“Well,” he said, stopping dead in the middle of the shop, “here is a fine confounded kettle of fish!”
It is one of the tragedies of the diplomatic that they are not allowed to admit either knowledge or ignorance; so Hibbs looked gloomily wise; and said, pursing his lips, “you mean the general situation.”
“I mean the situation about this everlasting8 business of the inn-signs,” said Leveson, impatiently. “Lord Ivywood went up specially9, when his leg was really bad, to get it settled in the House in a small non-contentious bill, providing that the sign shouldn’t be enough if the liquor hadn’t been on the spot three days.”
“Oh, but,” said Hibbs, sinking his voice to a soft solemnity, as being one of the initiate10, “a thing like that can be managed, don’t you know.”
“Of course it can,” said the other, still with the same slightly irritable11 air. “It was. But it doesn’t seem to occur to you, any more than it did to his lordship, that there is rather a weak point after all in this business of passing acts quietly because they’re un-popular. Has it ever occurred to you that if a law is really kept too quiet to be opposed, it may also be kept too quiet to be obeyed. It’s not so easy to hush12 it up from a big politician without running the risk of hushing it up even from a common policeman.”
“But surely that can’t happen, by the nature of things?”
“Can’t it, by God,” said J. Leveson, appealing to a less pantheistic authority.
He unfolded a number of papers from his pocket, chiefly cheap local newspapers, but some of them letters and telegrams.
“Listen to this!” he said. “A curious incident occurred in the village of Poltwell in Surrey yesterday morning. The baker’s shop of Mr. Whiteman was suddenly besieged13 by a knot of the looser types of the locality, who appear to have demanded beer instead of bread; basing their claim on some ornamental14 object erected16 outside the shop; which object they asserted to be a sign-board within the meaning of the act. There, you see, they haven’t even heard of the new act! What do you think of this, from the Clapton Conservator. ‘The contempt of Socialists17 for the law was well illustrated18 yesterday, when a crowd, collected round some wooden ensign of Socialism set up before Mr. Dugdale’s Drapery Stores, refused to disperse19, though told that their action was contrary to the law. Eventually the malcontents joined the procession following the wooden emblem20.’ And what do you say to this? ‘Stop-press news. A chemist in Pimlico has been invaded by a huge crowd, demanding beer; and asserting the provision of it to be among his duties. The chemist is, of course, well acquainted with his immunities21 in the matter, especially under the new act; but the old notion of the importance of the sign seems still to possess the populace and even, to a certain extent, to paralyze the police.’ What do you say to that? Isn’t it as plain as Monday morning that this Flying Inn has flown a day in front of us, as all such lies do?” There was a diplomatic silence.
“Well,” asked the still angry Leveson of the still dubious22 Hibbs, “what do you make of all that?”
One ill-acquainted with that relativity essential to all modern minds, might possibly have fancied that Mr. Hibbs could not make much of it. However that may be, his explanations or incapacity for explanations, were soon tested with a fairly positive test. For Lord Ivywood actually walked into the shop of Mr. Crooke.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said, looking at them with an expression which they both thought baffling and even a little disconcerting. “Good morning, Mr. Crooke. I have a celebrated visitor for you.” And he introduced the smiling Misysra. The Prophet had fallen back on a comparatively quiet costume this morning, a mere23 matter of purple and orange or what not; but his aged7 face was now perennially24 festive25.
“The Cause progresses,” he said. “Everywhere the Cause progresses. You heard his lordship’s beau-uti-ful speech?”
“I have heard many,” said Hibbs, gracefully26, “that can be so described.”
“The Prophet means what I was saying about the Ballot27 Paper Amendment28 Act,” said Ivywood, casually29. “It seems to be the alphabet of statesmanship to recognise now that the great oriental British Empire has become one corporate30 whole with the occidental one. Look at our universities, with their Mohammedan students; soon they may be a majority. Now are we,” he went on, still more quietly, “are we to rule this country under the forms of representative government? I do not pretend to believe in democracy, as you know, but I think it would be extremely unsettling and incalculable to destroy representative government. If we are to give Moslem31 Britain representative government, we must not make the mistake we made about the Hindoos and military organization—which led to the Mutiny. We must not ask them to make a cross on their ballot papers; for though it seems a small thing, it may offend them. So I brought in a little bill to make it optional between the old-fashioned cross and an upward curved mark that might stand for a crescent—and as it’s rather easier to make, I believe it will be generally adopted.”
