WEBVTT

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Chapter one of When William Came By
Saki. This is a LibriVox recording.

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domain. For further information or to volunteer,

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please go to LibriVox dot org.
Reading by and imentor When William Came

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By Saki, Chapter one, The
Singing Bird and the Barometer Cicily Yoville sat

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in a low swing chair, alternately
looking at herself in a mirror and at

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the other occupant of the room in
the flesh. Both prospects gave her undisguised

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satisfaction without being vain. She was
duly appreciative of good looks, whether in

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herself or in another, and the
reflection that she saw in the mirror and

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the young man whom she saw seated
at the piano, would have come with

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credit out of a more severe critical
inspection. Probably she looked longer and with

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greater appreciation at the piano player than
at her own image. Her good looks

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were an inherited possession that had been
with her more or less all her life,

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while Ronnie Stare was a comparatively new
acquisition, discovered and achieved, so

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to speak, by her own enterprise, selected by her own good taste.

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Fate had given her adorable eyelashes and
an excellent profile. Ronnie was an indulgence

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she had bestowed on herself. Cicily
had long ago planned out for herself a

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complete philosophy of life, and had
resolutely set to work to carry her philosophy

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into practice. When love is over, how little of love even the lover

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understands, She quoted to herself from
one of her favorite poets, and transposed

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the saying into while life is with
us, how little of life even the

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materialist understands. Most people that she
knew took endless pines and precautions to preserve

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and prolong their lives and keep their
powers of enjoyment unimpaired. Few, very

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few seemed to make any intelligent effort
at understanding what they really wanted in the

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way of enjoying their lives, or
to ascertain what were the best means for

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satisfying those wants. Fewer still bent
their whole energies to the one paramount aim

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of getting what they wanted in the
fullest possible measure. Her scheme of life

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was not a wholly selfish one.
No one could understand what she wanted as

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well as she did herself. Therefore, she felt that she was the best

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person to pursue her own ends and
cater for her own wants. To have

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others thinking and acting for one merely
meant that one had to be perpetually grateful

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for a lot of well meant and
usually unsatisfactory services. It was like the

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case of a rich man giving a
community a free library, when probably the

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community only wanted free fishing or reduced
tram fares. Cicily studied her own wis

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and wishes, experimented in the best
method of carrying them into effect, compared

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the accumulated results of her experiments,
and gradually arrived at a very clear idea

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of what she wanted in life and
how best to achieve it. She was,

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not, by disposition, a self
centered soul. Therefore, she did

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not make the mistake of supposing that
one can live successfully and gracefully in a

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crowded world without taking due notice of
other human elements around one. She was

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instinctively far more thoughtful for others than
many a person who is genuinely but unseeingly

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addicted to unselfishness. Also, she
kept in her armory the weapon which can

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be so mightily effective if used sparingly
by a really sincere individual. The knowledge

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of when to be a humbug.
Ambition entered to a certain extent into her

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life and governed it, perhaps rather
more than she knew. She desired to

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escape from the doom of being an
an entity, but the escape would have

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to be effected in her own way
and in her own time. To be

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governed by ambition was only a shade
or two better than being governed by convention.

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The drawing room in which she and
Ronnie were sitting was of such proportions

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that one hardly knew whether it was
intended to be one room or several,

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and it had the merit of being
moderately cool. At two o'clock on a

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particularly hot to Lye afternoon, in
the coolest of its many alcoves, servants

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had noiselessly set out and improvised luncheon
table, attempting array of carriare, crab

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and mushroom salads, cold asparagus,
slender hot bottles, and high stemmed wine

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goblets peeped out from amid a setting
of Charlotte clem roses. Cicily rose from

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her seat and went over to the
piano. Come she said, touching the

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young man lightly with a fingertip on
top of his very sleek, copper hued

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head. We're going to have picnic
lunch up here today. It's so much

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cooler than any of the downstairs rooms, and we sha'n't be that with the

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servants trotting in and out all the
time. Rather a good idea of mine,

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wasn't it, Ronnie, after looking
anxiously to see that the word picnic

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did not portend tongue, sandwiches and
biscuits, gave the idea his blessing.

