Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Scaw
was already marked out as a personality widely differing from others
of his caste and period. Not in externals; therein he conformed correctly
to type. His hair was faintly reminiscent of Houbigant, and
at the other end of him his shoes exhaled the right soup
The Duke sat in a pennyworth of chair in St. James's Park, listening
to the pessimisms of Belturbet, who reviewed the existing
political situation from the gloomiest of standpoints.
``Where I think you political spade-workers are so silly,'' said the
Duke, ``is in the misdirection of your efforts. You spend thousands
of pounds of money, and Heaven knows how much dynamic force
of brain power and personal energy, in trying to elect or displace
this or that man, whereas you could gain your ends so much more
simply by making use of the men as you find them. If they don't
suit your purpose as they are, transform them into something more
satisfactory.''
``Do you refer to hypnotic suggestion?'' asked Belturbet, with
the air of one who is being trifled with.
``Nothing of the sort. Do you understand what I mean by the
verb to koepenick? That is to say, to replace an authority by a
spurious imitation that would carry just as much weight for the
moment as the displaced original; the advantage, of course, being
that the koepenick replica would do what you wanted, whereas
the original does what seems best in its own eyes.''
``I suppose every public man has a double, if not two or three,''
said Belturbet; ``but it would be a pretty hard task to koepenick a
whole bunch of them and keep the originals out of the way.''
``There have been instances in European history of highly successful
koepenickery,'' said the Duke dreamily.
``Oh, of course, there have been False Dimitris and Perkin Warbecks,
who imposed on the world for a time,'' assented Belturbet,
``but they personated people who were dead or safely out of the
way. That was a comparatively simple matter. It would be far easier
to pass oneself off as dead Hannibal than as living Haldane, for
instance.''
``I was thinking,'' said the Duke, ``of the most famous case of all,
the angel who koepenicked King Robert of Sicily with such brilliant
results. Just imagine what an advantage it would be to have angels
deputizing, to use a horrible but convenient word, for Quinston
and Lord Hugo Sizzle, for example. How much smoother the
Parliamentary machine would work than at present!''
``Now you're talking nonsense,'' said Belturbet; ``angels don't exist
nowadays, at least, not in that way, so what is the use of dragging
them into a serious discussion? It's merely silly.''
``If you talk to me like that I shall just do it,'' said the Duke.
``Do what?'' asked Belturbet. There were times when his young
friend's uncanny remarks rather frightened him.
``I shall summon angelic forces to take over some of the more
troublesome personalities of our public life, and I shall send the
ousted originals into temporary retirement in suitable animal
organisms. It's not every one who would have the knowledge or
the power necessary to bring such a thing off---''
``Oh, stop that inane rubbish,'' said Belturbet angrily; ``it's getting
wearisome. Here's Quinston coming,'' he added, as there approached
along the almost deserted path the well-known figure of
a young Cabinet Minister, whose personality evoked a curious
mixture of public interest and unpopularity.
``Hurry along, my dear man,'' said the young Duke to the Minister,
who had given him a condescending nod; ``your time is running
short,'' he continued in a provocative strain; ``the whole inept
crowd of you will shortly be swept away into the world's wastepaper
basket.''
``You poor little strawberry-leafed nonentity,'' said the Minister,
checking himself for a moment in his stride and rolling out his
words spasmodically; ``who is going to sweep us away, I should like
to know? The voting masses are on our side, and all the ability and
administrative talent is on our side too. No power of earth or
Heaven is going to move us from our place till we choose to quit it.
No power of earth or---''
Belturbet saw, with bulging eyes, a sudden void where a moment
earlier had been a Cabinet Minister; a void emphasized rather than
relieved by the presence of a puffed-out bewildered-looking sparrow,
which hopped about for a moment in a dazed fashion and then
fell to a violent cheeping and scolding.
``If we could understand sparrow-language,'' said the Duke
serenely, ``I fancy we should hear something infinitely worse than
`strawberry-leafed nonentity.' ''
``But good Heavens, Eug
The Duke laughed.
``It is Quinston to all outward appearance,'' he said composedly,
``but I fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an
angel under-study of the real article.''
The Angel-Quinston greeted them with a friendly smile.
``How beastly happy you two look sitting there!'' he said wistfully.
``I don't suppose you'd care to change places with poor little us,''
replied the Duke chaffingly.
