Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 8 – Leacock · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 8Chapter 4 (part 4)
18
Literature · Humor
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 8
Chapter 4 (part 4)
LeacockEnglish
"Oh, no," I said; "it's nothing only a slight tear."
"Here, Weege, Weege," said Sopley, anxious to make a diversion and picking up a little chip of wood,--"chase it, fetch it out!" and he made the motions of throwing it into the lake.
"Don't throw it too far, Charles," said his wife. "He doesn't swim awfully well," she continued, turning to me, "and I'm always afraid he might get out of his depth. Last week he was ever so nearly drowned. Mr. Van Toy was in swimming, and he had on a dark blue suit (dark blue seems simply to infuriate Weejee) and Weejee just dashed in after him. He don't MEAN anything, you know, it was only the SUIT made him angry,--he really likes Mr. Van Toy,--but just for a minute we were quite alarmed. If Mr. Van Toy hadn't carried Weejee in I think he might have been drowned.
"By jove!" I said in a tone to indicate how appalled I was.
"Let me throw the stick, Charles," continued Mrs. Sopley. "Now, Weejee, look Weejee--here, good dog--look! look now (sometimes Weejee simply won't do what one wants), here, Weejee; now, good dog!"
Weejee had his tail sideways between his legs and was moving towards me again.
"Hold on," said Sopley in a stern tone, "let me throw him in."
"Do be careful, Charles," said his wife.
Sopley picked Weejee up by the collar and carried him to the edge of the water--it was about six inches deep,--and threw him in,--with much the same force as, let us say, a pen is thrown into ink or a brush dipped into a pot of varnish.
"That's enough; that's quite enough, Charles," exclaimed Mrs. Sopley. "I think he'd better not swim. The water in the evening is always a little cold. Good dog, good doggie, good Weejee!"
Meantime "good Weejee" had come out of the water and was moving again towards me.
"He goes straight to you," said my hostess. "I think he must have taken a fancy to you."
He had.
To prove it, Weejee gave himself a rotary whirl like a twirled mop.
"Oh, I'm SO sorry," said Mrs. Sopley. "I am. He's wetted you. Weejee, lie down, down, sir, good dog, bad dog, lie down!"
"It's all right," I said. "I've another white suit in my valise."
"But you must be wet through," said Mrs. Sopley. "Perhaps we'd better go in. It's getting late, anyway, isn't it?" And then she added to her husband, "I don't think Weejee ought to sit out here now that he's wet."
So we went in.
"I think you'll find everything you need," said Sopley, as he showed me to my room, "and, by the way, don't mind if Weejee comes into your room at night. We like to let him run all over the house and he often sleeps on this bed."
"All right," I said cheerfully, "I'll look after him."
That night Weejee came.
And when it was far on in the dead of night--so that even the lake and the trees were hushed in sleep, I took Weejee out and--but there is no need to give the details of it.
And the Sopleys are still wondering where Weejee has gone to, and waiting for him to come back, because he is so clever at finding his way.
But from where Weejee is, no one finds his way back.
XIV.--Sidelights on the Supermen. An Interview with
General Bernhardi.
He came into my room in that modest, Prussian way that he has, clicking his heels together, his head very erect, his neck tightly gripped in his forty-two centimeter collar. He had on a Pickelhaube, or Prussian helmet, which he removed with a sweeping gesture and laid on the sofa.
So I knew at once that it was General Bernhardi.
In spite of his age he looked--I am bound to admit it--a fine figure of a man. There was a splendid fullness about his chest and shoulders, and a suggestion of rugged power all over him. I had not heard him on the stairs. He seemed to appear suddenly beside me.
"How did you get past the janitor?" I asked. For it was late at night, and my room at college is three flights up the stairs.
"The janitor," he answered carelessly, "I killed him."
I gave a gasp.
"His resistance," the general went on, "was very slight.
Apparently in this country your janitors are unarmed."
"You killed him?" I asked.
"We Prussians," said Bernhardi, "when we wish an immediate access anywhere, always kill the janitor. It is quicker: and it makes for efficiency. It impresses them with a sense of our Furchtbarkeit. You have no word for that in English, I believe?"
"Not outside of a livery stable," I answered.
There was a pause. I was thinking of the janitor. It seemed in a sort of way--I admit that I have a sentimental streak in me--a deplorable thing.
"Sit down," I said presently.
"Thank you," answered the General, but remained standing.
"All right," I said, "do it."
"Thank you," he repeated, without moving.
"I forgot," I said. "Perhaps you CAN'T sit down."
"Not very well," he answered; "in fact, we Prussian officers"--here he drew himself up higher still--"never sit down. Our uniforms do not permit of it. This inspires us with a kind of Rastlosigkeit." Here his eyes glittered.
"It must," I said.
