Actions and Reactions Part 26

Who'll sing the psalms?

"We," said the Palms.

"Ere the hot wind becalms, We'll sing the psalms."

Who lays on the sword?

"I," said the Sun, "Before he has done, I'll lay on the sword."

Who fastens his belt?

"I," said Short-Rations, "I know all the fashions Of tightening a belt!"

Who buckles his spur?

"I," said his Chief, Exacting and brief, "I'll give him the spur."

Who'll shake his hand?

"I," said the Fever, "And I'm no deceiver, I'll shake his hand."

Who brings him the wine?

"I," said Quinine, "It's a habit of mine, I'll come with his wine."

Who'll put him to proof?

"I," said All Earth, "Whatever he's worth, I'll put to the proof."

Who'll choose him for Knight?

"I," said his Mother, "Before any other, My very own knight!"

And after this fashion, adventure to seek, Was Sir Galahad made--as it might be last week!

THE PUZZLER

I had not seen Penfentenyou since the Middle Nineties, when he was Minister of Ways and Woodsides in De Thouar's first Administration. Last summer, though he nominally held the same portfolio, he was his Colony's Premier in all but name, and the idol of his own province, which is two and a half times the size of England. Politically, his creed was his growing country; and he came over to England to develop a Great Idea in her behalf.

Believing that he had put it in train, I made haste to welcome him to my house for a week.

That he was chased to my door by his own Agent-General in a motor; that they turned my study into a Cabinet Meeting which I was not invited to attend; that the local telegraph all but broke down beneath the strain of hundred word coded cables; and that I practically broke into the house of a stranger to get him telephonic facilities on a Sunday, are things I overlook. What I objected to was his ingrat.i.tude, while I thus tore up England to help him. So I said: "Why on earth didn't you see your Opposite Number in Town instead of bringing your office work here?"

"Eh? Who?" said he, looking up from his fourth cable since lunch.

"See the English Minister for Ways and Woodsides."

"I saw him," said Penfentenyou, without enthusiasm.

It seemed that he had called twice on the gentleman, but without an appointment--("I thought if I wasn't big enough, my business was")--and each time had found him engaged. A third party intervening, suggested that a meeting might be arranged if due notice were given.

"Then," said Penfentenyou, "I called at the office at ten o'clock."

"But they'd be in bed," I cried.

"One of the babies was awake. He told me that--that 'my sort of questions "'--he slapped the pile of cables--"were only taken between 11 and 2 P.M. So I waited."

"And when you got to business?" I asked.

He made a gesture of despair. "It was like talking to children. They'd never heard of it."

"And your Opposite Number?"

Penfentenyou described him.

"Hush! You mustn't talk like that!" I shuddered. "He's one of the best of good fellows. You should meet him socially."

"I've done that too," he said. "Have you?"

"Heaven forbid!" I cried; "but that's the proper thing to say."

"Oh, he said all the proper things. Only I thought as this was England that they'd more or less have the hang of all the--general hang-together of my Idea. But I had to explain it from the beginning."

"Ah! They'd probably mislaid the papers," I said, and I told him the story of a three-million pound insurrection caused by a deputy Under-Secretary sitting upon a ma.s.s of green-labelled correspondence instead of reading it.

"I wonder it doesn't happen every week," the answered. "D'you mind my having the Agent-General to dinner again tonight? I'll wire, and he can motor down."

The Agent-General arrived two hours later, a patient and expostulating person, visibly torn between the pulling Devil of a rampant Colony, and the placid Baker of a largely uninterested England. But with Penfentenyou behind him he had worked; for he told us that Lord Lundie--the Law Lord was the final authority on the legal and const.i.tutional aspects of the Great Idea, and to him it must be referred.

"Good Heavens alive!" thundered Penfentenyou. "I told you to get that settled last Christmas."

"It was the middle of the house-party season," said the Agent-General mildly. "Lord Lundie's at Credence Green now--he spends his holidays there. It's only forty miles off."

"Shan't I disturb his Holiness?" said Penfentenyou heavily. "Perhaps 'my sort of questions,"' he snorted, "mayn't be discussed except at midnight."

"Oh, don't be a child," I said.

"What this country needs," said Penfentenyou, "is--" and for ten minutes he trumpeted rebellion.

"What you need is to pay for your own protection," I cut in when he drew breath, and I showed him a yellowish paper, supplied gratis by Government, which is called Schedule D. To my merciless delight he had never seen the thing before, and I completed my victory over him and all the Colonies with a Bra.s.sey's "Naval Annual" and a "Statesman's Year Book."

The Agent-General interposed with agent-generalities (but they were merely provocateurs) about Ties of Sentiment.

"They be blowed!" said Penfentenyou. "What's the good of sentiment towards a Kindergarten?"

"Quite so. Ties of common funk are the things that bind us together; and the sooner you new nations realize it the better. What you need is an annual invasion. Then you'd grow up."

"Thank you! Thank you!" said the Agent-General. "That's what I am always trying to tell my people."

"But, my dear fool," Penfentenyou almost wept, "do you pretend that these banana-fingered amateurs at home are grown up?"

"You poor, serious, pagan man," I retorted, "if you take 'em that way, you'll wreck your Great Idea."

"Will you take him to Lord Lundie's to-morrow?" said the Agent-General promptly.