FOOTNOTES:[10]I do not allude to M. de Reinach, the great French statesman and champion of Truth and Justice, but to his uncle, whose sudden demise will be familiar to many.[11]I refer once more to the (alas!) late Baron de Reinach, uncle of the great French statesman, Joseph de Reinach.
FOOTNOTES:
[10]I do not allude to M. de Reinach, the great French statesman and champion of Truth and Justice, but to his uncle, whose sudden demise will be familiar to many.
[10]I do not allude to M. de Reinach, the great French statesman and champion of Truth and Justice, but to his uncle, whose sudden demise will be familiar to many.
[11]I refer once more to the (alas!) late Baron de Reinach, uncle of the great French statesman, Joseph de Reinach.
[11]I refer once more to the (alas!) late Baron de Reinach, uncle of the great French statesman, Joseph de Reinach.
CHAPTER XIII
Nextmorning Mr. Bailey woke at dawn, a rare thing for him and an unpleasant one. He did not ring his bell: he hoped perhaps for further sleep, but he felt wonderfully wakeful. The morning was fresh; he went and pulled aside the curtain, he threw open the window towards the day, and sniffed the eager air; his mischievous brain was alert and full of plans; he was seeking what he might devour.
In this mood there suddenly recurred to him the night before, and though he was alone he beamed to himself at the recollection of it. He first considered, in that minute manner to which such natures are given, how best he could reply, and in a little while he had decided.
He dressed and went out, ate his breakfast at a little workmen's chop-house in one of the back streets—where he was sufficiently stared at—and then walked smartly northward and eastward towards Mickleton, musing as he went, and with every step he took his plan grew more defined.Of all the men of Mickleton, Mr. Clay, he found, carried most weight. His courage in starting business for a third time, his large number of workmen, the rates he paid, his Swedenborgianism, all counted in the suburb: he had paid Mr. Clay assiduous court for a fortnight, and Mr. Clay was delighted at the honour.
It was half-past nine when he found Mr. Clay in his office, strict and starched as ever, and, as ever, in some incomprehensible hurry to get on to the next affair.
"Clay," he said, "can you lend me the big shed to-night?"
"Yes," said Mr. Clay with the rapidity of decision that had already lost him one fortune and grievously jeopardised two others. "James," he said, turning round smartly, "book that. Mr. Bailey takes the big shed when the men knock off work."
"No, no!" broke in William Bailey, "not when the men knock off work. It's Saturday man! Half-past eight's the hour."
"Oh!" said Mr. Clay promptly. "James, book that: not when the men knock off work, half-past eight. Anything more?" he added, turning to Mr. Bailey as upon a swivel.
"Yes, Clay, certainly," said Mr. Bailey with deliberate hesitation. "Will the men come?"
"Of course they'll come. I'll tell them to come:they'll come anyhow. James," he said, turning round again, "note that the men are to come."
The wretched James noted it.
"Anything more?" said Mr. Clay.
"Yes," said Mr. Bailey, "will you take the chair?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Clay. "James, remind me that I take the chair."
"How shall I remind you?" replied the terrified boy.
"How shall you remind me, you fool? Write it down—book it—make a note of it. Anything more?" he continued.
"No, I think that's about all," said Mr. Bailey. But as he turned to go slowly out Mr. Clay's curiosity got the better of his extremely businesslike habits.
"Mr. Bailey," he said, coughing slightly, "Bailey, I beg your pardon, but what will the meeting be about?"
"Oh, what on earth does that matter?" said Mr. Bailey good-naturedly. "Just a meeting."
"About the unseating of our member?" asked Mr. Clay anxiously.
"Yes," answered Mr. Bailey with jollity, "all sorts of things of that sort."
"I'm your man," said Mr. Clay, "I'm your man. None of that about here: we're free born in Mickleton, we are. Mickleton men," he added, as though Mickleton were an island that had fiercely defended its independence in long and bloody wars—"Mickleton men, Mr. Bailey." Then he nodded, and remembering the true secret of success, began writing rapidly again.
Mr. Bailey sauntered out. He looked about him to find his direction, turned down Mafeking Avenue, and when towards ten o'clock he had reached the agents for the Second Jubilee Hall and the Coronation Annexe, his foolish and disastrous intention was fixed.
He entered abruptly into his business and told the clerk that he must countermand the use of the building for that night. He was willing to pay the £40 for it as though he had hired it, and in case they could get another let at so short a notice, half that sum.
The clerk had been warned by his principal that Mr. Bailey would probably telephone or still more likely call in person that morning, and professed a need to consult the head of the firm before he could give a reply. He was careful to leave Mr. Bailey with a copy of theTimeswhile he went into the principal's private room, and Mr. Bailey, who had not seen that paper for some months, gloomily read a leader upon foreign affairs, in which his warped judgment pretended to detect the hand ofthe redoubtable and ubiquitous Abraham. He had not been engaged in this fashion for five minutes, when the clerk returned and told him in a firm voice they could not accept his offer.
"How do you mean you can't accept it?" demanded Mr. Bailey in very genuine astonishment and with still more genuine irritation. "You can't refuse it!... you mean you can't accept the £20?" he added a little more gently.