"In fact, with an Unsittlichkeit--an Unverschamtheit--with an Ein-fur-alle-mal-un-dur-chaus--"
"Exactly," I said, for I saw that he was getting excited, "but pray tell me, General, to what do I owe the honour of this visit?"
The General's manner changed at once.
"Highly learned, and high-well-born-professor," he said, "I come to you as to a fellow author, known and honoured not merely in England, for that is nothing, but in Germany herself, and in Turkey, the very home of Culture."
I knew that it was mere flattery. I knew that in this same way Lord Haldane had been so captivated as to come out of the Emperor's presence unable to say anything but "Sittlichkeit" for weeks; that good old John Burns had been betrayed by a single dinner at Potsdam, and that the Sultan of Turkey had been told that his Answers to Ultimatums were the wittiest things written since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Yet I was pleased in spite of myself.
"What!" I exclaimed, "they know my works of humour in
Germany?"
"Do they know them?" said the General. "Ach! Himmel! How they laugh. That work of yours (I think I see it on the shelf behind you), The Elements of Political Science, how the Kaiser has laughed over it! And the Crown Prince! It nearly killed him!"
"I will send him the new edition," I said. "But tell me, General, what is it that you want of me?"
"It is about my own book," he answered. "You have read it?"
I pointed to a copy of Germany and the Next War, in its glaring yellow cover--the very hue of Furchtbarkeit--lying on the table.
"You have read it? You have really read it?" asked the
General with great animation.
"No," I said, "I won't go so far as to say that. But I have TRIED to read it. And I talk about it as if I had read it."
The General's face fell.
"You are as the others," he said, "They buy the book, they lay it on the table, they talk of it at dinner,--they say 'Bernhardi has prophesied this, Bernhardi foresaw that,' but read it,--nevermore."
"Still," I said, "you get the royalties."
"They are cut off. The perfidious British Government will not allow the treacherous publisher to pay them. But that is not my complaint."
"What is the matter, then?" I asked.
"My book is misunderstood. You English readers have failed to grasp its intention. It is not meant as a book of strategy. It is what you call a work of humour. The book is to laugh. It is one big joke."
"You don't say so!" I said in astonishment.
"Assuredly," answered the General. "Here"--and with this he laid hold of the copy of the book before me and began rapidly turning over the leaves--"let me set it out asunder for you, the humour of it. Listen, though, to this, where I speak of Germany's historical mission on page 73,--'No nation on the face of the globe is so able to grasp and appropriate all the elements of culture as Germany is?' What do you say to that? Is it not a joke? Ach, Himmel, how our officers have laughed over that in Belgium! With their booted feet on the mantelpiece as they read and with bottles of appropriated champagne beside them as they laugh."
"You are right, General," I said, "you will forgive my not laughing out loud, but you are a great humorist."
"Am I not? And listen further still, how I deal with the theme of the German character,--'Moral obligations such as no nation had ever yet made the standard of conduct, are laid down by the German philosophers.'"
"Good," I said, "gloriously funny; read me some more."
"This, then, you will like,--here I deal with the permissible rules of war. It is on page 236 that I am reading it. I wrote this chiefly to make laugh our naval men and our Zeppelin crews,--'A surprise attack, in order to be justified, must be made only on the armed forces of the state and not on its peaceful inhabitants. Otherwise the attack becomes a treacherous crime.' Eh, what?"
Here the General broke into roars of laughter.
"Wonderful," I said. "Your book ought to sell well in
Scarborough and in Yarmouth. Read some more."
"I should like to read you what I say about neutrality, and how England is certain to violate our strategical right by an attack on Belgium and about the sharp measures that ought to be taken against neutral ships laden with contraband,--the passages are in Chapters VII and VIII, but for the moment I fail to lay the thumb on them."
"Give me the book, General," I said. "Now that I understand what you meant by it, I think I can show you also some very funny passages in it. These things, for example, that you say about Canada and the colonies,--yes, here it is, page 148,--'In the event of war the loosely-joined British Empire will break into pieces, and the colonies will consult their own interests,'--excellently funny,--and this again,--'Canada will not permanently retain any trace of the English spirit,'--and this too,--'the Colonies can be completely ignored so far as the European theatre of war is concerned,'--and here again,--'Egypt and South Africa will at once revolt and break away from the empire,' --really, General, your ideas of the British Colonies are superbly funny. Mark Twain wasn't a circumstance on you."
"Not at all," said Bernhardi, and his voice reverted to his habitual Prussian severity, "these are not jokes. They are facts. It is only through the folly of the Canadians in not reading my book that they are not more widely known. Even as it is they are exactly the views of your great leader Heinrich Bauratze--"
"Who?" I said.
"Heinrich Bauratze, your great Canadian leader--"
"Leader of what?"
