Defenders of Democracy Part 11

[caption under a picture] The Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour

"Here was a great British statesman equal to his place and fame.

He will long be remembered in America. He has done a high service to Great Britain and all democracies." -- New York Times (Editorial)

Our Common Heritage

Not very long ago I happened to be dining in The Savoy Restaurant in London one evening at a table close to the screen, when suddenly there was a stir. People looked away from their dinners. The band abruptly stopped the air it was playing, and after an instant's pause struck up another. Every one in the crowded restaurant stood up. And then there came in slowly from the outer hall a procession of serious looking men in uniform, who, walking in couples, made their way to a large table almost in the middle of the room. They gained their places. The air ceased. The new comers sat down.

And we all went on with our dinners and our interrupted conversations.

What did we talk about? Well, I will dare forswear that at all the tables the same subject was discussed. And that subject was--America. For the air we had heard was "The Star Spangled Banner," and the men we had seen were General Pershing, commanding the first American contingent to France, and his Staff, who had landed that day in England. It was a great moment for Britishers, and those of us who were there will probably never forget it. For it meant the beginning of a New Era, and, let us hope, of a new sympathy and a new understanding.

Since then we have learnt something of what America is doing. We know that ten millions of men have registered as material for the American army, that a gigantic aircraft scheme and a huge shipbuilding program are in process of realization; that enormous camps and cantonments have been established for the training of officers and men, that American women have crossed the Atlantic, in spite of the great danger from submarines, to act as nurses at the front, that the regular army has been increased to thrice its former size, that the volunteer militia has been doubled through voluntary enlistment, and that an immense expenditure has been voted for war purposes. We know all this and we are glad, and thankful that hands have been held out to us across the sea.

True sympathy and true understanding are very rare in this world.

Even between individuals they are not easy to bring about, and between nations they are practically unknown. Diversity of tongues builds up walls between the peoples. But the Americans and the British ought to learn to draw near to each other, and surely the end of this war, whenever it comes, will find them more inclined for true friendship, for frank understanding, than they have ever been yet, less critical of national failings, less clearsighted for national faults. The brotherhood of man, which the idealistic Russian sighs for, may only be a far away dream, but the brotherhood of those who speak one language, have one great aim, and fight side by side for freedom against force, law against lawlessness, justice against persecution, right against evil, is a reality, and must surely endure long after the smoke of the world war has faded into the blue sky of peace, and the roar of the guns has died away into the silence of the dawn for which humanity is longing.

The happy warriors lead us. Let us follow them and we shall attain a goodly heritage.

[signed] Robert Hichens.

Poetic Justice

I

The blow fell without warning, and a typewritten notice informed the Poet that the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation required the tiny, thread-bare chambers in Stafford's Inn, where he had lived un.o.btrusively for seven happy, insolvent years.

"'There was no worth in the fashion; there was no wit in the plan,'" murmured the Poet. The rooms were too small even for a Deputy-Director-General, and he knew that not one of the silk-stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women with bare arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to Deputy-Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights of creaking, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the housetop that was his home.

For a while he scented a vendetta, but--deleterious poetry apart--he had injured no man, and the personnel of the Cabinet Committee was as little known to him as his poetry to the Cabinet Committee. In general, too, he was the object of a certain popularity and pitying regard; the Millionaire sent him presents of superfluous game each year, the Iron King invited him at short notice to make a fourteenth at dinner and the Official Receiver unloaded six bottles of sample port wine when the Poet succ.u.mbed to his annual bronchitis. Even the notice of eviction was politely worded and regretful; it was also uncompromising in spirit, and the Poet made his hurried way to four house-agents. No sooner had he started his requirements to be a bed-sitting-room (with use of bath) within the four-mile radius than all four agents offered him a Tudor manor house in Westmoreland; further, they refused to offer him anything else, but on his own initiative he discovered a studio in Glebe Place and a service-flat in Victoria Street.

"I saw in the paper that you'd been turned out," said the Millionaire that night, when the Poet trudged home, footsore and fretful, to find his chambers occupied by the Iron King, the Private Secretary, the Lexicographer, the Military Attache and their friends. "What are you going to do about it?" he continued with the relentlessness of a man who likes a prompt decision, even if it be a wrong one.

"You know nothing about business, I'm sure; leases, premiums, insurance, all that sort of thing. You're in a hole; I don't see what more there is to be said."