"Yes we can, sir—no I don't, sir," answered the clerk hurriedly and firmly, while his mouth twitched like that of a Colonial Governor in time of crisis. "I mean we can't accept it, sir, it can't be done."
"But it's got to be done," roared Mr. Bailey. "You can't force me to hold my meeting if I don't want to!"
"No, sir, certainly not, sir," said the clerk.
"Then what the hell do you mean?" shouted the blasphemous fellow.
"I mean that we can't take a plain inclusive payment for the loss and disturbance, sir. We can't do it."
"Whatdoyou mean?" said Mr. Bailey.
The clerk answered that he must consult his principal again, and Mr. Bailey, restraining himself with a considerable effort, sat down to finish the leader which he was more convinced than ever had proceeded from the pen of the mythicalHebrew. It was a long while before the clerk returned, for it had been necessary to communicate by telephone with the Duke of Battersea, and at such an early hour it was not easy to obtain the philanthropist's reply.
"We'll take your offer, sir," said the clerk.
"Oh you will, will you?" said Mr. Bailey, "then you won't have the chance. I'll hold the meeting just the same. So there!" he added, a little vulgarly, and stalked out.
It is undecided, flighty action of this sort which leads to half the trouble in this world. Mr. Bailey had not the remotest intention of holding the meeting in the original hall. In that his somewhat wayward decision stood firm. With that object he had seen Mr. Clay; and he was wise, for the forces against him were too strong to permit him to call the meeting in the Second Jubilee Hall or even in the Coronation Annexe; they were strong enough to prevent his holding it in any public building. But this sudden rise of temper on his part proved a source of considerable irritation and expense to others, who should not have been made responsible for it.
The conversation that passed over the telephone, between the Duke of Battersea and the agent, was singularly and needlessly acrimonious upon the part of the aged statesman, almost servile upon thepart of the agent; both emotions might surely have been spared to two men who at heart knew themselves to be worthy of nobler things, had not Mr. Bailey, by his precipitate ill-temper, destroyed arrangements which would probably have been for his own good, and certainly for that of the community at large. The upshot of the conversation was that the Duke, despairing of understanding the situation, announced his intention of coming himself to Mickleton by noon, and the agent, pleased as he was at the advertisement that such a visit must afford him, would willingly have foregone the honour for the sake of that peace which he feared never to regain.
At noon the motor-car glode up with its tiny strawberry leaf coronet and the dainty arms upon the panels.
The agent came out, was obsequious, deferential, intelligent and full of sympathy, but unfortunately incapable of the rapid perception which was demanded of him. His only reply was that he could not see how he could do it; that he would do everything he could; he would be delighted to withdraw the placards which were even now being got ready to stand outside the hall; he would make what difficulties he could for the admission of the Press—though he very much doubted his power to exclude reporters once thehall was hired. When, in the midst of his excuses, he suddenly let light into his caller's mind by saying:
"And of course everything would be subject to the proprietors."
"Who are then the proprietors?" said the Duke sharply.
"The Anglo-Saxon Exchange," said the agent with that touch of pride which we all feel when we mention any important power with which we have even a distant connection.
The Duke was relieved.
"That I should also have known," he said gently, and then changing his manner altogether he added:
"That isallright, that isallright," separating the first two words and laying stress upon the first syllable of the last, in a manner which still faintly betrayed those difficulties with the English language which he had had the courage and the perseverance to conquer almost completely.
He went away in a frame of mind at which the agent was at once too polite and too humble to wonder, but which was certainly far less agitated than that in which he had come. It was a heavy strain to fall upon a man of the Duke of Battersea's age, and one that should have been spared him, but no one knew better than that strong genius offinance what things may be done by deputy and what things must be done in person. Nor will any of my readers regret that the old man's investigation should have left him freed of the fears which the vicious and unpatriotic conduct of an irresponsible eccentric had aroused.
A little after lunch Mr. Kahn, the secretary of the Anglo Saxon Exchange, happened to drop in at the agent's in Mickleton. There was nothing unexpected in the visit. His few questions turned upon the usual topics, whether the hall had recently let well, who had taken it, whether the more disturbed political meetings had done any damage, whether it was now worth applying for a licence, &c. It occurred to him to ask, just as he was going away, when the hall was likely to be let next, and to whom, as there were certain reparations which the architect for the estate had decided upon.
The reappearance of this terrible subject once more disturbed the restored equanimity of the agent.
"Oh, dear," he said, "it's let—in a manner of speaking."
"What's in a manner of speaking?" said the astonished secretary.
"Well, a gentleman's got it anyhow, and then he didn't want it, and now he wants it again."
"Oh nonsense!" said Mr. Kahn, "we can't playthe fool with the County Council. The platform's declared unsafe; we must have the workmen come in. I thought there were several days to do it in and I wasn't in any hurry, but it certainly can't be done in a couple of hours. You'll have to tell your man he can't have it."
