped his coat like a bird--‘and enjoy -myself.’ - -‘I trust you will be very _very_ happy,’ said the Biologist, shaking -him warmly by the hand. ‘How are you going to manage about the money?’ -he asked in a lower voice. - -‘They’re arranging it in there,’ said Dwala, in the same precautious -tones, pointing to a door, behind which voices could be heard. - -The door opened at that moment and admitted an elderly obsequious man -in black, with a big parchment folded under his arm; and behind him -came Baron Blumenstrauss, Lady Wyse, Mr. Cato, and a lean brown man -with a tuft on his chin, whom Sir Peter had seen there once before. -This man smiled at Sir Peter drily. The obsequious man said good-bye, -and shook hands with the Prince. - -‘It’s all right, your Royal Highness; signed, sealed, delivered, and -stamped.’ - -‘Quite sound in law, is it?’ said the Prince. - -‘Inter fifos,’ nodded the Baron; ‘sount as a pell.’ - -The obsequious gentleman hurried out. - -‘Fonny man!’ said the Baron, patting the Prince on the shoulder, and -smiling at Sir Peter; ‘he gif his broperty all away, effery penny.’ - -‘It’s generous, dear Prince,’ said the Biologist, ‘but is it wise? Even -out there, no doubt, one has expenses.’ - -‘Oh! I sha’n’t want any money,’ said the Prince. - -‘They have no pockets, you know,’ said Lady Wyse. - -Whereupon the Baron, who was not initiated, adjusted his glasses and -looked at her with great attention. - -‘Remember King Lear,’ said the Biologist. ‘He divided his property in -two’.... - -‘Seely fellow!’ said the Baron. - -‘And his daughters were both ungrateful.’ - -‘Natürlich!’ said the Baron. ‘He trowed away de chief ting he haf; he -gif de broperty widout de power. If I difide my corner in Brazilians -into two corners for de boys, do you tink Max and Choel loff me very -moch?’ - -‘You would find some Cordelia, I am sure, dear Baron.’ - -‘Nod widout monny,’ said the Baron. - -‘There’s no Cordelia in this case,’ said Lady Wyse; ‘I’m Goneril and -the other lady all in one.’ - -‘Really?’ The Biologist was all smiles and proffered hands. ‘I -congratulate you. The Prince couldn’t have disposed of his fortune -better, I’m sure.’ - -‘Ah! that depends how people treat us.’ - -‘Dere is gondition,’ said the Baron, looking at his watch. - -‘May one inquire, dear Prince, what the condition is?’ - -‘Oh! it’s a mere nothing.’ - -‘Lady Wyse publish his “Memoirs,”’ said the Baron. - -The Biologist turned pale. - -‘That reminds me,’ said the American; ‘I mustn’t leave those papers -litterin’ about. I forgot to lock them up.’ - -‘Goot-bye,’ said the Baron. ‘I haf beesness encagement.’ He followed -the American out at the door. - -‘Of course!’ said the Biologist, brightening. ‘“Memoirs of a -Statesman”--anecdotes of the great people you have met. Who is the -American-looking man?’ - -‘Oh! that’s Mr. Bone, one of my collaborators. Mr. Cato and Lady Wyse -are the others; between us, you see, we cover the whole ground. I met -Mr. Bone in Borneo. In fact, he was ... he was my proprietor. I’m going -to leave the history of my life as a legacy and a lesson to the English -Nation.’ - -‘You’ll have to go over to Borneo with the Prince, Sir Peter,’ said -Lady Wyse: ‘you’ll be much more comfortable up one of his trees than -you will be in England.’ - -The question had been debated many and many a time between them. Mr. -Cato, as always, was for candour; he felt that Dwala was in a false -position; he thought the secret should be published at once, and -guaranteed the enthusiastic interest of the nation. Mr. Bone, for -other reasons, agreed with him as to immediate publication; he thought -there was money in it. Lady Wyse was all for caution; she lacked the -business instinct of the American, and the optimism of Mr. Cato; she -doubted the enthusiasm of the public; she thought it was running into -unnecessary danger to publish the secret before the Prince was out of -the country. It had therefore been agreed that she should publish it as -soon as he was safe in the great forest again. She was ready to incur -any danger herself; she was tired of life; and she did not in the least -mind what happened to the Biologist. - -The Biologist saw ruin impending. Savage, reckless hatred welled in -his breast as he looked at this great creature, fatally sick, but -rejoicing in a present intensity of life and vigour. He groped about -for something sharp and venomous to pierce him with; to make him fall -beside him into the valley of despair. He walked up to Dwala, hissing -like a serpent in his face. - -‘You have come to Man as an apostle, bringing us a new message of -Civilisation.’ - -Dwala nodded, rather proudly. - -‘Do you know what Man has given to you in return? What Man always gives -to such animals? What any scientist could have told you you were -bound to get in coming?... Consumption.... Phthisis pulmonalis.... -Death!... Going back while you’re young and strong to your wild life in -the forest! Pish! You won’t live the month out. I knew it that night. -You’re a dying beast.’ - -Alas! why had Lady Wyse never told him? He had never thought of that. -Life hummed and bubbled through his veins. He knew nothing of sickness -and death. He had always been alive. The world had been faint at times; -but that was the world, not he. A stiffening horror ran through him; -he felt his skin moving against his clothes. Then his mind ran rapidly -through all the series of events--the growth to the full knowledge of -Man, the labouring hope of a joke, the change, the revelation, the -submission to an overwhelming truth, the rejoicing millions.... Then -suddenly this discovery of an unsuspected vengeance-for-benefit which -had been stealing slowly and surely from the first in his steps, to -spring at last on his back in the moment of fruition. - -It was too funny; the surprise of the inevitable overcame him; it was -a Joke which suddenly leaped up embracing the whole life of a created -being, and the destiny of a nation--of humanity itself. - -Dwala laughed. For the last time he laughed. A laugh to which his -others were childish crowings; a laugh which flung horror on to the -walls and into the darkened air, and spread a sudden dismay of things -worse than death throughout the land. Men stopped in their work and in -their talk and their lips grew pale without a cause; some goodness had -gone out of Providence; some terror had been added to Fate. From the -fire of that dismay the Biologist emerged a withered and broken man; -Mr. Cato never flinched, his sheer goodness protected him; Lady Wyse -broke into tears. She, too, was unscathed. No human canon of ethics has -been invented by which she could be called good; she was a breaker of -laws, an enemy of her kind. But in the place of ‘goodness’ she had a -greatness which set her above the need of it. - -When the paroxysm of laughter was ended, Dwala staggered and sank into -a chair, and they saw him hanging from it with the blood streaming out -of his mouth. - -At once they were in the world of definite, manageable facts again. -The Biologist became the attentive practitioner, Lady Wyse the -understanding woman, Mr. Cato the bewildered layman, busily doing -unnecessary things, ringing the bell, calling for brandy, hurrying out -into the hall to see why they were so long. Huxtable and the American -came running down the stairs, and Dwala was carried to his room and put -to bed. - - - - -XXXV - - -While all the household radiated about Dwala’s sick-bed, and there -was no attention for any other thing, the Biologist ran swiftly up -the stairs, guided by a superhuman instinct of despair, straight to -the American’s room. He was going to seize the ‘Memoirs’ and burn -them. Dwala was dying; no new authentic copy could be produced again. -In the doorway he saw that his instincts had guided him aright. -American things greeted his eyes--an American hat on the chest of -drawers, American corn-cob pipes on the mantelpiece. But what was this? -Something alive in the room! A man crouching behind the table with a -bundle of papers. It was Prosser ‘doing something big’ at last. Too -much astonished to move for a moment, Sir Peter stood staring stupidly -at the frightened, cowering figure behind the table. - -‘Hello: what are you doin’ here?’ said a voice in the doorway. Then the -American espied the broken desk, and a moment later the Biologist found -himself clutched by the collar, trying helplessly to protect his head -from a flailing fist, while Prosser’s shadow shot low and horizontal -through the doorway. - -‘The Memoirs! the Memoirs!’ yelled the Biologist. ‘The d----d thief’s -stolen the Memoirs! Let me go! Let me go! It’s Prosser, not me! Oh, for -God’s sake, don’t hit me again!’ - -At the mention of Prosser the American stayed his hand, fumbled Sir -Peter’s pockets, then snatched him by the collar, and ran down the -stairs, dragging him after him like a live thing in a sack. But they -were too slow for Prosser. As they came out into Park Lane shouting -‘Stop thief! stop thief!’ there was the fat policeman saluting and -grinning delightedly. - -‘He’s got clean away this time, sir.’ - -‘Heavens alive! Why didn’t you stop him?’ - -‘I knows my place, sir’--with a wink. ‘It’s only Mr. Prosser.’ - -‘Blow your whistle, man! Blow your whistle! He’s stolen State Papers.’ - -The policeman walked very slowly forward to the edge of the pavement -and looked up and down the road, then turned about, smiling rather -nervously. - -‘Do you reely mean it, sir?’ - -‘Good Lord!’ said the American, and started off running madly without -another word into Oxford Street; while the Biologist careered, wild -and hatless, up Grosvenor Street, yelling desperately ‘Prosser, _dear_ -Prosser!’ to the scandal of Mayfair. - - - - -XXXVI - - -Among the many unnecessary things which Mr. Cato did in the -bewilderment of Dwala’s sudden illness, the most unnecessary was to -telegraph news of it to his sister, Lady Lillico. - -‘Dwala ill lung hemorrhage doctors offer little hope recovery Wyndham.’ - -They were in the drawing-room when the telegram came, just preparing to -go and dress for dinner. - -‘How too perfectly frightful!’ cried Lady Lillico. ‘The Premier dying! -I must go at once.’ - -‘Good Lord, Louisa, what for?’ said her husband. - -‘Don’t be so cynical, John. If Wyndham has telegraphed for me?’ - -‘Are you going to nurse the Prince?’ - -‘Of course I am. Pray keep your insinuations for some more fitting -time. What brutes men are! I believe you feel _nothing_ even now!’ At -which she began to cry. - -‘What about yer dinner?’ - -‘As if I could dine! Tell Hopkins to make up a little basket of -something to eat on the way. One mustn’t give any extra trouble. Oh -dear, oh dear; and my maid’s out! I shall have to take Emily. You must -send Harper on _at once_ when she comes in.’ - -However, no feats of heroism were demanded of Lady Lillico. She found -Mr. Cato and Huxtable waiting for her with a comfortable meal--Lady -Wyse stayed with Dwala--for though the servants’ hall was all agog -with the events of the afternoon, and the butler darkly prognosticated -‘the worst,’ things above stairs were in their usual train. And when -she presented herself an hour later, almost gay with fine emotion, in -a ‘business-like costume,’ cap and pinafore complete, in the darkened -sick-room, Lady Wyse, who hurried to the door to check her entry--her -violet eyes grown nearly black, and looking ‘very wicked,’ as Lady -Lillico said afterwards--told her baldly that she would not be wanted -till the morning. - - - - -XXXVII - - -When the sun cast his cold inquiring eye on England in the morning, -and the innocent fields awoke in their grey shifts of dew, the trains -that shot North, West, and South from London over the landscape, like -worldly thoughts in a house of prayer, bore the tidings of Dwala’s -disgrace. Trainloads of newspapers, the white wax sweated forth by -the grimy bees in the sleepless hives of the big city, rattled past -answering loads of milk and meat, gifts of the country, making the -daily exchange. Squires and parsons were too shocked to eat their -breakfast; their wives raced against the doctor to carry the news from -house to house; the schoolmasters told the children; the children -carried the tidings with the handkerchief of dinner to their fathers -under the trees in the field. There was no room for hesitation; verdict -and judgment were pronounced already. The country had been made the -victim of a hideous hoax. Dwala and all his works must perish. - -And yet, when the Biologist blurted his hint of a tail, a roomful of -people turned and rent him! It is the way of the world; it is part of -good manners. A partial revelation, a timid hint, an indiscretion, is -smothered ignominiously; when the whole blatant truth brays out, men -welcome it with ferocious joy. So, in the ancient days, tactless young -angels in Heaven were sent to Coventry who alluded to Lucifer’s tail, -or noticed anything odd about his feet; but when his tumbling-day came -at last, the Seraphim were in the very front of the crowd which stood -pelting meteors and yelling _Caudate! ungulate!