"That I do not know," said Bernhardi. "Our intelligence office has not yet heard what he leads. But as soon as he leads anything we shall know it. Meantime we can see from his speeches that he has read my book. Ach! if only your other leaders in Canada,--Sir Robert Laurier, Sir Osler Sifton, Sir Williams Borden,--you smile, you do not realize that in Germany we have exact information of everything: all that happens, we know it."
Meantime I had been looking over the leaves of the book.
"Here at least," I said, "is some splendidly humorous stuff,--this about the navy. 'The completion of the Kiel Canal,' you write in Chapter XII, 'is of great importance as it will enable our largest battleships to appear unexpectedly in the Baltic and in the North Sea!' Appear unexpectedly! If they only would! How exquisitely absurd--"
"Sir!" said the General. "That is not to laugh. You err yourself. That is Furchtbarkeit. I did not say the book is all humour. That would be false art. Part of it is humour and part is Furchbarkeit. That passage is specially designed to frighten Admiral Jellicoe. And he won't read it! Potztausand, he won't read it!"--repeated the general, his eyes flashing and his clenched fist striking in the air--"What sort of combatants are these of the British Navy who refuse to read our war-books? The Kaiser's Heligoland speech! They never read a word of it. The Furchtbarkeit-Proklamation of August,--they never looked at it. The Reichstags-Rede with the printed picture of the Kaiser shaking hands with everybody,--they used it to wrap up sandwiches! What are they, then, Jellicoe and his men? They sit there in their ships and they read nothing! How can we get at them if they refuse to read? How can we frighten them away if they haven't culture enough to get frightened. Beim Himmel," shouted the General in great excitement--
But what more he said can never be known. For at this second a sudden catastrophe happened.
In his frenzy of excitement the General struck with his fist at the table, missed it, lost his balance and fell over sideways right on the point of his Pickelhaube which he had laid on the sofa. There was a sudden sound as of the ripping of cloth and the bursting of pneumatic cushions and to my amazement the General collapsed on the sofa, his uniform suddenly punctured in a dozen places.
"Schnapps," he cried, "fetch brandy."
"Great Heavens! General," I said, "what has happened?"
"My uniform!" he moaned, "it has burst! Give me Schnapps!"
He seemed to shrink visibly in size. His magnificent chest was gone. He was shrivelling into a tattered heap. He appeared as he lay there, a very allegory and illustration of Prussian Furchtbarkeit with the wind going out of it.
"Fetch Schnapps,"--he moaned.
"There are no Schnapps here," I said, "this is McGill
University."
"Then call the janitor," he said.
"You killed him," I said.
"I didn't. I was lying. I gave him a look that should have killed him, but I don't think it did. Rouse yourself from your chair, and call him--"
"I will," I said, and started up from my seat.
But as I did so, the form of General Bernhardi, which I could have sworn had been lying in a tattered heap on the sofa on the other side of the room, seemed suddenly to vanish from my eyes.
There was nothing before me but the empty room with the fire burned low in the grate, and in front of me an open copy of Bernhardi's book.
I must,--like many another reader,--have fallen asleep over it.
XV.--The Survival of the Fittest
A bell tinkled over the door of the little drug store as I entered it; which seemed strange in a lighted street of a great city.
But the little store itself, dim even in the centre and dark in the corners was gloomy enough for a country crossroads.
"I have to have the bell," said the man behind the counter, reading my thought, "I'm alone here just now."
"A toothbrush?" he said in answer to my question. "Yes, I guess I've got some somewhere round here." He was stooping under and behind his counter and his voice came up from below. "I've got some somewhere--" And then as if talking to himself he murmured from behind a pile of cardboard boxes, "I saw some Tuesday."
Had I gone across the street to the brilliant premises of the Cut Rate Pharmaceutical where they burn electric light by the meterfull I should no sooner have said "tooth brush," than one of the ten clerks in white hospital jackets would have poured a glittering assortment over the counter--prophylactic, lactic and every other sort.
But I had turned in, I don't know why, to the little store across the way.
"Here, I guess these must be tooth brushes," he said, reappearing at the level of the counter with a flat box in his hand. They must have been presumably, or have once been,--at some time long ago.
"They're tooth brushes all right," he said, and started looking over them with an owner's interest.
"What is the price of them?" I asked.
"Well," the man said musingly, "I don't--jest--know. I guess it's written on them likely," and he began to look at the handles.
Over at the Pharmaceutical across the way the words "what price?" would have precipitated a ready avalanche of figures.
"This one seems to be seventy-five cents," he said and handed me one.
"Is it a good tooth brush?" I asked.
"It ought to be," he said, "you'd think, at that price."
He had no shop talk, no patter whatever.
Then he looked at the brush again, more closely.
"I don't believe it IS seventy-five," he muttered, "I think it must be fifteen, don't you?"