So far the Poet, his mind wavering wearily between Glebe Place and Victoria Street, had said nothing; he turned silently to the Iron King, wondering how, without being rude, to indicate his desire for bed.

"I saw rather a decent place that might suit you," drawled the Private Secretary, smoothing a wrinkle out of his shapely silk socks. "It's next to my Chief's in Belgrave Square. Of course, I don't know what rent they want for it..."

The Iron King shook his head.

"He couldn't afford it," he said, speaking through and around and over the Poet. "Now I'm told that there are some very comfortable and cheap boarding-houses near Kensington Palace Gardens...."

The Poet drew the cork of a fresh bottle of whisky and collected four unbroken tumblers, a pewter mug and two breakfast cups without handles. As so often before, his destiny seemed to be slipping out of his control into the hands of the practical, strong-voiced men who filled his sitting-room to overflowing and would not let him go to bed. The Military Attache knew of a maisonnette in Albemarle Street; the Official Receiver had been recently brought into professional contact with a fine Georgian property in Buckinghamshire, where they could all meet for a week-end game of golf at Stoke Pogis. Somewhere in Chelsea--not Glebe Place--the Lexicographer had seen just the thing, if only he could be quite sure about the drains.... With loud cheerfulness they accepted the Millionaire's postulate that the Poet knew nothing of business; unselfishly they placed all their experience and preferences at his disposal.

"Of course, there's the servant problem," an undistinguished voice remarked two hours later; and the Poet, settling to an uneasy sleep in his chair, mentally ruled out the Chelsea studio.

"The ordinary surveyor's no use," broke in the Lexicographer, pursuing his own line of thought. "What you want is a drainage expert."

"I know these good, honest, middle-aged couples," cried the Iron King with the bitterness of an oft-defrauded widower. "The woman always drinks, and them man always steals the cigars..."

"I have nothing but gas in my place," said the decorous voice of the Private Secretary, "and I have it on pretty good authority that there'll be a great coal shortage this winter. I don't want that to go any further, though..."

The Millionaire rose to his feet with a yawn.

"He must get an experienced woman-friend to help him with things like carpets and curtains," he ordained with mellow benevolence.

"When my wife comes back from Wales.... How soon do you have to turn out, Poet?"

The Poet woke with a start and looked at the clock. The time was a quarter to two, and he still wanted to go to bed.

"Ten days," he murmured drowsily.

"Jove! You haven't much time," said the Millionaire. "Now, look here; the one thing NOT to do is to be in a hurry. Any place you take now will probably have to serve you for several years, and you'll find moving a lot more expensive than you think. If you can get some kind of shake-down for a few days,--" he turned expansively to his friends--"we may be able to give you a few hints."

The Poet became suddenly wakeful and alert.

"Do I understand that you're offering me a bed until you find me permanent quarters?" he enquired with slow precision.

"Er--yes," said the Millionaire a little blankly.

"Thank you," answered the Poet simply. "I say, d'you men mind if I turn you out now? It's rather late, and I haven't been sleeping very well."

II

A week later the Poet walked up Park Lane, followed by an elderly man trundling two compressed cane trunks on a barrow with a loose wheel. It was a radiant summer afternoon, and taxis stood idle in long ranks, when they were not drawing in to the curb with winning gestures. The Poet, however, wished to make his arrival dramatic, and it was dramatic enough to make the Millionaire's butler direct him to the tradesman's entrance, while the Millionaire, remembering little but suspecting all, hurried away by a side door, leaving a message that he was out of England for the duration of the war.

The lot fell on the Millionaire's wife to invent such excuses as would rid the house of the Poet's presence before dinner. The Millionaire's instincts were entirely hospitable, but that night's party had been arranged for the entertainment and subsequent destruction of four men with money to invest and, like the Poet, "no knowledge of business, investments, all that sort of thing."

"No, we have not met before," explained the Poet coldly and uncompromisingly, abandoning the rather gentle voice and caressing manners which caused women to invite him to dinner when they could think of no one else. "Your husband and one or two of our common friends have kindly undertaken to find me new quarters, and I have been invited to stay here until something suitable has been found."

There was silence for a few moments, and the Millionaire's wife looked apprehensively at the clock, while the Poet laid the foundations of a malignantly substantial tea.

"H-how far have you got at present?" she asked with an embarra.s.sed laugh.