The appearance of this further complication almost drove the wretched agent mad. Excusing himself for perhaps the fifth time that day and rushing to the telephone he called up Mr. Bailey and entreated him to cancel the engagement. But Mr. Bailey was in a dour mood, and as he sat indulging in his habitual excess of port after a solitary lunch, he darted into his receiver the most positive and vicious refusal, saying plainly that if his rights were tampered with he would sue for damages.
The agent came back with the substance, though not with the expletives of this reply, and the secretary of the Anglo-Saxon Exchange, pulling out his watch, said briefly:
"Well, there's no help for it. We must send in the workmen at once, and if he wants to sue he can sue."
In an hour a considerable body of healthy but somnolent men slouched into the building, their chief showed his written orders, and the remainder of the afternoon was spent in removing benches, opening up the floor, barricading the door, cutting offthe electric light from the main (nothing is more dangerous than to leave such connections during repairs), digging a deep trench in front of the back entrance, and in other ways setting about improvements that were doubtless necessary, but that would make it highly inconvenient for any considerable body to gather within for political or for any other purposes.
The agent, after repeated conversations with Mr. Bailey, each more conciliatory than the last, promised and despatched a cheque for £25 on the distinct understanding that no proceedings should follow; and when the agent had recovered this sum (as he did with difficulty) from the Anglo-Saxon Exchange, the expenses of that great financial corporation, in labour and in compensation, were, I regret to say, considerably over £100.
Mr. Bailey, seated by his lonely but warm and brilliant hearth, held the cheque for £25 daintily between his finger and thumb. For a moment it seemed as though he would have put it in the fire, then with the subtle smile of the fanatic, he thought better of the business; he endorsed the cheque and sent it, with a Latin motto pinned on, to a Jew-baiting organisation in Vienna; a foul gang of which he knew nothing whatsoever save that he had read its address in one of those vile Continental rags from which he derived so many of his prejudices,and whose authority was the origin of his repeated falsehoods.
It had been arranged that Mr. Clutterbuck should pick up Mr. Bailey on the way, just upon eight o'clock, and drive him to the hall.
He had been late so often that Mr. Bailey was expecting some delay, but when the quarter had struck, he grew anxious; and at twenty past he would wait no longer. He had the good luck to get a taxi at the corner of the square, but even so he would be late. He began to have doubts, and as he dashed up northwards to Mickleton those doubts in that diseased brain of his rapidly became certainties. Mr. Clutterbuck had been nobbled: Mr. Clutterbuck would not appear. Asleep or ill, or overturned in some ditch, or accidentally locked up in some room, the ex-Member for Mickleton would not be in Mickleton that night. Such were the wild fancies which formed in the fanatic's imagination. The truth was simple and needed no such extravaganza of melodrama as William Bailey concocted within himself.
Charlie Fitzgerald had had the curiosity to stroll into the old constituency that morning; he had come back to the centre of town from Mickleton by two. He had had lunch, of course, with the Duke of Battersea, who depended every day moreand more upon the young fellow's conversation and wit. Mr. Bailey's latest insanity, which Charlie Fitzgerald happened to have heard of during his visit to Mickleton in the morning, was naturally touched upon in their conversation; they laughed at the cunning which had hired Mr. Clay's shed, and they discussed the chances of the extempore meeting, but the happy young Irishman was not without a sense of duty; he would not leave his employer unaided, nor did the Duke of Battersea press him too eagerly to remain.
By half-past four, therefore, he was back at The Plâs, ready with his cheery voice to give Mr. Clutterbuck energy for the evening's business. He suggested a run round in one of the motors before going straight into town; there was a fine heartening wind from the south-west, with heavy clouds; it was just the afternoon to take an hour or two of the air before turning in after dark to London and duty. The suggestion was excellent, as were most of Charlie's suggestions, and Mr. Clutterbuck, carefully rolling up the speech that Mr. Bailey had written for him, and thrusting it into his breast pocket, put on his great fur coat and gloves, and ordered one of the smaller cars to come round.
"Nothing braces one up like a sharp bit of motoring before a speech," said Mr. Clutterbuck, as he got into the open Renault.
Charlie Fitzgerald was occupied in hauling away at the barrel organ in front of the radiator. He made faces as he did so.
Mr. Clutterbuck was rubbing his hands nervously and glancing at the sky.
"It looks dark," he went on, still rubbing his hands, "but I dare say nothing will come of it."
Charlie Fitzgerald, with a face more hideous than any yet drawn, gave a final tug at the starting handle and the machine began to throb. He jumped up by Mr. Clutterbuck's side and steered slowly past the lodge into the Croydon Road, while Mr. Clutterbuck kept on harping at his side upon the advantages of a sharp spin before a speech, and the doubtfulness of the weather. They fell into the main road and turned sharply to the left.
"Taking us far afield?" said Mr. Clutterbuck cheerfully. Nothing pleased him more than the experience of his secretary in the driving of a car. "Godalming, eh?"
Charlie Fitzgerald spoke for the first time:
"Something of that kind," he said. "Just a long run.... We'll go further than Godalming; we'll go right away round, and come into town from the north and west by the Harrow Road. It's much better like that; we won't get any of the slums. Let's eat somewhere in the country."