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What is young Store's profession, someone
had once asked concerning him. He has

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a great many friends who have independent
incomes, had been the answer. The

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meal was begun in appreciative silence.
A picnic in which three kinds of red

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pepper were available for the caviare demanded
a certain amount of respectful attention. My

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heart ought to be like a singing
bird to day, i suppose, said

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Cecily. Presently, because your good
man is coming home, asked Ronnie.

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Cecily nodded. He's expected sometime this
afternoon, though I'm rather vague as to

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which train he arrives by. Rather
stifling day for railway traveling. And is

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your heart doing the singing bird business? Asked Ronnie. There depends, said

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Cecily. If I may choose the
bird a missle thrush would do. Perhaps

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it sings loudest and stormy. Whether
I believe Ronnie disposed of two or three

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stems of asparagus before making any comment
on this remark? Is there going to

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be stormy? Whether, he asked? The domestic barometers sit rather that way,

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said Cecily. You see, Mary
has been away for ever so long,

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and of course there'll be lots of
things he won't be used to,

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and I'm afraid matters may be rather
strained and uncomfortable for a time. Do

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you mean that he will object to
me, asked Ronnie. Not in the

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least, said Cecily. He's quite
broad minded on most subjects, and he

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realizes this is an age in which
sensible people know thoroughly well what they want

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and are determined to get what they
want. It pleases me to see a

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lot of you, and to spoil
you, and to pay you extravagant compliments

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about your good looks and your music, and to imagine at times that I'm

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in danger of getting fond of you. I don't see any harm in it,

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and I don't suppose Mary will either. In fact, I shouldn't be

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surprised if he takes rather a liking
to you. No, it's the general

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situation that will trouble and exasperate him. He's not had time to get accustomed

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to the fate a compli like we
have. It will break on him with

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horrible saddenness. He was somewhere in
Russia when the war broke out, wasn't

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he said Ronnie, Somewhere in the
wilds of eastern Siberia, shooting and bird

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collecting, miles away from a railway
or telegraph line. And if it all

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over before he knew anything about it
didn't last very long, when you come

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to think of it. He would
due home somewhere about that time, And

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when the weeks slipped by without my
hearing from him, I quite thought he'd

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been captured in the Baltic or somewhere
on the way back. It turned out

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he was down with marsh fever and
some out of the way spot, and

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everything was over and finished with before
he got back to civilization and newspapers.

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It must have been a bit of
a shock, said Ronnie. Busy with

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a well devised salad. Still I
don't see why there should be domestic storms

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when he comes back, You're heart
are responsible for the catastrophe that has happened,

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No, said Cecily. But he'll
come back naturally, feeling sore and

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savage with everything he sees around him, and he won't realize just at once

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that we've been through all at ourselves
and have reached the stage of sullen acquiescence

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in what can't be helped. He
won't understand, for instance, how we

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can be enthusiastic and excited over Galla
Musselford's debut and things of that sort.

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He'll think we're a set of calloush
bevelers fiddling while Rome is burning. In

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this case, said Ronnie, Rome
isn't burning, it's burnt. All that

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remains to be done is to rebuild
it when possible, exactly, And he'll

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say we're not doing much to helping
at that. But protested Ronie, the

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whole thing has only just happened.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and

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we can't rebuild our room in the
day. I know, said Cecily,

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But so many of our friends,
and especially Murray's friends, have taken the

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thing in a tragical fashion and cleared
off to the colonies or shut themselves up

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in their country houses, as though
there was a sort of moral leprosy of

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infecting London. I don't see what
good that does, said Ronnie. It

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doesn't know a good, but it's
what a lot of them have done because

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they felt like doing it, and
Murray will feel like doing it too,

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and that's where I foresee trouble and
disagreement. Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. I

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would take things tragically if I saw
the good of it, he said.