“And so,” said the radiant old Turk, “the little, light, easily made, curly mark is substituted for the hard, difficult, double-made, cutting both ways mark. It is the more good for hygi-e-ene. For you must know, and indeed our good and wise Chemist will tell you, that the Saracenic and the Arabian and the Turkish physicians were the first of all physicians; and taught all medicals to the barbarians32 of the Frankish territories. And many of the moost modern, the moost fashionable remedies, are thus of the oriental origin.”
“Yes, that is quite true,” said Crooke, in his rather cryptic33 and unsympathetic way, “the powder called Arenine, lately popularised by Mr. Boze, now Lord Helvellyn, who tried it first on birds, is made of plain desert sand. And what you see in prescriptions34 as Cannabis Indiensis is what our lively neighbours of Asia describe more energetically as bhang.”
“And so-o—in the sa-ame way,” said Misysra, making soothing passes with his brown hand like a mesmerist, “in the sa-ame way the making of the crescent is hy-gienic; the making of the cross is non-hygienic. The crescent was a little wave, as a leaf, as a little curling feather,” and he waved his hand with real artistic35 enthusiasm toward the capering36 curves of the new Turkish decoration which Ivywood had made fashionable in many of the fashionable shops. “But when you make the cross you must make the one line so-o,” and he swept the horizon with the brown hand, “and then you must go back and make the other line so-o,” and he made an upward gesture suggestive of one constrained37 to lift a pine-tree. “And then you become very ill.”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Crooke,” said Ivywood, in his polite manner, “I brought the Prophet here to consult you as the best authority on the very point you have just mentioned—the use of hashish or the hemp38-plant. I have it on my conscience to decide whether these oriental stimulants39 or sedatives40 shall come under the general veto we are attempting to impose on the vulgar intoxicants. Of course one has heard of the horrible and voluptuous41 visions, and a kind of insanity42 attributed to the Assassins and the Old Man of the Mountain. But, on the one hand, we must clearly discount much for the illimitable pro-Christian bias43 with which the history of these eastern tribes is told in this country. Would you say the effect of hashish was extremely bad?” And he turned first to the Prophet.
“You will see mosques44,” said that seer with candour, “many mosques—more mosques—taller and taller mosques till they reach the moon and you hear a dreadful voice in the very high mosque45 calling the muezzin; and you will think it is Allah. Then you will see wives—many, many wives—more wives than you yet have. Then you will be rolled over and over in a great pink and purple sea—which is still wives. Then you will go to sleep. I have only done it once,” he concluded mildly.
“And what do you think about hashish, Mr. Crooke?” asked Ivywood, thoughtfully.
“I think it’s hemp at both ends,” said the Chemist.
“I fear,” said Lord Ivywood, “I don’t quite understand you.”
“A hempen46 drink, a murder, and a hempen rope. That’s my experience in India,” said Mr. Crooke.
“It is true,” said Ivywood, yet more reflectively, “that the thing is not Moslem in any sense in its origin. There is that against the Assassins always. And, of course,” he added, with a simplicity47 that had something noble about it, “their connection with St. Louis discredits48 them rather.”
After a space of silence, he said suddenly, looking at Crooke, “So it isn’t the sort of thing you chiefly sell?”
“No, my lord, it isn’t what I chiefly sell,” said the Chemist. He also looked steadily49, and the wrinkles of his young-old face were like hieroglyphics50.
“The Cause progress! Everywhere it progress!” cried Misysra, spreading his arms and relieving a momentary51 tension of which he was totally unaware53. “The hygienic curve of the crescent will soon superimpose himself for your plus sign. You already use him for the short syllables54 in your dactyl; which is doubtless of oriental origin. You see the new game?”
He said this so suddenly that everyone turned round, to see him produce from his purple clothing a brightly coloured and highly polished apparatus55 from one of the grand toy-shops; which, on examination, seemed to consist of a kind of blue
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