Mr. Clutterbuck was delighted. His honest old soul and his still more honest old stomach could not quite forget the honest old hours of high teas and a snack later on.
They shot round the base of the hills, missed a child in Dorking, ran into Guildford, had a splendid zizz along the Hog's Back, and then turned sharp round on to the Frimley Road, passed Penny Hill, and on towards Virginia Water. By the time they reached Staines it was dark.
All the way Mr. Clutterbuck had spoken with increasing joy, and Charlie Fitzgerald, in spite of his interest in the driving, had been very human to him. Now the dark had fallen, however, it was necessary that he should keep silence while he picked his way across country towards Harrow.
The turnings were bewildering, but Mr. Clutterbuck very properly trusted to his guide, and when about half-past six he had not yet perceived the first gas lights of a London street, he only asked quite casually whereabouts they were.
Charlie Fitzgerald answered with perfect straightforwardness that they must be somewhere near North Holty and Pinner by the look of the lanes, and he would take the next turning to the right; it would put them into Bruton well before eight, but they would have no time for more than a snack on the way. The next turning to the righthe duly took and then for many miles the road appeared to lead through a maze of turnings until they found themselves steadily ascending. On the right and the left were silent woods of beech, and there was no light for miles around. It was long past 7 o'clock, and Mr. Clutterbuck was seriously alarmed.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Fitzgerald," he said—it was not often that he had remonstrated in all these months—"I beg your pardon, but are you quite certain where you are?"
Then for the first time Charlie Fitzgerald confessed that he was not absolutely certain; he could not possibly, he said, be far from Rickmansworth, even if he had gone quite out of his way, and the best thing they could do was to send a telegram from the next telegraph office and to ask their way.
As he thus spoke, he suddenly slackened speed at a turn in the road and began a steep descent which lasted for over a mile. One five minutes and another went by; there was no sign of a house. At last a light showed far off to the left of the road.
Fitzgerald pulled up, leapt out with zeal, and came back with the information that they were at Postcombe, and so far as he could make out from the rustics who were singularly dull, the next postoffice was a mile or two down the road; they were on the right line for London, but it would be another eighteen miles.
The post office was there right enough, and Fitzgerald went in and sent a telegram; then he took his seat again and drove through the night.
Mile after mile went by and there was no sign of men.
At Mr. Clutterbuck's age this kind of thing is dangerous; the lack of food told upon him; the anxiety told upon him still more. He worried Fitzgerald with continual questions; when they would be in; what direction they were following; whether he could perceive any glimmer of London before them.
To these questions his secretary only replied by nervous jerks of the head as he drove on straight through the darkness. His anxiety was betrayed by the forward bend of his body and the anxious tightening of his brows. He had hoped, perhaps, before he had sent the telegram to be in time. That was now past praying for, but they might at least turn the confusion of the meeting into a success if only they could make the lights of London by nine. He pushed the car to its utmost limits of speed, careless of the thick blackness and of the perpetual windings of the lanes which he followed with singular confidence.
They passed over a railway line, but there was no station in sight; they went on and passed another in the same fashion, then a broad river.
At last the motion showed them they were taking yet another long hill. There was no hedge upon either side, open fields, down; and a bitter wind driving across them filled the night. It was even too dark to perceive more than the ghosts of the clouds, when, at what seemed the loneliest part of this lonely countryside the machine stopped suddenly, and Charlie Fitzgerald, in a voice of weary despair, muttered half to himself and half to his companion:
"If it's the king-bolt, we're done!"
He took one of the lanterns from the front of the car, put it down upon the ground where it would illumine the complicated works beneath, and lying flat upon his back on the road, he began to inspect the damage. Mr. Clutterbuck, stooping anxiously with hands on knees, interrogated him from time to time, but received only disjointed replies in which king-bolts, the differential, the clutch and Beeton's Patent played a confused part.
After some few minutes of this investigation Charlie Fitzgerald reappeared, replaced the lamp, and said in a solemn manner:
"We're cooked!"
It began to snow.
If Mr. Clutterbuck had had the slightest idea where he was, his dolour might have been to that amount relieved. He had none. He looked at his watch by the acetylene flare and found that it was nearly ten o'clock. The monotony of their misfortune was relieved by the approach of a horse and cart, and they learned from the driver at last the full extent of their misfortune. They had the choice, it seemed, of two resting-places that night, equally distant, one was Stow-in-the-Wold; and the only consolation the situation could offer them was the certainty that their car had done very well to cover such a distance in such weather in such a time. For the rest, eight miles in the dark was not a pleasing prospect, and Charlie Fitzgerald was moved to make one more attempt at reviving the car.
To Mr. Clutterbuck's astonishment the able young fellow succeeded this time within a very few moments. They continued the main road and reached their inn a little before eleven.
Meanwhile in London the meeting had, indeed, pursued a course Mr. Clutterbuck did not in the least desire.
CHAPTER XIV
Nextto Mr. Clay's great shed there was an office which during the daytime served for the time checker. It was used that night as the ante-room to the meeting.