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As matters stand, it's too late
in the day and too early to be

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anything but philosophical about what one can't
hel help for the present. We've just

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got to make the best of things. Besides, you can't very well turn

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down Gaula at the last moment.
I'm not going to turn down Gaula or

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anybody, said Cecily. With a
decision. I think it would be silly,

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and silliness doesn't appeal to me.
That is why I foresee storms on

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the domestic horizon. After all,
Gaula has her career to think of,

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do you know, she added,
with a change of tone, I rather

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wish you'd fall in love with Gaula. It would make me horribly jealous,

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and a little jealousy is such a
good tonic for any woman who knows how

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to dress well. Also, Ronnie, it would prove that you are capable

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of falling in love with some one
of which i've grave doubts up to the

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present. Love is one of the
few things in which the make believe is

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superior to the genuine, said Ronnie. It'd lasts longer, and you get

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more fun out of it, and
it's easier to replace when you've done with

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it. Still, it's rather like
playing with colored paper instead of playing with

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fire, objected Cecily. A footman
came round the corner with the trained silence

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that tactfully contrives to make itself felt
A mister Luton to see you, madam,

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he announced. Shall I say you're
in mister Luton? Oh? Yes,

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said Cecily. He'll probably have something
to tell us about Gaula's concert,

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she added, turning to Ronnie.
Tony Luton was a young man who had

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sprung from the people and had taken
care that there should be no recoil.

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He was scarcely twenty years of age, but a tightly packed chronicle of vicissitudes

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lay behind his sprightly insucian appearance.
Since his fifteenth year he had lived heaven

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knew how, getting sometimes a minor
engagement at some minor music hall, sometimes

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a temporary job as a secretary valid
companion to a roving invalid, dining now

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and then on other's eggs and asparagus
at one of the smarter West End restaurants,

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at other times devouring a kipper or
a sausage in some stuffy edge where

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road eating house, always seemingly amused
by life, and always amusing. It

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is possible that somewhere in such heart
as he possessed, there lurked a rankling

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bitterness against the hard things of life, or a scrap of gratitude towards the

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one or two friends who had helped
him disinterestedly. But his most intimates associates

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could not have guessed at the existence
of such feelings. Tony Luton was just

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a merry eyed, dancing fawn whom
fate had surrounded with streets instead of woods,

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And it would have been in the
highest degree and artistic to have sounded

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him for a heart or a heartache. The Dancing of the Fawn took one

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day a livelier and more assured turn. The joyousness became more real, and

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the worst of the vicissitudes seemed suddenly
over. A musical friend, gifted with

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mediocre but marketable abilities, supplied Tony
with a song for which he obtained a

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trial performance at an East End hall, dressed as a jockey for no particular

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reason except that the costume suited him. He sang. They quaffed the Gay

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Bubbli in Eccleston Square to an appreciative
audience, which included the manager of a

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famous West End theater of varieties.
Tony and his song won the magisterial favor

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and were immediately transplanted to the West
End house, where they scored a success

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of which the drooping music hall industry
was at the moment badly in need.

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It was just after the great catastrophe, and men of the London world were

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in no humor to think they had
witnessed the inconceivable befall them. They had

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nothing but political ruin to stare at, and they were anxious to look the

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other way. The words of Tony's
song were more or less meaningless, though

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he sang them remarkably well. But
the tune, with its air of slyness

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and furtive joyousness, appealed in some
unaccountable manner to people who were furtively unhappy

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and who were trying to appear stoically
cheerful. What must be must be,

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and it's a poor heart that never
rejoices were the popular expressions of the London

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public at that moment, and the
men who had to cater for that public

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were thankful when they were able to
stumble across anything that fitted in with the

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prevailing mood. For the first time
in his life, Tony Luton discovered that

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agents and managers were a leisured class, and that office boys had manners.

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He entered Cecily's drawing room with the
air of one to whom assurance of manner

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had become a sheathed weapon, a
court accessory rather than a trade implement.

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He was more quietly dressed than the
usual run of music hall successes. He

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had looked critically at life from too
many angles not to know that though clothes

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cannot make a man, they can
certainly damn him. Thank you, I

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have lunched already, he said,
in answer to a question from Sicily.