``How about poor little me?'' said the Angel modestly. ``I've got to
run about behind the wheels of popularity, like a spotted dog behind
a carriage, getting all the dust and trying to look as if I was an
important part of the machine. I must seem a perfect fool to you
onlookers sometimes.''
``I think you are a perfect angel.'' said the Duke.
The Angel-that-had-been-Quinston smiled and passed on his way,
pursued across the breadth of the Horse Guards Parade by a tiresome
little sparrow that cheeped incessantly and furiously at him.
``That's only the beginning,'' said the Duke complacently; ``I've
made it operative with all of them, irrespective of parties.''
Belturbet made no coherent reply; he was engaged in feeling
his pulse. The Duke fixed his attention with some interest on a
black swan that was swimming with haughty, stiff-necked aloofness
amid the crowd of lesser water-fowl that dotted the ornamental
water. For all its pride of bearing, something was evidently ruffling
and enraging it; in its way it seemed as angry and amazed as the
sparrow had been.
At the same moment a human figure came along the pathway.
Belturbet looked up apprehensively.
``Kedzon,'' he whispered briefly.
``An Angel-Kedzon, if I am not mistaken,'' said the Duke. ``Look,
he is talking affably to a human being. That settles it.''
A shabbily dressed lounger had accosted the man who had been
Viceroy in the splendid East, and who still reflected in his mien
some of the cold dignity of the Himalayan snow-peaks.
``Could you tell me, sir, if them white birds is storks or halbatrosses?
I had an argyment---''
The cold dignity thawed at once into genial friendliness.
``Those are pelicans, my dear sir. Are you interested in birds? If
you would join me in a bun and a glass of milk at the stall yonder,
I could tell you some interesting things about Indian birds. Right
oh! Now the hill-mynah, for instance---''
The two men disappeared in the direction of the bun stall, chatting
volubly as they went, and shadowed from the other side of
the railed enclosure by a black swan, whose temper seemed to have
reached the limit of inarticulate rage.
Belturbet gazed in an open-mouthed wonder after the retreating
couple, then transferred his attention to the infuriated swan, and
finally turned with a look of scared comprehension at his young
friend lolling unconcernedly in his chair. There was no longer any
room to doubt what was happening. The ``silly talk'' had been
translated into terrifying action.
``I think a prairie oyster on the top of a stiffish brandy-and-soda
might save my reason,'' said Belturbet weakly, as he limped towards
his club.
It was late in the day before he could steady his nerves sufficiently
to glance at the evening papers. The Parliamentary report
proved significant reading, and confirmed the fears that he had been
trying to shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively controversial
style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him,
politically speaking, to his opponents, had risen in his place to make
an unprovoked apology for having alluded in a recent speech to
certain protesting taxpayers as ``skulkers.'' He had realized on reflection
that they were in all probability perfectly honest in their
inability to understand certain legal technicalities of the new finance
laws. The House had scarcely recovered from this sensation
when Lord Hugo Sizzle caused a further flutter of astonishment
by going out of his way to indulge in an outspoken appreciation of
the fairness, loyalty, and straightforwardness not only of the Chancellor,
but of all the members of the Cabinet. A wit had gravely
suggested moving the adjournment of the House in view of the unexpected
circumstances that had arisen.
Belturbet anxiously skimmed over a further item of news printed
immediately below the Parliamentary report: ``Wild cat found in an
exhausted condition in Palace Yard.''
``Now I wonder which of them---'' he mused, and then an appalling
idea came to him. ``Supposing he's put them both into the same
beast!'' He hurriedly ordered another prairie oyster.
Belturbet was known in his club as a strictly moderate drinker;
his consumption of alcoholic stimulants that day gave rise to considerable
comment.