_ down from the clouds. - -Men shut up their shops in London and gathered about taverns and -corner-posts to unravel the sense of the bewildering news. Public -Opinion, deserting the grass of the Parks, slouched into the streets to -learn what it must do. - -When Joey ran down into the street to fetch the morning milk, the -news stared out at her from the boards in pink and black: ‘Dwala, the -Missing Link!’ - -‘Golly!’ said her pals; ‘what’s your bloke been up to now?’ - -Joey was a heroine every day--the greatness of her acquaintance had -a savour in Seven Dials which it had lacked in Park Lane; but this -morning she soared altogether out of sight. What were milk-jugs and -breakfast to such a thing as this? The milk penny went in a couple of -newspapers, and she darted off with them across country for Dwala’s -house. Who knew but she might be the first to bring him the great news? - -Everybody was in the streets, as happens when public events are -astir; and every street sent forth a thin stream that trickled in the -same direction, till it formed a full river in Park Lane. A posse of -policemen guarded the spiked gates. - -‘Move on! Move on!’ said the official voice. - -‘None of your nonsense, constable; I’m a friend of the Missin’ Link.’ - -‘What! Miss Joey!’ beamed a familiar face from under a helmet. ‘Let her -in, Bill; _she_ won’t ’urt ’im.’ - -The steps were littered with telegrams that lay like autumn leaves -unswept; and an anxious footman, muttering to himself, was strapping a -bag in the entry. - -‘Is the Missin’ Link at home, young man?’ - -‘The brutes! To leave me behind, all alone!’ - -It was the last of the servants, deserted like an unwilling Casa -Bianca in the general flight, while packing his things in his cubicle. -A moment later he had gone too, without even looking at her, and she -stood alone in the empty, echoing hall. She could hear Hartopp cursing -and thumping with his wooden leg on the floor above. Then a pistol-shot -rang out somewhere in the house, and she was frightened. While she -stood hesitating which way to run a door swung to, and Lady Wyse walked -across the hall, with a basin steaming in her hands. She went in at -another door, and Joey followed her, clutching her newspapers. - -Dwala sat up in bed, propped against pillows, with ghastly, hollow -eyes; and on the chair beside him was Mr. Cato, pale and dishevelled, -fast asleep. A cold wave of disappointment surged over Joey. Was this -what Missing Links looked like? But he smiled at her, and the old -feeling of fellowship came back. - -‘Have you heard the news?’ said Joey. - -Dwala nodded. ‘What do they say?’ - -Joey read him column on column of frantic outcry, at all of which he -smiled gently. - -‘This is our joke,’ he said, at last, to Lady Wyse. - -‘It’s not our best.’ - -Then there came a tap at the door, and a gentle voice saying: - -‘May I come in?’ - -Lady Lillico had been awoken by a dream with the sound of a shot in -it. Nine o’clock! Why, where was Harper? She rang, and rang in vain. -Then she looked out of window, and smiled and nodded at the crowd. How -sweet of them to be so anxious about the poor dear Prince! And still no -Harper. Never mind! One must expect to rough it in a house of sickness. -She knotted her hair and slipped on her dressing-gown; a first visit in -_déshabillé_ lends a motherly grace to a nurse’s part. - -She tripped lightly down the silent stairs to Dwala’s room. - -‘May I come in?’ - -She tip-toed up to the bed with a ceremonious face. Mr. Cato frowned; -Lady Wyse looked at her with cold curiosity. - -‘Have you heard the news?’ said Joey, rustling a newspaper. - -‘Evidently not,’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘It’s all come out,’ said Mr. Cato, sepulchrally. - -‘What’s come out?’ said his sister, scared. ‘I’ve heard nothing.’ - -Joey thrust the paper at her with an indicating finger. - -She stared for a long time at the words without understanding; then -fell into a chair and laughed hysterically. - -‘What do you think of it now they’ve caught it?’ whispered Dwala, -turning white eyes towards her. - -‘Well, really, you ridiculous creature!’ she exclaimed, flapping at him -with a little lace handkerchief, half coquettishly, half as if keeping -something off. ‘It’s so out of the common.... The Prime Minister!... -One doesn’t know _what_ to say!’ - -‘He’s dying,’ said Mr. Cato. - -‘Wyndham! How can you!’ - -‘Lady Wyse must go and get some sleep now; you will take her place.’ - -‘Don’t be idiotic! I should be no use. Oh dear, oh dear! Where _can_ -Harper be?’ - -‘Sit down, Louisa!’ said Mr. Cato sternly, barring her way. ‘Lady Wyse -has been up all night.’ - -‘Don’t be so cruel.... Let me go! let me go!’ she screamed in an access -of sudden fear, wrenched herself free from him, and ran towards the -door. - -Then abruptly her horror leaped up and overwhelmed her; the instinct -of flying from the incomprehensible--the instinct of the horse which -shies at a piece of moving paper--was swallowed up in the nightmare -of realising that the impossible had happened, was in this very room -with her. This man she had come to nurse, this man with whom she had -talked and shaken hands, was suddenly not a man, but something unknown -and monstrous, of another world. Her faculties failed, as at sight of -a ghost, not in fear of injury, but in the mere awfulness of the alien -power. She staggered out at the door crying ‘Save me! save me!’ threw -her hands forward in her first natural gesture since childhood, and -fell swooning in the hall. When she came back to consciousness, after -long journeying in nightmare worlds, she heard angry voices speaking -near her. - -‘Let me out, d---- you!’ said Hartopp--that dreadful Mr. -Hartopp--‘they’re throwing stones at my windows, I tell you. They’ll -smash my china! Let me get at the brutes!’ - -‘This door ain’t goin’ to be opened till the Prince is re-moved.’ - -It was the American who answered him. He stood with his hat on, leaning -against the barred and bolted hall-door, his arms folded and a pistol -drooping from either hand. - -‘D---- the ----!’ said Hartopp. ‘Why don’t you chuck him out and have -done with it? It’s all his fault.’ - -‘Thank God you’re back!’ said Lady Wyse’s voice right over Lady -Lillico’s head. ‘Have you arranged it?’ - -‘The Boss is agreeable,’ said the American. ‘The “Phineas” will be -at Blackwall at twelve o’clock, steam up. One of his vans is waitin’ -down back in Butlin Street now, and we must shift the Prince at once, -before any onpleasantness begins. There was no other way; the Prince -will hev to go as an anamal.’ - -A stone came jingling through the window beside them, and others -followed in showers. - -‘B---- brutes!’ said the blind man. - -‘Where’s Huxtable?’ said Lady Wyse. - -‘Huxtable’s gone.’ - -‘Skunk!’ said Joey. - -‘Not quite a skunk,’ said the American; ‘“skunk” is goin’ too fur.’ - -There was a roar and a rush outside, battle cries, shrieks of -despairing whistles, and a moment later a heavy battering at the -mahogany of the front door. - -Lady Lillico, fully conscious at last, jumped up with piercing yells. -She ran this way and that, bewildered. - -‘We must get the Prince away quickly,’ said Lady Wyse, going towards -his room. - -‘Oh, let me out, let me out somewhere!’ cried Lady Lillico. Joey ran -past with her tongue thrust mockingly forth, like a heraldic lion -gardant. - -‘Here, give me your pistols,’ said the blind man; ‘I’ll give the brutes -what for!’ - -Slowly and heavily they carried Dwala out across the hall, wrapped in -his blankets like a gigantic mummy; while Hartopp stood in an expectant -joy of ferocity guarding the entrance. Down the kitchen passage they -carried him, and out into the high-walled garden--with Lady Lillico -flitting like a Banshee before them--through the stable-yard, and -into the deserted street, where the van was waiting for them. Public -Opinion, so rigorous once in its denunciation of ‘frontal attacks,’ -seemed to have forgotten the ‘lessons of the Boer War.’ When the big -door was battered down, and the furious crowd broke in, half a dozen -of them fell mortally wounded before Hartopp was overpowered. The old -Fence died, fighting like a tiger for his property. - - * * * * * - -What was Dwala thinking of as he lumbered slowly through the length of -London in that menagerie van? Was he laughing quietly to himself at -the thought that he, the saviour of England, the superhuman mind, was -being hustled secretly out of England, for a trivial pride of species, -as if he had committed some unspeakable crime? Was he weeping at the -nearness of his separation from this handful of faithful friends? -Probably not. His mind, withdrawn to the innermost darkness of the -caves, was probably busy with the trivial thoughts which beset men at -such times. It is only in the last moment that the soul throws off the -load of little things, and, soaring like a bird, sees Life and Death -spreading in their vastness beneath it. He lay still, with his eyes -shut, and his temples hollow with decay. Lady Lillico was fast asleep, -under a black cloak which somebody had thrown over her. The rest sat -silent in the jolting twilight with their feet in the straw. - -‘It’s a lesson for all of us,’ murmured Mr. Cato at last. - -‘It’s that,’ said the American; ‘it p’ints a moral sharp enough to -hurt.’ - - * * * * * - -As Mr. Cato stood with Joey on the jetty, watching the last moments -of departure, the American came to the bulwarks with Lady Wyse, and, -leaning over, beckoned him. - -‘“Skunk” was goin’ too fur for Huxtable. I’ve just bin tellin’ Lady -Wyse; he shot himself whin the noos came. I found him lyin’ in his -room.’ - -‘Was he dead?’ murmured Mr. Cato, awestruck at the fall of an enemy. - -The American nodded. - -‘Deader’n a smelt.’ - -‘I wish I were dead too!’ said Mr. Cato bitterly. - -The American made a motion of diving with his joined hands. Mr. Cato -shook his head. - -‘I have my two sisters to look after.’ - -‘I wish you joy.’ - -Then the cables were loosed, the screw snorted in the water, the -American waved, and followed Lady Wyse into the cabin; the boat slid -away from the jetty, and, slowly turning in mid-stream, reared its -defiant head towards the sea. - - * * * * * - -After many days of alert and passive silence, Dwala died on his pallet -on the deck. He turned his face sideways down into the pillow, as if -to hide the smile that was rising to his lips; then breathed one deep, -luxurious sigh, and was ended. They wrapped him in sacking, with an -iron reel at his feet; and in the cold, clear morning, when the sun -mounted flat and yellow to its daily course and the low mists smoked -this way and that along the waves, they slid him without a word off a -door and over the bulwarks. - -Down, down through the crystal indifference, wavering gently to his -appointed place in the rocky bottom of the rapt thicket of weeds; -losing the last remnant of individuality as the motion ceased; -indistinguishable from a little heap of sand; lying careless and -obscure, like some tired animal which has crept to rest in the wild -garden of a crumbled castle in an empty world, long since abandoned and -forgotten by mankind. - -The ‘Phineas’ paused for a moment in mid-ocean, the only living thing -of its tribe upon the waters without a purpose straining in its hull. -The hesitation lasted only a moment. The boat swung round, took one -look at the horizon, then dashed forwards again on the home journey to -England and new work. - -England had gone back to its occupations. The papers spoke of the -return of political sanity; of the rejection of ideas from a tainted -source; of the restoration of the system which had been the bulwark -of our greatness through so many centuries. The composition of Lord -Glendover’s Cabinet attested his sincere intention of putting public -affairs on a business-like and efficient footing. - -There is no remedy for the errors of Democracy; there is no elasticity -of energy to fulfil purposes conceived on a larger scale than its -every-day thought. Other systems may be purged by the rising waves of -national life; but Democracy is exhaustive. - - PRINTED BY - SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE - LONDON - - - - -BY THE SAME AUTHOR. - -THIRD IMPRESSION. With 16 Illustrations by the Author. - -Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ - -DOWNY V. GREEN, - -RHODES SCHOLAR AT OXFORD. - -PRESS OPINIONS. - - -_TIMES._--‘We never remember to have read anything which more compelled -laughter than these too-few pages. We have a perfect carnival of -American slang.... The line illustrations, which are by the author, are -in some cases admirable; we may say comparable with Mr. Kipling’s.’ - -_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--‘It is one of the best bits of fooling we have read -for a long time, and is written by one who knows Oxford perfectly, and -has a command of American slang which Mark Twain himself might envy.... -This little book, which is cleverly illustrated by the author, deserves -as wide a vogue as its predecessor “Verdant.” Its humour is quite as -irresistible and more subtle.’ - -_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--‘A delightful skit.... We do not think anyone -has hit off better than Mr. Calderon the extraordinary cocksureness, -volubility, and linguistic exuberance of the typical American, yet he -never allows his humour to get out of hand. The Oxford characters are -marked with the same sureness of touch.’ - -_GUARDIAN._--‘If one must compare Downy with Verdant, the descendant’s -experiences are the better for being written by an Oxford man, while -Verdant’s were not. The satire is as admirable as the farce; but, on -the whole, Downy as Verdant makes one rather laugh aloud than smile.’ - -_WORLD._--‘The fun is kept up with an unflagging spirit and ingenuity -that render the skit--which the author has embellished with some -diverting illustrations from his own evidently facile pencil--a by no -means unworthy comparison to “Verdant Green” itself.’ - -_OXFORD MAGAZINE._--‘Mr. Downy V. Green is an American grandson of the -immortal Verdant, and it is not too much to say that he is fully worthy -of his lineage. From the moment one embarks upon his adventures it -is difficult to lay them down. Mr. Calderon has a biting humour, and -spares neither Oxford nor America.’ - -_MANCHESTER GUARDIAN._--‘A really capital narrative, in which an -accurate knowledge of Oxford life is combined with a marvellously wide -knowledge of the American language.... Nothing is more admirable than -the fertility which enables him to avoid employing English without -making his substitute for it grow tedious.’ - -_SPECTATOR._--‘Our readers may take our assurance that the book is -amusing in a high degree.’ - -_ATHENÆUM._--‘Mr. Calderon has an amazing command of picturesque -slang and metaphor from overseas, and, as befits the son of a late -distinguished artist, has himself provided excellent illustrations of -his ideas.’ - -_DAILY MAIL._--‘Most excellent fooling.... His sketches possess a -crude, rude vigour that remind the faithful of the immortal pencil of -Michael Angelo Titmarsh. He has it in him to become a humorist of the -first order.’ - -_VARSITY._--‘The whole book is full of rollicking humour from cover to -cover.’ - -_GLASGOW HERALD._--‘The book is capitally written, and evidently from -a first-hand knowledge of student life. It is full of humour--American -humour and Oxford humour--and is altogether an excellent book of its -kind.’ - - - - -ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS - -OF - -POPULAR WORKS. - -Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, each volume containing Four -Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. - - =THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON.= By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. - =FRAMLEY PARSONAGE.= By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. - =THE CLAVERINGS.= By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. - =TRANSFORMATION=: a Romance. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. - =DOMESTIC STORIES.= By the Author of ‘John Halifax, Gentleman.’ - =THE MOORS AND THE FENS.= By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. - =WITHIN THE PRECINCTS.= By Mrs. OLIPHANT. - =CARITÀ.= By Mrs. OLIPHANT. - =FOR PERCIVAL.= By MARGARET VELEY. - =NO NEW THING.= By W. E. NORRIS. - =LOVE THE DEBT.= By RICHARD ASHE KING (‘Basil’). - =WIVES AND DAUGHTERS.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =NORTH AND SOUTH.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =SYLVIA’S LOVERS.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =CRANFORD, and other Stories.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =MARY BARTON, and other Stories.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =RUTH; THE GREY WOMAN, and other Stories.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - =LIZZIE LEIGH; A DARK NIGHT’S WORK, and other Stories.= By Mrs. GASKELL. - - - - -THE CHEAPER ILLUSTRATED EDITION - -OF THE - -WORKS OF W. M. THACKERAY. - - 26 Volumes, crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. Sets in cloth, £4. 11s. - -Containing nearly all the small Woodcut Illustrations of the former -Editions, and many new Illustrations by eminent Artists. This Edition -contains altogether 1,773 Illustrations. - -[Illustration: _Specimen Illustration from the Cheaper Illustrated -Edition of W. M. Thackeray’s Works._] - -OTHER EDITIONS OF MR. THACKERAY’S WORKS. - - =THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION.= In 13 volumes, large crown 8vo. cloth - gilt top, 6_s._ each. Prospectus upon application. - - =THE STANDARD EDITION.