“I am sure,” Mr. Leveson, the Secretary, had said, with a somewhat constrained1 smile, “that after the eloquent2 and epoch-making speech to which we have listened there will be some questions asked, and we hope to have a debate afterwards. I am sure somebody will ask a question.” Then he looked interrogatively at one weary looking gentleman in the fourth row and said, “Mr. Hinch?”
Mr. Hinch shook his head with a pallid4 passion of refusal, wonderful to watch, and said, “I couldn’t! I really couldn’t!”
“We should be very pleased,” said Mr. Leveson, “if any lady would ask a question.”
In the silence that followed it was somehow psychologically borne in on the whole audience that one particular great large lady (as the lecturer would say) sitting at the end of the second row was expected to ask a question. Her own wax-work immobility was witness both to the expectation and its disappointment. “Are there any other questions?” asked Mr. Leveson—as if there had been any yet. He seemed to speak with a slight air of relief.
There was a sort of stir at the back of the hall and half way down one side of it. Choked whispers could be heard of “Now then, Garge!”—“Go it Garge! Is there any questions! Gor!”
Mr. Leveson looked up with an alertness somewhat akin3 to alarm. He realised for the first time that a few quite common men in coarse, unclean clothes, had somehow strolled in through the open door. They were not true rustics6, but the semi-rustic labourers that linger about the limits of the large watering-places. There was no “Mr.” among them. There was a general tendency to call everybody George.
Mr. Leveson saw the situation and yielded to it. He modelled himself on Lord Ivywood and did much what he would have done in all cases, but with a timidity Lord Ivywood would not have shown. And the same social training that made him ashamed to be with such men, made him ashamed to own his shame. The same modern spirit that taught him to loathe7 such rags, also taught him to lie about his loathing8.
“I am sure we should be very glad,” he said, nervously9, “if any friends from outside care to join in our inquiry10. Of course, we’re all Democrats,” and he looked round at the grand ladies with a ghastly smile, “and believe in the Voice of the People and so on. If our friend at the back of the hall will put his question briefly11, we need not insist, I think, on his putting it in writing?”
There were renewed hoarse12 encouragements to George (that rightly christened champion) and he wavered forward on legs tied in the middle with string. He did not appear to have had any seat since his arrival, and made his remarks standing13 half way down what we may call the central aisle14.
“Well, I want to ask the proprietor,” he began.
“Questions,” said Mr. Leveson, swiftly seizing a chance for that construction of debate which is the main business of a modern chairman, “must be asked of the chair, if they are points of order. If they concern the address, they should be asked of the lecturer.”
“Well, I ask the lecturer,” said the patient Garge, “whether it ain’t right that when you ’ave the thing outside you should ’ave the thing inside.” (Hoarse applause at the back.)
Mr. Leveson was evidently puzzled and already suspicious that something was quite wrong. But the enthusiasm of the Prophet of the Moon sprang up instantly at any sort of question and swept the Chairman along with it.
“But it iss the essence of our who-ole message,” he cried, spreading out his arms to embrace the world, “that the outer manifestation16 should be one with the inner manifestation. My friendss, it iss this very tru-uth our friend has stated, that iss responsible for our apparent lack of symbolism in Islam! We appear to neglect the symbol because we insist on the satisfactory symbol. My friend in the middle will walk round all our mosques17 and say loudly, ‘Where is the statue of Allah?’ But can my friend in the middle really execute a complete and generally approved statue of Allah?”
Misysra Ammon sat down greatly satisfied with his answer, but it was doubted by many whether he had conveyed the satisfaction to his friend in the middle. That seeker after truth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with an unsatisfied air and said:
“No offence, sir. But ain’t it the Law, sir, that if you ’ave that outside we’re all right? I came in ’ere as natural as could be. But Gorlumme, I never see a place like this afore.” (Hoarse laughter behind.)
“No apology is needed, my friend,” cried the Eastern sage15, eagerly, “I can conceive you are not perhaps du-uly conversant18 with such schools of truth. But the Law is All. The Law is Allah. The inmost u-unity of—”
“Well, ain’t it the Law?” repeated the dogged George, and every time he mentioned the Law the poor men who are its chief victims applauded loudly. “I’m not one to make a fuss. I never was one to make a fuss. I’m a law-abidin’ man, I am. (More applause.) Ain’t it the Law that if so be such is your sign and such is your profession, you ought to serve us?”
“I fear I not quite follow,” cried the eager Turk. “I ought?”
“To serve us,” shouted a throng19 of thick voices from the back of the hall, which was already much more crowded than before.
“Serve you!” cried Misysra, leaping up like a spring released, “The Holy Prophet came from Heaven to serve you! The virtue20 and valour of a thousand years, my friends, has had no hunger but to serve you! We are of all faiths, the most the faith of service. Our highest prophet is no more than the servant of God, as I am, as you all are. Even for our symbol we choose a satellite, and honour the Moon because it only serves the Earth, and does not pretend to be the Sun.”
“I’m sure,” cried Mr. Leveson, jumping up with a tactful grin, “that the lecturer has answered this last point in a most eloquent and effective way, and the motor cars are waiting for some of the ladies who have come from some distance, and I really think the proceedings—”
All the artistic21 ladies were already getting on their wraps, with faces varying from bewilderment to blank terror. Only Lady Joan lingered, trembling with unexplained excitement. The hitherto speechless Hinch had slid up to the Chairman’s seat and whispered to him:
“You must get all the ladies away. I can’t imagine what’s up, but something’s up.”
“Well?” repeated the patient George. “So be it’s the Law, where is it?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Mr. Leveson, in his most ingratiating manner, “I think we have had a most delightful22 evening, and—”
“No, we ain’t,” cried a new and nastier voice from a corner of the room. “Where is it?”
“That’s what we got a right to know,” said the law-abiding George. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” cried the nearly demented secretary in the chair. “What do you want?”
The law-abiding Mr. George made a half turn and a gesture towards the man in the corner and said:
“What’s yours, Jim?”
“I’ll ’ave a drop of Scotch,” said the man in the corner.
Lady Enid Wimpole, who had lingered a little in loyalty23 to Joan, the only other lady still left, caught both her wrists and cried in a thrilling whisper,
“Oh, we must go to the car, dear! They’re using the most awful language!”
Away on the wettest edge of the sands by the sea the prints of two wheels and four hoofs24 were being slowly washed away by a slowly rising tide; which was, indeed, the only motive25 of the man Humphrey Pump, leading the donkey cart, in leading it almost ankle deep in water.
“I hope you’re sober again now,” he said with some seriousness to his companion, a huge man walking heavily and even humbly26 with a straight sword swinging to and fro at his hip—“for honestly it was a mug’s game to go and stick up the old sign before that tin place. I haven’t often spoken to you like this, Captain, but I don’t believe any other man in the county could get you out of the hole as I can. But to go down there and frighten the ladies—why there’s been nothing so silly here since Bishop’s Folly28. You could hear the ladies screaming before we left.”
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