Small as it was, some twenty or thirty of the greater people of Mickleton had crowded into it, and more were coming of those who were to occupy the platform upon this decisive night. But though the hour of half-past eight approached, struck, and went past, Mr. Clay was increasingly anxious to observe that no Mr. Clutterbuck was there. With this exception, all the arrangements he was sure had been businesslike, practical, and thorough, but he could not conceal it from himself that no amount of organising power could make up for the absence of the ex-Member, whom the vast crowd had come to hear; and in his heart he laid that absence down to the irresponsibility and wayward temperament of William Bailey; he noticed also the absence of Mr. Fitzgerald.
In the great shed next door the audience werebeginning to stamp their feet, and there were sounds as though their impatience might be dangerous, but Mr. Clay dared not proceed.
Just at the moment when his own patience was breaking, and when he had determined to take the platform at any risk and to carry off the meeting as best he could, Mr. William Bailey swished up in his taximeter, stepped out of it with perfect and exasperating coolness, elbowed his way through the little crowd to Mr. Clay and said:
"Well, Clay, he hasn't turned up, and I don't think he will."
Let those who have the power to construct new words discover one to describe Mr. Clay's interior emotions at the news. The words he used were these:
"I don't understand. Why not? Whose fault is that? Something must be done! You can't do that sort of thing. I do wish it hadn't happened. I'm not a rich man, but I'd give £5! We ought to wait! I really can't conceive—I do wish!" and one or two other pronouncements of the same sort which betrayed not only in their phraseology but in their tone, an alarming perturbation. His face wore a look of intense suffering, and he was in no way calmed by the intermittent roars proceeding from an audience which had now waited over half an hour, and in many ofwhom enthusiasm was already fermenting into anger.
The larger body of influential people who were to have supported the ex-Member for Mickleton upon the platform were to the full as anxious as their Chairman. Only Mr. Bailey appeared to regard the accident with complete calm. He answered the agitated Clay by suggesting a short excursion on to the platform and an explanation to the audience that their hero had been kidnapped.
Mr. Clay's voice rose as high as a woman's:
"He's been kidnapped!" he screamed.
"No, no, no," said Mr. Bailey, "I didn't say he'd been kidnapped. I said 'let's go and tell the audience he's been kidnapped!' I don't know what's happened to him, and neither do you nor anybody else. Perhaps he's dead; perhaps his motor's broken down. Perhaps he made a mistake about the hour. Perhaps he's gone mad. It's no good speculating; the point is to prevent a riot."
As he said this the noise within the hall grew so like that of a herd of wild bulls that Mr. Clay was spurred to yet further activity.
"But you can't go and tell them an untruth," he said, almost crying as he said it. "... Oh, let's go in and hold the meeting," he added, and then concluded with the apparently irrelevant words: "I'm a business man and I like business ways."
Mr. Bailey acceded as he would have acceded to any other misfortune, and the whole troop of them came tramping in, following Mr. Clay up the rough, improvised steps on to the platform.
The appearance of these notables solemnly filing in and taking their chairs soothed for a moment the angry mass below, but they looked in the procession for the dome-like forehead and the crescent moustache of a Clutterbuck: neither were there. Mr. Bailey watched the seething audience kindly through his spectacles, and marvelled at the numbers who had come.
There must have been over five thousand men present; the furthest recesses of the great shed were crowded with lads and young labourers standing upon the benches the better to follow the speeches, and packed as close as herrings, and a big mob outside was even now struggling at the doors. It was fearfully hot and close, and at the back a woman had fainted. He feared for the result.
Mr. Clay whispered to him hurriedly, but Mr. Bailey was observed to shake his head. Then Mr. Clay was seen to turn to Mr. Alderman Thorne and urge—perhaps implore—his aid: that gentleman ponderously rose to speak. His voice was deep and resonant: his gestures large. He reminded his hearers of many things: that English freedom was at stake, that their ancestors had torn up the railingsin Hyde Park, and that the spirit of Cromwell still lived. Then next, as he had been hurriedly advised, he suggested that they should sing that great new song and hymn which expressed their determination and their hopes.
As yet no one moved. He recited the first verse and begged them with religious enthusiasm to sing it when he had completed the opening words:
"The Lion, the Lion, his teeth are prepared,He has blown the loud bugle, his sabre is bared."
Kipling's magnificent words brought a dozen to their feet; a few more were thinking of rising; a woman's voice had already begun, somewhat prematurely, "The Lion..." in a high treble, when a large, bearded man, with a fearless face and an appearance of fixed determination sprang up in the body of the meeting and said with a rich North country burr:
"Mrrr. Chairrman."
The others looked about them and sat down. The woman's treble piped away into nothing, and the North Countryman, still standing huge, said again much more loudly:
"Mr. Chairman!"
This simple remark elicited on every side large shouts of "You're quoite roight! Don't give wye," and other encouraging expressions.
"Mr. Chairman," said the stranger for the third time, when their cries subsided, "before we hear this gentleman or sing yonder, perr-haps you'll tell us why ourr Memberr is not heerr?"