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Thank you, he said again in
a cheerful affirmative, as the question of

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hawk in at all Ice gold Goblet
was propounded to him. I've come to

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tell you the latest about the gaul
A muscle for the evening, he continued.

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Old Lawrence is putting his back into
it, and it's rarely going to

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be rather a big affair. She's
going to out Russian the Russians. Of

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course, she hasn't their technique nor
a tenth of their training, but she's

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having tons of advertisement. The name
Gauler is almost an advertisement in itself.

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And then there's the fact that she's
the daughter of a peer. She has

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temperament, said cecily, with the
decision of one who makes a vague statement

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in a good cause, So Lawrence
says, observed Tony, he discovers temperament

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in every one that he intends to
boomb. He told me that I had

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temperament to the finger tips, and
I was too polite to contradict him.

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But I haven't told you the really
important thing about the muscle for debut.

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It's a profound secret. More or
less, so you might us promise not

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to breathe a word about it till
half past four, when it will appear

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in all the six o'clock newspapers.
Tony paused for dramatic effect while he drained

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his goblet, and then made his
announcement. Majesty is going to be present

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informally and unofficially, but still present
in the flesh, a sort of casual

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dropping in, carefully heralded by unconfirmed
rumor a week ahead heavens, exclaimed Cecily

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in genuine excitement. What a bold
stroke Lady Shalem has worked that. I

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00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:36.120
bet I suppose we will go down
all write. Trust Laurence to see to

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that, said Tony. He knows
how to fill his house with the right

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sort of people, and he's not
the one to risk of fiasco. He

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knows what he's about. I tell
you it's going to be a big evening,

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I say, exclaimed Ronny. Suddenly
give a supper party here for Gaula

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on the night and ask the Shalemb
woman and all her crowd. It'd be

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awful fun Cecily caught at the suggestion
with Sam in the usiasm. She did

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not particularly care for Lady Shayalamb,
but she thought it would be just as

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well to care for her as far
as outward appearances went grace. Lady Shayalam

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was a woman who had blossomed into
sudden importance by constituting herself a sort of

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foster mother to the fate a compli. At a moment when London was denuded

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of most of its aforetime social leaders, she had seen her opportunity and made

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the most of it. She had
not contented herself with vowing to the inevitable.

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She had stretched out her hand to
it and forced herself to smile graciously

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at it, and her polite attentions
had been reciprocated. Lady shaylamb, without

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being a beauty or a wit or
a grand lady in the traditional sense of

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the word, was in a fair
way to becoming a power in the land.

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Others more capable and with stronger claims
to social recognition would doubtless overshadow her

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and displace her in due course,
But for the moment she was a person

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whose good graces counted for something,
and Cecily was quite alive to the advantage

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of being in those good graces.
It would be rather fun, she said,

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running over in her mind the possibilities
of the suggested supper party. It

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would be jolly useful. But in
Ronnie eagerly, you could get all sorts

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of interesting people together and it would
be an excellent advertisement for Gaula. Ronnie

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approved of supper parties on principle,
but he was also thinking of the advantage

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which might accrue to the drawing Room
concert which Cecily had projected, with himself

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as the chief performer, if he
could be brought into contact with a wider

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circle of music patrons. I know
it would be useful, said Cecily.

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It would be almost historical. There's
no knowing who might not come to it,

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and things are dreadfully slack in the
entertaining line just now. The ambitious

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note in her character was making itself
felt at that moment. Let's go down

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to the library and work out a
list of people to invite, said Ronnie.