I took it from his hand and looked and said,--for it is well to take an occasional step towards the Kingdom of Heaven,--that I was certain it was seventy-five.
"Well," said the man, "perhaps it is, my sight is not so good now. I've had too much to do here and the work's been using me up some."
I noticed now as he said this how frail he looked as he bent over his counter wrapping up the tooth brush.
"I've no sealing wax," he said, "or not handy."
"That doesn't matter," I answered, "just put it in the paper."
Over the way of course the tooth brush would have been done up almost instantaneously, in white enamel paper, sealed at the end and stamped with a label, as fast as the money paid for it went rattling along an automatic carrier to a cashier.
"You've been very busy, eh?" I asked.
"Well, not so much with customers," he said, "but with fixing up the place,"--here he glanced about him. Heaven only knows what he had fixed. There were no visible signs of it.
"You see I've only been in here a couple of months. It was a pretty tough looking place when I came to it. But I've been getting things fixed. First thing I did I put those two carboys in the window with the lights behind them. They show up fine, don't they?"
"Fine!" I repeated; so fine indeed that the dim yellow light in them reached three or four feet from the jar. But for the streaming light from the great store across the street, the windows of the little shop would have been invisible.
"It's a good location here," he said. Any one could have told him that it was the worst location within two miles.
"I'll get it going presently," he went on. "Of course it's uphill just at first. Being such a good location the rent is high. The first two weeks I was here I was losing five dollars a day. But I got those lights in the window and got the stock overhauled a little to make it attractive and last month I reckon I was only losing three dollars a day."
"That's better," I said.
"Oh, yes," he went on, and there was a clear glint of purpose in his eye that contrasted with his sunken cheeks. "I'll get it going. This last two weeks I'm not losing more than say two and a half a day or something like that? The custom is bound to come. You get a place fixed up and made attractive like this and people are sure to come sooner or later."
What it was that was fixed up, and wherein lay the attractiveness I do not know. It could not be seen with the outward eye. Perhaps after two months' work of piling dusty boxes now this way, now that, and putting little candles behind the yellow carboys to try the effect, some inward vision came that lighted the place up with an attractiveness wanting even in the glass and marble glitter of the Pharmacy across the way.
"Yes, sir," continued the man, "I mean to stay with it. I'll get things into shape here, fix it up a little more and soon I'll have it,"--here his face radiated with a vision of hope--"so that I won't lose a single cent."
I looked at him in surprise. So humble an ambition it had never been my lot to encounter.
"All that bothers me," he went on, "is my health. It's a nice business the drug business: I like it, but it takes it out of you. You've got to be alert and keen all the time; thinking out plans to please the custom when it comes. Often I don't sleep well nights for the rush of it."
I looked about the little shop, as gloomy and sleepful as the mausoleum of an eastern king, and wondered by what alchemy of the mind the little druggist found it a very vortex of activity.
"But I can fix my health," he returned--"I may have to get some one in here and go away for a spell. Perhaps I'll do it. The doctor was saying he thought I might take a spell off and think out a few more wrinkles while I'm away."
At the word "doctor" I looked at him more warmly, and I saw then what was plain enough to see but for the dim light of the little place,--the thin flush on the cheek, the hopeful mind, the contrast of the will to live and the need to die, God's little irony on man, it was all there plain enough to read. The "spell" for which the little druggist was going is that which is written in letters of sorrow over the sunlit desolation of Arizona and the mountains of Colorado.
A month went by before I passed that way again. I looked across at the little store and I read the story in its drawn blinds and the padlock on its door.
The little druggist had gone away for a spell. And they told me, on enquiry, that his journey had been no further than to the cemetery behind the town where he lies now, musing, if he still can, on the law of the survival of the fittest in this well-adjusted world.
And they say that the shock of the addition of his whole business to the great Pharmacy across the way scarcely disturbed a soda siphon.
XVI--The First Newspaper. A Sort of Allegory
How likes it you, Master Brenton?" said the brawny journeyman, spreading out the news sheet on a smooth oaken table where it lay under the light of a leaded window.
"A marvellous fair sheet," murmured Brenton Caxton, seventh of the name, "let me but adjust my glasses and peruse it further lest haply there be still aught in it that smacks of error."
"It needs not," said the journeyman, "'tis the fourth time already from the press."
"Nay, nay," answered Master Brenton softly, as he adjusted his great horn-rimmed spectacles and bent his head over the broad damp news sheet before him. "Let us grudge no care in this. The venture is a new one and, meseems, a very parlous thing withal. 'Tis a venture that may easily fail and carry down our fortunes with it, but at least let it not be said that it failed for want of brains in the doing."
"Fail quotha!" said a third man, who had not yet spoken, old, tall and sour of visage and wearing a printer's leather apron. He had moved over from the further side of the room where a little group of apprentices stood beside the wooden presses that occupied the corner, and he was looking over the shoulder of Master Brenton Caxton.