Mr. Clay, who was smiling pleasantly during this episode, and moving his feet with great rapidity to and fro under the table to relieve the tension of his nerves, was about to reply when the stranger, as is the custom of plain straightforward men in the poorer ranks of society, proceeded to speak at some length in support of his query; and Mr. Clay was too much pleased with such a respite to call him to order. The honest fellow pointed out, under various heads, not without rhetorical embellishments, and with considerable movement of the right arm, what the constituency had a right to expect, what was and what was not an insult to working men, and continually measured the circumstances of the evening by the fixed standards of what one gentleman has a right to expect from another. He was repeatedly cheered, and his Christian name, embellished with endearing epithets, was called out more than once in lively accents.
When he had sat down, and before Mr. Clay, who was half on his feet, could reply, another and totally different being in quite another quarter of the room, rose to make what he affirmed was a very different protest, but one which, in the course of his makingit, turned out to be nearly identical with the first which had been heard.
Then at last Mr. Clay had his chance and was free to observe, to loud cries of "Speak up!" and other less complimentary commands, that the occasion was one in which a little patience——
It was at this precise moment that an orange, fired with incredible rapidity, whizzed past the speaker's head and broke with considerable force upon the mantled shoulder of Mrs. Battersby.
"If that was one of my men——" shouted Mr. Clay—but he got no farther. To the protests which were now rising from the greater part of the audience, were added inconsequent songs raised by mere rowdies, and to add to the confusion a free fight began in the south-eastern corner of the room between two gentlemen who were of the same opinion, but of whom each had completely misunderstood the attitude of the other upon the subject to which the evening was to have been devoted. The diversion afforded by this conflict attracted a larger and a larger number of champions upon both sides, and suddenly, for no apparent reason and prompted only by that brutish instinct which will often seize upon a mob when it gets out of hand, a considerable body of the electors present broke and surged towards the Platform.
The Platform in its turn attempted to go out, butthe single door of issue so considerably impeded their determined efforts that their rear, if I may so express myself, was hopelessly outflanked by their assailants long before the communications of the retreat had been properly organised. It cannot be denied that Mr. Alderman Thorne made a good fight of it for a man of his age and dimensions, and at the very moment when Mrs. Battersby, emitting piercing shrieks, was being squeezed sideways through the door, he was observed planting his fist with some vigour into the face of one of his own colleagues whom he had mistaken for the enemy.
Mr. Clay, who was quite unused to other combat than that of religious debate, improvised a defence with a chair, the legs of which he pushed back and forth rapidly with such considerable effect as to permit him to abandon his post almost the last and without a wound.
As for Mr. Bailey, he took refuge in his mere height; he retreated somewhat to the back of the platform, stood up, surveyed the swaying tangle of struggling men. He was pleased to note that the sound tradition which forbids men of inferior reach and weight to engage in coarse physical contest, spared him the active exertions necessary to so many of his friends. When he saw, or thought he saw, that the last of these as they backed towardsthe door were in danger of ill-treatment, he elbowed his way without much resistance in their direction, and with some good humour pushed aside the first rank of their assailants.
Meanwhile the platform was completely covered with the victorious band who had stormed it; the moment was propitious for the entry of the police, who had been telephoned for from the ante-room; ten of these stalwart fellows marched in with military precision, and by their vigorous efforts prevented any further ingress to the platform which they erroneously supposed they had come in time to defend.
Mr. Bailey, shuffling out into the street in the midst of his still heated neighbours, thought it would be entertaining to approach the main door and to hear the opinion of the electorate. He was not disappointed. When the last of them had come out and when he had managed to explain himself to the police, who were all for making him their unique prisoner, he walked slowly homewards, meditating upon the forces of the modern world and imagining doubtless a hundred hare-brained theories to account for the very simple accident which had befallen the unfortunate Clutterbuck. To his diseased mind there seemed no third explanation beyond kidnapping and blackmail; and when he considered the shortness of the time available for the discovery of Mr. Clutterbuck's foibles, his futile judgment had determinedà prioriand without a shadow of proof, that as Mr. Clutterbuck could not have been blackmailed, Mr. Clutterbuck had been spirited away.
Next morning, between eleven and twelve, William Bailey lay in bed amusing himself by reading for once a whole batch of Sunday papers, for all of which he had just despatched Zachary to a large agent.
The ridiculous fellow was drawing up a memorandum, annotated with queries and remarks of the most fantastic kind, upon the names of the proprietors, the careers of the editors and the reasons each might have for giving his particular version of the affair. He noted what percentage mentioned the meeting at all; the adjectives used with regard to each: the motives ascribed to its promoters and to the indignation of the audience. The fact that theObserverhad no space to mention the ridiculous bagarre he put down, as my readers may well imagine, to some dark and mysterious conspiracy connected with the Hebrew people. The fact that of those who mentioned it only two alluded vaguely to the Ruby Mines and none to the Duke of Battersea he ascribed, of course, not to the very natural reason that these details could notconcern the general public, but to what he was pleased to term "corruption." And altogether his disappointment at the result of the evening before, though it was a result which he had more than half expected, was amply made up for by his perverted pleasure in the contemplation of that next morning's Press.