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A servant entered the room and made
a brief announcement. A mister Yeovil

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has arrived, Madam Bother, said
Ronnie sulkily. Now you'll cool off about

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that supper party and turn down Gauler
and the rest of us. It was

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certainly true that the supper had already
seemed a more difficult proposition in Cecily's eyes,

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than it had a moment or two
a go. You'll not forget my

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00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:30.519
only daughter, Ian, though Sophia
has crossed the sea, quoted Tony,

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with mocking laughter in his voice and
eyes. Cecily went down to greet her

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husband. She felt that she was
probably very glad that he was at home

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once more. She was angry with
herself for not feeling great a certainty on

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the point. Even the well beloved, however, can select the wrong moment

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for return. If Cecily Yovill's heart
was like a singing bird, it was

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of a kind that has frequent lapses
into silence. Of chapter one chapter two

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00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:15.920
of When William Came By Saki.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

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00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:22.759
recordings are in the public domain.
For further information or to volunteer, please

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00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:30.240
go to LibriVox dot org. Reading
by and Imenta, When William Came by

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00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:38.400
Saki, Chapter two, The Homecoming, Murray Yeovil got out of the boat

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train at Victoria Station and stood waiting
in an attitude something between listlessness and impatience,

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while a porter dragged his light traveling
kit out of the railway carriage and

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00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:55.039
went in search of his heavier baggage
with a hand truck. Yeovil was a

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gray faced young man with restless eyes
and a rather wistful mouth, and an

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air of lassitude that was evidently only
a temporary characteristic. The hot, dusty

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station, with its blended crowds of
dawdling and scurrying people, its little streams

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of suburban passengers pouring out every now
and then from this or that platform,

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like ants swarming across a garden path, made a wearisome climax to what had

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00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:26.359
been a rather wearisome journey. Yeovil
glanced quickly, almost furtively, around him

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00:21:26.359 --> 00:21:30.319
in all directions, with the air
of a man who is constrained by morbid

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00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:34.799
curiosity to look for things that he
would rather not see. The announcements placed

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in German alternatively with English, over
the booking office, left luggage office,

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refreshment buffets, and so forth.
The crowned eagle and monogram displayed on the

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post boxes caught his eye in quick
succession. He turned to help the porter

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to shepherd his belongings on to the
truck, and followed him to the outer

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00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:57.400
yard of the station, where a
string of taxi cabs was being slowly absorbed

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00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:03.759
by an outpouring crowd of others.
Portmanteau raps and a trunk or two,

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00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:07.640
much belabeled and travel worn, were
stowed into a taxi, and Yovil turned

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to give the direction to the driver. Twenty eight Berkshire Street baksheus trash achtroshradsich,

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echoed the man, a bulky spectacled
individual of unmistakable Teuton type twenty eight

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00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:27.880
Berkshire Street, repeated Yeovil and got
into the cab, leaving the driver to

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00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:33.920
retranslate the direction into his own language. A succession of cabs leaving the station

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blocked the roadway for a moment or
two, and Jovil had leisure to observe

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the fact that Victoria Strasa was lettered
side by side with the familiar English name

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of the street. A notice directing
the public to the neighboring swimming baths was

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also written up in both languages.
London had become a bilingual city. Even

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as warsaw, the cab threaded its
way swiftly along Buckingham Palace Road towards the

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00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:04.759
mall. As they passed along front
of the Palace, the traveler turned his

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00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:10.519
head resolutely away that he might not
see the alien uniforms at the gate and

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00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:15.519
the eagle standard flapping in the sunlight. The taxi driver, who seemed to

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00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:19.160
have combative instincts, slowed down as
he was turning into the mall and pointed

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to the white pile of memorial statuary
in front of the palace gates. Grossmutterdenkmle

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00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:33.359
Yah. He announced and resumed his
journey. Arrived at his destination, the

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Oval stood on the steps of his
house and pressed the bell with an odd

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sense of forlornness, as though he
were a stranger drifting from nowhere into a

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land that had no cognisance of him. A moment later he was standing in

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00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:51.839
his own hall, the object of
respectful solicitude and detention. Sprucely garbed and

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00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:56.039
groomed lackeys busied themselves with his battered
travel soiled baggage. The door closed on

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00:23:56.079 --> 00:24:02.880
the guttural voiced taxi driver and the
glaring jewel sunshine. The wearisome journey was

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over, Poor dear, how dreadfully
pulled down you look, said Cecily,

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00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:14.920
when the first greetings had been exchanged. It's been a slow business getting well,