"How can it do aught else? 'Tis a mad folly. Mark you, Master Brenton and Master Nick, I have said it from the first and let the blame be none of mine. 'Tis a mad thing you do here. See then," he went on, turning and waving his hand, "this vast room, these great presses, yonder benches and tools, all new, yonder vats of ink straight out of Flanders, how think you you can recover the cost of all this out of yonder poor sheets? Five and forty years have I followed this mystery of printing, ever since thy grandfather's day, Master Brenton, and never have I seen the like. What needed this great chamber when your grandfather and father were content with but a garret place, and yonder presses that can turn off four score copies in the compass of a single hour,--'Tis mad folly, I say."
The moment was an interesting one. The speakers were in a great room with a tall ceiling traversed by blackened beams. From the street below there came dimly through the closed casements the sound of rumbling traffic and the street cries of the London of the seventeenth century. Two vast presses of such colossal size that their wooden levers would tax the strength of the stoutest apprentice, were ranged against the further wall. About the room, spread out on oaken chairs and wooden benches, were flat boxes filled with leaden type, freshly molten, and a great pile of paper, larger than a man could lift, stood in a corner.
The first English newspaper in history was going to press. Those who in later ages,--editors, printers, and workers--have participated in the same scene, can form some idea of the hopes and fears, the doubts and the difficulties, with which the first newspaper was ushered into the world.
Master Brenton Caxton turned upon the last speaker the undisturbed look of the eye that sees far across the present into the years to come.
"Nay, Edward," he said, "you have laboured over much in the past and see not into the future. You think this chamber too great for our purpose? I tell you the time will come when not this room alone but three or four such will be needed for our task. Already I have it in my mind that I will divide even this room into portions, with walls shrewdly placed through its length and breadth, so that each that worketh shall sit as it were in his own chamber and there shall stand one at the door and whosoever cometh, to whatever part of our task his business appertains, he shall forthwith be brought to the room of him that hath charge of it. Cometh he with a madrigal or other light poesy that he would set out on the press, he shall find one that has charge of such matters and can discern their true value. Or, cometh he with news of aught that happens in the realm, so shall he be brought instant to the room of him that recordeth such events. Or, if so be, he would write a discourse on what seemeth him some wise conceit touching the public concerns, he shall find to his hand a convenient desk with ink and quills and all that he needeth to set it straightway on paper; thus shall there be a great abundance of written matter to our hand so that not many days shall elapse after one of our news sheets goes abroad before there be matter enough to fill another."
"Days!" said the aged printer, "think you you can fill one of these news sheets in a few days! Where indeed if you search the whole realm will you find talk enough in a single week to fill out this great sheet half an ell wide!"
"Ay, days indeed!" broke in Master Nicholas, the younger journeyman. "Master Brenton speaks truth, or less than truth. For not days indeed, but in the compass of a single day, I warrant you, shall we find the matter withal." Master Nicholas spoke with the same enthusiasm as his chief, but with less of the dreamer in his voice and eye, and with more swift eagerness of the practical man.
"Fill it, indeed," he went on. "Why, Gad Zooks! man! who knoweth what happenings there are and what not till one essays the gathering of them! And should it chance that there is nothing of greater import, no boar hunt of his Majesty to record, nor the news of some great entertainment by one of the Lords of the Court, then will we put in lesser matter, aye whatever comes to hand, the talk of his Majesty's burgesses in the Parliament or any such things."
"Hear him!" sneered the printer, "the talk of his Majesty's burgesses in Westminster, forsooth! And what clerk or learned person would care to read of such? Or think you that His Majesty's Chamberlain would long bear that such idle chatter should be bruited abroad. If you can find no worthier thing for this our news sheet than the talk of the Burgesses, then shall it fail indeed. Had it been the speech of the King's great barons and the bishops 'twere different. But dost fancy that the great barons would allow that their weighty discourses be reduced to common speech so that even the vulgar may read it and haply here and there fathom their very thought itself,--and the bishops, the great prelates, to submit their ideas to the vulgar hand of a common printer, framing them into mere sentences! 'Tis unthinkable that they would sanction it!"
"Aye," murmured Caxton in his dreaming voice, "the time shall come, Master Edward, when they will not only sanction it but seek it."