The events of the next few days were piquantly bewildering to
the world at large; to Belturbet, who knew dimly what was happening,
the situation was fraught with recurring alarms. The old
saying that in politics it's the unexpected that always happens received
a justification that it had hitherto somewhat lacked, and
the epidemic of startling personal changes of front was not wholly
confined to the realm of actual politics. The eminent chocolate
magnate, Sadbury, whose antipathy to the Turf and everything
connected with it was a matter of general knowledge, had evidently
been replaced by an Angel-Sadbury, who proceeded to
electrify the public by blossoming forth as an owner of race-horses,
giving as a reason his matured conviction that the sport was, after
all, one which gave healthy open-air recreation to large numbers
of people drawn from all classes of the community, and incidentally
stimulated the important industry of horse-breeding. His
colours, chocolate and cream hoops spangled with pink stars, promised
to become as popular as any on the Turf. At the same time, in
order to give effect to his condemnation of the evils resulting from
the spread of the gambling habit among wage-earning classes, who
lived for the most part from hand to mouth, he suppressed all
betting news and tipsters' forecasts in the popular evening paper
that was under his control. His action received instant recognition
and support from the Angel-proprietor of the Evening Views, the
principal rival evening halfpenny paper, who forthwith issued an
ukase decreeing a similar ban on betting news, and in a short while
the regular evening Press was purged of all mention of starting
prices and probable winners. A considerable drop in the circulation
of all these papers was the immediate result, accompanied, of
course, by a falling-off in advertisement value, while a crop of
special betting broadsheets sprang up to supply the newly created
want. Under their influence the betting habit became if anything
rather more widely diffused than before. The Duke had possibly
overlooked the futility of koepenicking the leaders of the nation
with excellently intentioned angel under-studies, while leaving the
mass of the people in its original condition.
Further sensation and dislocation was caused in the Press world
by the sudden and dramatic rapprochement which took place between
the Angel-Editor of the Scrutator and the Angel-Editor of the
Anglian Review, who not only ceased to criticize and disparage
the tone and tendencies of each other's publication, but agreed to
exchange editorships for alternating periods. Here again public
support was not on the side of the angels; constant readers of the
Scrutator complained bitterly of the strong meat which was thrust
upon them at fitful intervals in place of the almost vegetarian diet
to which they had become confidently accustomed; even those who
were not mentally averse to strong meat as a separate course were
pardonably annoyed at being supplied with it in the pages of the
Scrutator. To be suddenly confronted with a pungent herring
salad when one had attuned oneself to tea and toast, or to discover
a richly truffled segment of pâr
The wives of noted public men formed another element of discomfiture
which the young Duke had almost entirely left out of his
calculations. It is sufficiently embarrassing to keep abreast of the
possible wobblings and veerings-round of a human husband, who,
from the strength or weakness of his personal character, may leap
over or slip through the barriers which divide the parties; for this
reason a merciful politician usually marries late in life, when he has
definitely made up his mind on which side he wishes his wife to be
socially valuable. But these trials were as nothing compared to
the bewilderment caused by the Angel-husbands who seemed in
some cases to have revolutionized their outlook on life in the interval
between breakfast and dinner, without premonition or preparation
of any kind, and apparently without realizing the least need
for subsequent explanation. The temporary peace which brooded
over the Parliamentary situation was by no means reproduced in
the home circles of the leading statesmen and politicians. It had
been frequently and extensively remarked of Mrs. Exe that she
would try the patience of an angel; now the tables were reversed,
and she unwittingly had an opportunity for discovering that the
capacity for exasperating behaviour was not all on one side.
And then, with the introduction of the Navy Estimates, Parliamentary
peace suddenly dissolved. It was the old quarrel between
Ministers and the Opposition as to the adequacy or the reverse of
the Government's naval programme. The Angel-Quinston and the
Angel-Hugo-Sizzle contrived to keep the debates free from personalities
and pinpricks, but an enormous sensation was created
when the elegant lackadaisical Halfan Halfour threatened to bring
up fifty thousand stalwarts to wreck the House if the Estimates
were not forthwith revised on a Two-Power basis. It was a memorable
scene when he rose in his place, in response to the scandalized
shouts of his opponents, and thundered forth, ``Gentlemen, I glory
in the name of Apache.''
Belturbet, who had made several fruitless attempts to ring up his
young friend since the fateful morning in St. James's Park, ran him
to earth one afternoon at his club, smooth and spruce and unruffled
as ever.
``Tell me, what on earth have you turned Cocksley Coxon into?''
Belturbet asked anxiously, mentioning the name of one of the pillars
of unorthodoxy in the Anglican Church. ``I don't fancy he believes
in angels, and if he finds an angel preaching orthodox sermons
from his pulpit while he's been turned into a fox-terrier, he'll
develop rabies in less than no time.''