He was in such a mood and ready for any false assumption or for any wicked slander, when a telegram was brought him. He opened it. It was from Stow-in-the-Wold; it begged Mr. Bailey to explain if possible and to make things right if it was not too late. Unfortunately within the narrow limits of such a message it was impossible to give the nature of the accident that had happened, and William Bailey's most foolish suppositions were only the more confirmed.
Sunday is not a good day for getting about. Mr. Bailey estimated things, and rightly judged that the motor-car, forlorn in those far Cotswold Hills, would be in no mood to return the eighty miles to town, and he saw that the trains of a Sunday were not the most convenient.
He let it stand till Monday, but that evening a figure worn with travel and shaken with unusual experience appeared before him. It was the figure of Mr. Clutterbuck.
He recited the adventure at large; he had not dared look at the Sunday papers; he had come because he could not rest until he had heard news of the dreadful affair. He was almost incoherent in his rapidity. Charlie was back at the Plâs; he had seen Mrs. Clutterbuck a moment—he had not told her. How had the constituency taken it, oh how had they taken it?
"Like a lot of animals," said William Bailey with vivid memories of the night, "and not quiet animals either; like a lot of wolves," he said.
Mr. Clutterbuck was heart-broken. "Couldn't something——" he began.
"Oh,no!" said William Bailey, really put out by the futility of the phrase that was coming. "No! Nothing! It's all over. When you're defeated, retreat in good order—keep your train intact.We'redefeated all right!" Then he had the absurd irrelevance to add: "Come into the House with me on Tuesday?"
"But I'm not a member now," gasped Mr. Clutterbuck.
"Oh, I mean under the gallery, just to look at it," said William Bailey impatiently. "I'm not a member now either, thank God! It's one of the few things they can't force on a man nowadays." Such indeed is the cynical attitude of too many men who secretly know their own failure, and whombad tactics, or more frequently adverse majorities, have driven from the House of Commons.
Mr. Clutterbuck mournfully consented. He felt that impulse which the bereaved know so well, and which leads the widower to the freshly covered grave.
Upon Tuesday Mr. Bailey obtained for him the magnificent spectacle of the opening of Parliament. Mr. Clutterbuck heard the King's Speech, saw the peers in their robes, aye, and the peeresses too, and was glad to remember that there was one institution at least of a greater splendour than that to which he might now never attain.
As they went out, Mr. Bailey said,à proposof nothing: "Sack Charlie."
"Mr. Fitzgerald.... Why on earth?" said Mr. Clutterbuck with an open mouth.
"Well, don't if you don't like: I won't interfere. Lunch to-morrow?"
"Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck, "certainly."
"Right," said Mr. Bailey, "and we'll get under the gallery."
In the train Mr. Bailey's advice echoed, and echoed ill in the merchant's ears, but he had not been in the house ten minutes when he heard Charlie Fitzgerald's happy voice calling him, and begging for congratulations.
Any vague suspicions that might have passedthrough his mind were instantly dispelled, as he told the news—but he told it, protesting his willingness to continue his services if Mr. Clutterbuck desired to retain them. If he were free, however, Charlie had the option of a post in India.
His face was glorious with anticipation.
"In the Civil Service?" said Mr. Clutterbuck innocently.
"No," answered Charlie with nonchalance, "in some works out there, a sort of company; but I shall like it. It's mining, you know; it puts me right to the top at once."
"You'll do well," said Mr. Clutterbuck, wringing his hand with more familiarity than he had yet shown, and remembering as a business man must, the splendid organising power that lay behind the Irish ease of the Daniel-Daniels-Fitzgeralds.
Next day Mr. Bailey and Mr. Clutterbuck were watching the first working day of the Session of 1912:—what thoughts passed through the merchant's mind were much too deep for words as he noted one face after another so long familiar to him in the comic journals, and heard, under the disguise of their constituencies, names that shook the world. The wit, the intelligence, the judgment, the rhetoric overwhelmed him, and there were two tears in his eyes as he looked.
He heard one timid supplementary question on the Anapootra Ruby Mines, the thunderous cries for order that met it, and the sharp rebuke from the chair: then suddenly William Bailey moved from his side—he had seen the young Prime Minister, flushed with glory, but touched as it seemed with fatigue, go out for a moment behind the Speaker's chair. He said to Mr. Clutterbuck, "I'll be back in a moment," and he went off hurriedly through the lobbies.
William Bailey had one more task before him, and for once it was innocuous. He passed through the well-known corridors to the Prime Minister's room, opened the door without knocking, nodded to the secretary, and went in.
There are wearinesses in the common desert of political life, and an exception to its tedium, however anomalous or eccentric, will prove at some moments refreshing. The young Prime Minister was really glad to see the tall and absurd figure striding into the room, and he said: "Good old Bill!" with an accent of earlier times. Then he put his forearm squarely on the big official table, and before William Bailey could speak, with his firm, half-smiling lips he said:
"It'll save you trouble, Bill, to know that whatever it is I'm not going to do it."
"That's a pity," said William Bailey, "for the firstthing I was going to ask was whether you'd come to the Follies on Friday."