"Look you," broke in Master Nick, "let us have done with this talk? Whether there be enough happenings or not enough,"--and here he spoke with a kindling eye and looked about him at the little group of apprentices and printers, who had drawn near to listen, "if there be not enough, then will I MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. What is easier than to tell of happenings forth of the realm of which no man can know,--some talk of the Grand Turk and the war that he makes, or some happenings in the New Land found by Master Columbus. Aye," he went on, warming to his words and not knowing that he embodied in himself the first birth on earth of the telegraphic editor,--"and why not. One day we write it out on our sheet 'The Grand Turk maketh disastrous war on the Bulgars of the North and hath burnt divers of their villages.' And that hath no sooner gone forth than we print another sheet saying, 'It would seem that the villages be not burnt but only scorched, nor doth it appear that the Turk burnt them but that the Bulgars burnt divers villages of the Turk and are sitting now in his mosque in the city of Hadrian.' Then shall all men run to and fro and read the sheet and question and ask, 'Is it thus?' And, 'Is it thus?' and by very uncertainty of circumstances, they shall demand the more curiously to see the news sheet and read it."
"Nay, nay, Master Nick," said Brenton, firmly, "that will I never allow. Let us make it to ourselves a maxim that all that shall be said in this news sheet, or 'news paper,' as my conceit would fain call it, for be it not made of paper (here a merry laugh of the apprentices greeted the quaint fancy of the Master), shall be of ascertained verity and fact indisputable. Should the Grand Turk make war and should the rumour of it come to these isles, then will we say 'The Turk maketh war,' and should the Turk be at peace, then we will say 'The Turk it doth appear is now at peace.' And should no news come, then shall we say 'In good sooth we know not whether the Turk destroyeth the Bulgars or whether he doth not, for while some hold that he harasseth them sorely, others have it that he harasseth them not, whereby we are sore put to it to know whether there be war or peace, nor do we desire to vex the patience of those who read by any further discourse on the matter, other than to say that we ourselves are in doubt what be and what be not truth, nor will we any further speak of it other than this.'"
Those about Caxton listened with awe to this speech. They did not,--they could not know,--that this was the birth of the Leading Article, but there was something in the strangely fascinating way in which their chief enlarged upon his own ignorance that foreshowed to the meanest intelligence the possibilities of the future.
Nicholas shook his head.
"'Tis a poor plan, Master Brenton," he said, "the folk wish news, give them the news. The more thou givest them, the better pleased they are and thus doth the news sheet move from hand to hand till it may be said (if I too may coin a phrase) to increase vastly its 'circulation'--"
"In sooth," said Master Brenton, looking at Nicholas with a quiet expression that was not exempt from a certain slyness, "there I do hold thou art in the wrong, even as a matter of craft or policie. For it seems to me that if our paper speaketh first this and then that but hath no fixed certainty of truth, sooner or later will all its talk seem vain, and no man will heed it. But if it speak always the truth, then sooner or later shall all come to believe it and say of any happening, 'It standeth written in the paper, therefore it is so.' And here I charge you all that have any part in this new venture," continued Master Brenton, looking about the room at the listening faces and speaking with great seriousness, "let us lay it to our hearts that our maxim shall be truth and truth alone. Let no man set his hand to aught that shall go upon our presses save only that which is assured truth. In this way shall our venture ever be pleasing to the Most High, and I do verily believe,"--and here Caxton's voice sank lower as if he were thinking aloud,--"in the long run, it will be mighty good for our circulation."
The speaker paused. Then turning to the broad sheet before him, he began to scan its columns with his eye. The others stood watching him as he read.
"What is this, Master Edward," he queried presently, "here I see in this first induct, or column, as one names it, the word King fairly and truly spelled. Lower down it standeth Kyng, and yet further in the second induct Kynge, and in the last induct where there is talk of His Majesty's marvelous skill in the French game of palm or tennis, lo the word stands Quhyngge! How sayeth thou?"
"Wouldst have it written always in but one and the same way?" asked the printer in astonishment.
"Aye, truly," said Caxton.
"With never any choice, or variation to suit the fancy of him who reads so that he who likes it written King may see it so, and yet also he who would prefer it written in a freer style, or Quhyngge, may also find it so and thus both be pleased."
"That will I never have!" said Master Brenton firmly, "dost not remember, friend, the old tale in the fabula of Aesopus of him who would please all men. Here will I make another maxim for our newspaper. All men we cannot please, for in pleasing one belike we run counter to another. Let us set our hand to write always without fear. Let us seek favour with none. Always in our news sheet we will seek to speak dutifully and with all reverence of the King his Majesty: let us also speak with all respect and commendation of His Majesty's great prelates and nobles, for are they not the exalted of the land? Also I would have it that we say nothing harsh against our wealthy merchants and burgesses, for hath not the Lord prospered them in their substances. Yea, friends, let us speak ever well of the King, the clergy, the nobility and of all persons of wealth and substantial holdings. But beyond this"--here Brenton Coxton's eye flashed,--"let us speak with utter fearlessness of all men. So shall we be, if I may borrow a mighty good word from Tacitus his Annals, of a complete independence, hanging on to no man. In fact our venture shall be an independent newspaper."