= 26 vols. large 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ each. - - ∵ _Only some of the Volumes are in print. Particulars upon application._ - - =THE LIBRARY EDITION.= 24 vols. large crown 8vo. handsomely bound - in cloth, £9. With Illustrations by the Author, Richard Doyle, and - Frederick Walker. - - ∵ _The Volumes are sold separately, in cloth, 7s. 6d. each._ - - =THE POPULAR EDITION.= 13 vols. crown 8vo. with Frontispiece to each - Volume, 5_s._ each. - - ∵ _Only some of the Volumes are in print. Particulars upon application._ - - =THE POCKET EDITION.= 27 vols. in cloth, with gilt top, 1_s._ 6_d._ - each; or in paper cover, 1_s._ each. - - _The Volumes are also supplied as follows_:-- - - =THE NOVELS.= 13 vols. in gold-lettered cloth case, 21_s._ - - =THE MISCELLANIES.= 14 vols. in gold-lettered cloth case, 21_s._ - - - - -WORKS BY F. ANSTEY. - - - =THE BRASS BOTTLE.= By F. ANSTEY, Author of ‘Vice Versâ,’ ‘The - Giant’s Robe,’ ‘A Fallen Idol,’ &c. With a Frontispiece. THIRD - IMPRESSION. Crown 8vo. 6_s._ - -=From THE SPECTATOR.=--‘In his logical conduct of an absurd -proposition, in his fantastic handling of the supernatural, in his -brisk dialogue and effective characterisation, Mr. Anstey has once more -shown himself to be an artist and a humourist of uncommon and enviable -merit.’ - -=From PUNCH.=--‘For weirdness of conception, for skilful treatment, and -for abounding humour, Mr. Anstey’s last, my Baronite avers, is a worthy -companion of his first (“Vice Versâ”).’ - - =THE TALKING HORSE and other Tales.= Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. - 6_s._ Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. limp red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.=--‘A capital set of stories, thoroughly -clever and witty, often pathetic, and always humorous.’ - -=From THE ATHENÆUM.=--‘The grimmest of mortals, in his most surly mood, -could hardly resist the fun of “The Talking Horse.”’ - - =THE GIANT’S ROBE.= Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. 6_s._ Cheap Edition. - Crown 8vo. limp red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.=--‘The main interest of the book, which -is very strong indeed, begins when Vincent returns, when Harold Caffyn -discovers the secret, when every page threatens to bring down doom on -the head of the miserable Mark. Will he confess? Will he drown himself? -Will Vincent denounce him? Will Caffyn inform on him? Will his wife -abandon him?--we ask eagerly as we read and cannot cease reading till -the puzzle is solved in a series of exciting situations.’ - - =THE PARIAH.= Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. 6_s._ Cheap Edition. Crown - 8vo. limp red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.=--‘In “The Pariah” we are more than ever -struck by the sharp intuitive perception and the satirical balancing of -judgment which make the author’s writings such extremely entertaining -reading. There is not a dull page--we might say, not a dull -sentence--in it....’ - - =VICE VERSÂ; or, a Lesson to Fathers.= Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. limp - red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.=--‘If ever there was a book made up from -beginning to end of laughter, and yet not a comic book, or a “merry” -book, or a book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a -tomfool book, but a perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading -of which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end, it -is the book called “Vice Versâ; or, a Lesson to Fathers.”... We close -the book, recommending it very earnestly to all fathers in the first -instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, and male cousins next.’ - - =A FALLEN IDOL.= Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. limp red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE TIMES.=--‘Will delight the multitudinous public that laughed -over “Vice Versâ.”... The boy who brings the accursed image to -Champion’s house, Mr. Bales, the artist’s factotum, and above all Mr. -Yarker, the ex-butler who has turned policeman, are figures whom it is -as pleasant to meet as it is impossible to forget.’ - - =LYRE AND LANCET.= With 24 Full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. limp - red cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ - -=From THE SPEAKER.=--‘Mr. Anstey has surpassed himself in “Lyre and -Lancet.”... 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