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said Yovil. I'm only three quarter
away there. Yet he looked at

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00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:23.440
his reflection in a mirror and laughed
ruefully. You should have seen what I

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looked like five or six weeks ago, he added. You ought to have

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let me come out and nurse you, said Cecily. You know I wanted

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to. Oh they nursed me well
enough, said Yovil. And it would

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00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:41.400
have been a shame dragging you out
there. A small finished health resort out

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00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:44.880
of the season is not a very
amusing place, and he would have been

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00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:48.440
worse for anyone who didn't talk Russian. You must have been buried alive there,

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said Cecily, with commiseration in her
voice. I wanted to be buried

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alive, said Yovil. The news
from the outer world was not of a

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kind that helped to despondent valid towards
convalescence. They spoke to me as little

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00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:06.839
as possible about what was happening,
And I was grateful for your letters,

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00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:11.440
because they also told me very little. When one is abroad among foreigners,

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00:25:11.799 --> 00:25:17.559
one's country's misfortunes cause one and acuter
more personal distress than they would at home.

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Even Well, you're at home now
anyway, said Cecily, And you

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can jog along the road to complete
recovery at your own pace. A little

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00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.920
quiet shooting this autumn, and a
little hunting, just enough to keep you

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fit and not to overtire you.
You mustn't overtax your strength. I am

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getting my strength back, all right, said yo Will. This journey hasn't

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tired me half as much as one
might have expected. It's the awful drag

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of listlessness, mental and physical that
is the worst after effect of these marsh

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fevers. And they drain the energy
out of you in bucketfuls, and it

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00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:59.000
trickles back again in teaspoonfuls. And
just now, untiring energy is what I

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00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:03.200
shall need, even more than strength. I don't want to degenerate into a

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slacker. Look here, Mary said
Cecily. After we've had dinner together to

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00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.359
night, I'm going to do a
seemingly unwifely thing. I'm going to go

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out and leave you alone with an
old friend. Doctor Holham is coming in

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00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:19.039
to drink coffee and smoke with you. I arranged this because I knew it

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was what you would like. Men
can talk these things over best by themselves,

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and Harlem can tell you everything that's
happened since you went away. It

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will be a dreary story, I'm
afraid, but you will want to hear

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it. All. It was a
nightmare time, but now one sees it

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00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:41.799
in a calmer perspective. I feel
in a nightmare still, said Jovil.

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00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:45.440
We all felt like that, said
Cecily, rather with the air of an

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00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:49.359
elder person who tells a child that
it will understand things better when it grows

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00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:56.400
up. Time is always something for
narcotic you know, things seem absolutely unbearable,

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00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:00.839
then bit by bit we find out
that we're bearing them. And now,

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00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:03.720
dear, I'll fill up your notification
paper and leave you to superintend your

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00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:10.119
unpacking. Robert will give you any
help you want. What's the notification paper,

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00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:14.640
asked Yovil. Oh, A stupid
form to be filled up when any

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00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:18.519
one arrives to say where they've come
from and their business, and their nationality

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00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:22.720
in religion and all that sort of
thing. We rather more bureaucratic than we

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00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:26.839
used to be, you know.
Yovil said nothing, but into the sallow

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00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:33.319
grayness of his face there crept a
dark flush that faded presently and left his

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00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:37.720
color more gray and bloodless than before. The journey seemed suddenly to have recommenced.

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He was under his own roof.
His servants were waiting on him,

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00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:47.079
His familiar possessions were in evidence around
him, but the sense of being at

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00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:51.319
home had vanished. It was as
though he had arrived at some wayside hotel

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00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:56.759
and been asked to register his name
and status and destination. Other things of

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00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:02.839
disgust and irritation he had foreseen in
the London coming to the alterations on stamps

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00:28:02.839 --> 00:28:07.480
and coinage, the intrusive Teuton element, the alien uniforms cropping up everywhere,

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the new orientation of social life.
Such things he was prepared for, but

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00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:18.480
this personal evidence of his subject state
came on him unawares at a moment when