The listeners felt an instinctive awe at the words, and again a strange prescience of the future made itself felt in every mind. Here for the first time in history was being laid down that fine, fearless creed that has made the independent press what it is.
Meantime Caxton continued to glance his eye over the news sheet, murmuring his comments on what he saw,--"Ah! vastly fine, Master Nicholas,--this of the sailing of His Majesty's ships for Spain,--and this, too, of the Doge of Venice, his death, 'tis brave reading and maketh a fair discourse. Here also this likes me, 'tis shrewdly devised," and here he placed his finger on a particular spot on the news sheet,--"here in speaking of the strange mishap of my Lord Arundel, thou useth a great S for strange, and setteth it in a line all by itself whereby the mind of him that reads is suddenly awakened, alarmed as it were by a bell in the night. 'Tis good. 'Tis well. But mark you, friend Nicholas, try it not too often, nor use your great letters too easily. In the case of my Lord Arundel, it is seemly, but for a mishap to a lesser person, let it stand in a more modest fashion."
There was a pause. Then suddenly Caxton looked up again.
"What manner of tale is this! What strange thing is here! In faith, Master Nicholas, whence hast thou so marvelous a thing! The whole world must know of it. Harken ye all to this!
"'Let all men that be troubled of aches, spavins, rheums, boils, maladies of the spleen or humours of the blood, come forthwith to the sign of the Red Lantern in East Cheap. There shall they find one that hath a marvelous remedy for all such ailments, brought with great dangers and perils of the journey from a far distant land. This wonderous balm shall straightway make the sick to be well and the lame to walk. Rubbed on the eye it restoreth sight and applied to the ear it reviveth the hearing. 'Tis the sole invention of Doctor Gustavus Friedman, sometime of Gottingen and brought by him hitherwards out of the sheer pity of his heart for them that be afflicted, nor shall any other fee be asked for it save only such a light and tender charge as shall defray the cost of Doctor Friedman his coming and going.'"
Caxton paused and gazed at Master Nicholas in wonder.
"Whence hadst thou this?"
Master Nicholas smiled.
"I had it of a chapman, or travelling doctor, who was most urgent that we set it forth straightway on the press."
"And is it true?" asked Caxton; "thou hast it of a full surety of knowledge?"
Nicholas laughed lightly.
"True or false, I know not," he said, "but the fellow was so curious that we should print it that he gave me two golden laurels and a new sovereign on the sole understanding that we should set it forth in print."
There was deep silence for a moment.
"He PAYETH to have it printed!" said Caxton, deeply impressed.
"Aye," said Master Nicholas, "he payeth and will pay more. The fellow hath other balms equally potent. All of these he would admonish, or shall I say advert, the public."
"So," said Caxton, thoughtfully, "he wishes to make, if I may borrow a phrase of Albertus Magnus, an advertisement of his goods."
"Even so," said Nicholas.
"I see," said the Master, "he payeth us. We advert the goods. Forthwith all men buy them. Then hath he more money. He payeth us again. We advert the goods more and still he payeth us. That would seem to me, friend Nick, a mighty good busyness for us."
"So it is," rejoined Nicholas, "and after him others will come to advert other wares until belike a large part of our news sheet,--who knows? the whole of it, perhaps, shall be made up in the merry guise of advertisements."
Caxton sat silent in deep thought.
"But Master Caxton"--cried the voice of a young apprentice, a mere child, as he seemed, with fair hair and blue eyes filled with the native candour of unsullied youth,--"is this tale true!"
"What sayest thou, Warwick?" said the master printer, almost sternly.
"Good master, is the tale of the wonderous balm true?"
"Boy," said Caxton, "Master Nicholas, hath even said, we know not if it is true."
"But didst thou not charge us," pleaded the boy, "that all that went under our hand into the press should be truth and truth alone?"
"I did," said Caxton thoughtfully, "but I spoke perhaps somewhat in overhaste. I see that we must here distinguish. Whether this is true or not we cannot tell. But it is PAID FOR, and that lifts it, as who should say, out of the domain of truth. The very fact that it is paid for giveth it, as it were, a new form of merit, a verity altogether its own."
"Ay, ay," said Nicholas, with a twinkle in his shrewd eyes, "entirely its own."
"Indeed so," said Caxton, "and here let us make to ourselves another and a final maxim of guidance. All things that any man will pay for, these we will print, whether true or not, for that doth not concern us. But if one cometh here with any strange tale of a remedy or aught else and wishes us to make advertisement of it and hath no money to pay for it, then shall he be cast forth out of this officina, or office, if I may call it so, neck and crop into the street. Nay, I will have me one of great strength ever at the door ready for such castings."
A murmur of approval went round the group.
Caxton would have spoken further but at the moment the sound of a bell was heard booming in the street without.