``I rather think it was a fox-terrier,'' said the Duke lazily.
Belturbet groaned heavily, and sank into a chair.
``Look here, Eugéne,'' he whispered hoarsely, having first looked
well round to see that no one was within hearing range, ``you've got
to stop it. Consols are jumping up and down like bronchos, and
that speech of Halfour's in the House last night has simply startled
everybody out of their wits. And then on the top if it, Thistlebery---''
``What has he been saying?'' asked the Duke quickly.
``Nothing. That's just what's so disturbing. Every one thought it
was simply inevitable that he should come out with a great epoch-making
speech at this juncture, and I've just seen on the tape that
he has refused to address any meetings at present, giving as a reason
his opinion that something more than mere speech-making was
wanted.''
The young Duke said nothing, but his eyes shone with quiet
exultation.
``It's so unlike Thistlebery,'' continued Belturbet; ``at least,'' he
said suspiciously, ``it's unlike the real Thistlebery---''
``The real Thistlebery is flying about somewhere as a vocally industrious
lapwing,'' said the Duke calmly; ``I expect great things of
the Angel-Thistlebery,'' he added.
At this moment there was a magnetic stampede of members towards
the lobby, where the tape-machines were ticking out some
news of more than ordinary import.
``Coup d'état in the North. Thistlebery seizes Edinburgh Castle.
Threatens civil war unless Government expands naval programme.''
In the babel which ensued Belturbet lost sight of his young
friend. For the best part of the afternoon he searched one likely
haunt after another, spurred on by the sensational posters which
the evening papers were displaying broadcast over the West End.
General Baden-Baden mobilizes Boy-Scouts. Another coup d'état
feared. Is Windsor Castle safe?'' This was one of the earlier posters,
and was followed by one of even more sinister purport: ``Will the
Test-match have to be postponed?'' It was this disquietening question
which brought home the real seriousness of the situation to the
London public, and made people wonder whether one might not
pay too high a price for the advantages of party government. Belturbet,
questing round in the hope of finding the originator of the
trouble, with a vague idea of being able to induce him to restore
matters to their normal human footing, came across an elderly
club acquaintance who dabbled extensively in some of the more
sensitive market securities. He was pale with indignation, and his
pallor deepened as a breathless newsboy dashed past with a poster
inscribed: ``Premier's constituency harried by moss-troopers. Halfour
sends encouraging telegram to rioters. Letchworth Garden City
threatens reprisals. Foreigners taking refuge in Embassies and National
Liberal Club.''
``This is devils' work!'' he said angrily.
Belturbet knew otherwise.
At the bottom of St. James's Street a newspaper motor-cart,
which had just come rapidly along Pall Mall, was surrounded by a
knot of eagerly talking people, and for the first time that afternoon
Belturbet heard expressions of relief and congratulation.
It displayed a placard with the welcome announcement: ``Crisis
ended. Government gives way. Important expansion of naval programme.''
There seemed to be no immediate necessity for pursuing the
quest of the errant Duke, and Belturbet turned to make his way
homeward through St. James's Park. His mind, attuned to the
alarums and excursions of the afternoon, became dimly aware
that some excitement of a detached nature was going on around
him. In spite of the political ferment which reigned in the streets,
quite a large crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding of a
tragedy that had taken place on the shore of the ornamental water.
A large black swan, which had recently shown signs of a savage
and dangerous disposition, had suddenly attacked a young gentleman
who was walking by the water's edge, dragged him down under
the surface, and drowned him before any one could come to
his assistance. At the moment when Belturbet arrived on the spot
several park-keepers were engaged in lifting the corpse into a punt.
Belturbet stooped to pick up a hat that lay near the scene of the
struggle. It was a smart soft felt hat, faintly reminiscent of Houbigant.
More than a month elapsed before Belturbet had sufficiently recovered
from his attack of nervous prostration to take an interest
once more in what was going on in the world of politics. The
Parliamentary Session was still in full swing, and a General Election
was looming in the near future. He called for a batch of morning
papers and skimmed rapidly through the speeches of the Chancellor,
Quinston, and other Ministerial leaders, as well as those of
the principal Opposition champions, and then sank back in his chair
with a sigh of relief. Evidently the spell had ceased to act after the
tragedy which had overtaken its invoker. There was no trace of
angel anywhere.