The Prime Minister was hugely relieved. "There's no one else in London, Bill, who comes into this particular room to ask that particular kind of question."
"Oh?" said Mr. Bailey thoughtfully. "By the way," he went on, "there's another thing; old Clutterbuck's got to have it."
"Oh, damn and blast old Clutterbuck," said the Prime Minister, jumping up from his chair as some men do when they see a black cat. "Oh, it's perfectably intolerable! Whether it's Charlie, or whether it's Mary, or whether it's Bozzy, or whether it's you, you shoot out that word 'Clutterbuck' the moment you've got the range. The only man in London who has the decency to spare me Clutterbuck is the Peabody Yid."
"Et pour cause," said Mr. Bailey, who spoke French but rarely.
The Prime Minister began to smile, then checked himself.
"I don't think it can be done, Bill," he said gently. "He's out of the way, I know, but it really would be too ridiculous. What would people say?"
"They wouldn't say anything," said Mr. Bailey, "they never do say anything, and it has its advantages, you know: a friend's a friend and an enemy'san enemy; he's dreadfully sore just now. Besides which, what harm does it do a soul to give the poor chap a hoist? What harm did it do any mortal soul even when the Peabody Yid bought his peerage? Andhebought the right to make interminable speeches with a lisp. I remember your father about him years ago: he was a godsend to your father in the Lords; your father could do the Yid better than any one in London."
Mr. William Bailey indulged in an imitation of the lisp, and the Prime Minister, who also remembered his father's intense amusement, was melted to another smile. He half gave way.
"The trouble is to find the recognition, you know," he said, "'in recognition'—in recognition of what? It's like the despatches from South Africa when they had to stick in every man Jack of them, or never dine again. But it's easier to give a D.S.O. because the public aren't there looking on. What the devil has old Clutterbuck ever done?"
"Oh," said Mr. Bailey gaily, "he declared strongly against allowing the fall in Consols to go on, and in favour of a large gold reserve, and one or two other things." Mr. Bailey looked the Prime Minister straight in the eye, and the Prime Minister's eye fell.
He took a pen and began drawing on the blotting-paper before him. "Do suggest something," he murmured.
There was a long silence.
"In recognition of his active services and labours in connection with the Royal Caterham Valley Institute," said Mr. Bailey at last.
"What on earth's that?" asked the Prime Minister, looking up blankly.
"We—ll, it doesn't exist—yet," said William Bailey, "but it will, you know, it will."
"I don't mind," said the Prime Minister wearily, "but it can't be before Easter."
"Well, now I'll tell you," said William Bailey by way of finale; "you write me a little note so that the poor fellow can be certain of Empire Day, and you will have done a really good deed."
"I can trust you, Bill?" said the young man anxiously. (How human they are!)
"Oh yes," said Mr. Bailey, "I'll give you a hostage."
He wrote out a few words on a slip of paper, signed it, and handed it over to his relative.
The Prime Minister took it with a funny little laugh and threw it into the fire.
"Don't be a fool, Bill," he said. "Of course I can trust you."
He wrote on a sheet of notepaper:
"My dear Mr. Bailey,"I can well understand, but, as you will easily see, it is impossible before Empire Day. I have, however, received commands upon the matter with regard to that date, and I trust Mr.——"
"My dear Mr. Bailey,
"I can well understand, but, as you will easily see, it is impossible before Empire Day. I have, however, received commands upon the matter with regard to that date, and I trust Mr.——"
"Empire Day's in the season, isn't it?" he added anxiously.
"At the beginning of the season," replied William Bailey solemnly, "just before the middle class begin marrying into the plutocracy."
"You're quite right," said the Prime Minister seriously, "only I wanted to get the date more or less right. One must have time, and there's going to be a list on Empire Day—anyhow it's after Easter"—then he went on writing.
"What's the name?" he said in the middle of his writing.
"The name," said Mr. Bailey, "was to be Percy, I think—yes, Percy."
"Mr. Percy Clutterbuck," the Prime Minister went on writing, "will accept your assurance and will use every discretion in the matter." He wrote a few more lines and signed. "There," he said, handing it over.
"You're a very good fellow," said William Bailey, taking the note and putting it carefully into amonstrous old-fashioned wallet. "I'll send it back to you within a week—not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith."
As he said this the Premier's secretary came in with the unpleasing news that the deputation had come to time.
William Bailey hurriedly went out by the little private side door which he knew so well.
It was not until Mr. Bailey had successfully persuaded Mrs. Clutterbuck herself of the interest taken in the Highest Quarters in the Royal Caterham Valley Institute that he dared show that little note to her husband; but she—indomitable soul!—willingly accepted the opportunity at which he hinted. The bazaar was held, subscriptions gathered, Patronage of the most conspicuous sort received, the first stone of the Institute was laid with many allusions to the approaching festival of Anglo-American goodwill. William Bailey had long returned that dangerous little letter, and on that day which is now the chief festival of our race, when so many and such varied qualities receive their high rewards, the storm-tossed spirit of Sir Percy Clutterbuck was at rest.
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