"'Tis the Great Bell," said Caxton, "ringing out the hour of noon. Quick, all of you to your task. Lay me the forms on the press and speed me the work. We start here a great adventure. Mark well the maxims I have given you, and God speed our task."
And in another hour or so, the prentice boys of the master printer were calling in the streets the sale of the first English newspaper.
XVII--In the Good Time After the War
HOUSE OF COMMONS REPORT
The Prime Minister in rising said that he thought the time had now come when the House might properly turn its attention again to domestic affairs. The foreign world was so tranquil that there was really nothing of importance which need be brought to the attention of the House. Members, however, would, perhaps, be glad to learn incidentally that a new and more comfortable cage had been supplied for the ex-German Emperor, and that the ex-Crown Prince was now showing distinct signs of intelligence, and was even able to eat quite quietly out of his keeper's hand. Members would be gratified to know that at last the Hohenzollern family were able to abstain from snapping at the hand that fed them. But he would now turn to the subject of Home Rule.
Here the House was seen to yawn noticeably, and a general lack of interest was visible, especially among the Nationalist and Ulster members. A number of members were seen to rise as if about to move to the refreshment- room. Mr. John Redmond and Sir Edward Carson were seen walking arm in arm towards the door.
The Prime Minister. "Will the members kindly keep their seats? We are about to hold a discussion on Home Rule. Members will surely recall that this form of discussion was one of our favourite exercises only a year or so ago. I trust that members have not lost interest in the subject." (General laughter among the members, and cries of "Cut it out!" "What is it?")
The Prime Minister (with some asperity). "Members are well aware what Home Rule meant. It was a plan--or rather it was a scheme--that is to say, it was an act of parliament, or I should say a bill, in fact, Mr. Speaker, I don't mind confessing that, not having my papers with me, I am unable to inform the House just what Home Rule was. I think, perhaps, the Ex-Minister of Munitions has a copy of last year's bill."
Mr. Lloyd George rising, with evident signs of boredom. "The House will excuse me. I am tired. I have been out all day aeroplaning with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Bonar Law, with a view to inspect the new national training camp. I had the Home Rule Bill with me along with the Welsh Disestablishment Bill and the Land Bill, and I am afraid that I lost the whole bally lot of them; dropped them into the sea or something. I hope the Speaker will overlook the term 'bally.' It may not be parliamentary."
Mr. Speaker (laughing). "Tut, tut, never mind a little thing like that. I am sure that after all that we have gone through together, the House is quite agreed that a little thing like parliamentary procedure doesn't matter."
Mr. Lloyd George (humbly). "Still I am sorry for the term. I'd like to withdraw it. I separate or distinguish in any degree the men of Ulster from the men of Tipperary, and the heart of Belfast from the heart of Dublin." (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Redmond (springing forward). "And I'll say this: Not I, nor any man of Ireland, Dublin, Belfast, or Connaught will ever set our hands or names to any bill that shall separate Ireland in any degree from the rest of the Empire. Work out, if you like, a new scheme of government. If the financial clauses are intricate, get one of your treasury clerks to solve them. If there's trouble in arranging your excise on your customs, settle it in any way you please. But it is too late now to separate England and Ireland. We've held the flag of the Empire in our hand. We mean to hold it in our grasp forever. We have seen its colours tinged a brighter red with the best of Ireland's blood, and that proud stain shall stay forever as the symbol of the unity of Irish and the English people."
(Loud cheers ring through the House; several members rise in great excitement, all shouting and speaking together.) There is heard the voice of Mr. Angus McCluskey, Member for the Hebrides, calling--"And ye'll no forget Scotland, me lad, when you talk of unity! Do you mind the Forty-Second, and the London Scottish in the trenches of the Aisne? Wha carried the flag of the Empire then? Unity, ma friends, ye'll never break it. It may involve a wee bit sacrifice for Scotland financially speaking. I'll no say no to a reveesion of the monetairy terms, if ye suggest it,--but for unita--Scotland and the Empire, now and forever!"
A great number of members have risen in their seats. Mr. Open Ap Owen Glendower is calling: "Aye and Wales! never forget Wales." Mr. Trevelyan Trendinning of Cornwall has started singing "And shall Trelawney Die?"--while the deep booming of "Rule Britannia" from five hundred throats ascends to the very rafters of the House.
The Speaker laughing and calling for order, while two of the more elderly clerks are beating with the mace on the table,--"Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have a proposal to make. I have just learned that there is at the Alhambra in Leicester Square, a real fine moving picture show of the entrance of the Allies into Berlin. Let's all go to it. We can leave a committee of the three youngest members to stay behind and draw up a new government for Ireland. Even they can't go wrong now as to what we want."
Loud Cheers as the House empties, singing "It was a Long
Way to Tipperary, but the way lay through Berlin."