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00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:23.920
he had so to speak, laid
his armor aside sicily spoke lightly of the

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hateful formality that had been forced on
them. Would he too come to regard

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things in the same acquiescence spirit.
End of chapter two Chapter three of When

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00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:52.440
William Came By Saki. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are

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00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:57.079
in the public domain. For further
information or to volunteer, please go to

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00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:08.200
LibriVox or reading by and Iminta.
When William Came By Saki chapter three,

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The Metskis Are. I was in
the early stages of my fever when I

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got the first inkling of what was
going on, said Jobil to the doctor,

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00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:23.680
as they sat over their coffee in
the recess of the big smoking room,

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00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:29.039
just able to potter about of it
in the daytime, fighting against depression

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00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:34.079
and inertia feverish the evening came on
and delirious in the light. My game

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00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:40.119
tracker and my attendant were both Buriats
and spoke very little Russian, and that

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00:29:40.200 --> 00:29:45.279
was the only language we had in
common to converse him. In matters concerning

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00:29:45.319 --> 00:29:48.720
food and sport, we soon got
to understand each other, but on other

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00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:55.920
subjects we were not easily able to
exchange ideas. One day, my tracker

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00:29:55.960 --> 00:29:59.599
had been to a distant trading store
to get some things of which we were

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00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:03.559
in need. The store was eighty
miles from the nearest point of railroad,

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00:30:03.960 --> 00:30:07.559
eighty miles of terribly bad roads,
but it was in its way a center

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00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:14.200
and transmitter of news from the outside
world. The tracker brought back with him

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00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:19.519
vague tidings of a conflict of some
sort between the metskids Are and the Angliskids

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00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:26.319
Are, and kept repeating the Russian
word for defeat. The anglizkids are I

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00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.079
recognized, of course, as the
king of England, But my brain was

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00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:33.720
too sick and dull to read any
further meaning into the man's reiterated gabble.

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00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:38.160
I grew so ill just then that
I had to give up the struggle against

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00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:42.599
fever and make my way as best
I could towards the nearest point where nursing

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00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:48.599
and doctoring could be had. It
was one evening in a lonely rest hut

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00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:52.200
on the edge of a huge forest, as I was waiting for my boy

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00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:56.160
to bring the meal for which I
was feverishly impatient, and which I knew

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00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:00.640
I should loathe. As soon as
it was brought and the nation of the

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00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:04.559
word Metsky flashed on me. I
had thought of it as referring to some

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00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:11.480
Oriental potentate, some rebellious rajah perhaps, who was giving trouble and whose followers

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00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:17.240
had possibly discomfited an isolated British force
in some out of the way corner of

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00:31:17.319 --> 00:31:22.720
our empire. And all of a
sudden I knew that nemetskisar German Emperor,

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00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:26.880
had been the name that the man
had been trying to convey to me.

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00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:32.200
I shouted for the tracker and put
him through a breathless cross examination. He

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00:31:32.319 --> 00:31:37.519
confirmed what my fears had told me. The Metzkidsar was a big European ruler.

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00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:41.039
He had been in conflict with the
Anglisky Tzar, and the latter had

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00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:47.000
been defeated swept away. The man
spoke the word that he used for ships

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00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:52.559
and made an energetic pantomime to express
the sinking of a fleet. Harland.

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00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.839
There was nothing for it but to
hope that this was a false, groundless

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00:31:55.920 --> 00:32:01.720
rumor that had somehow crept to the
confines of civilization. In my saner balanced

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00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:07.039
moments, it was possible to disbelieve
it. But if you have ever suffered

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00:32:07.079 --> 00:32:10.200
from delirium, you will know what
raging torments of agony I went through in

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00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:16.599
the nights, and my brain fought
and re fought that rumored disaster. The

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00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:24.400
doctor gave a murmur of sympathetic understanding, then continued Jovil. I reached the

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00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:30.640
small Siberian town towards which I had
been struggling. There was a little colony

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00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:35.880
of Russians there, traders, officials, a doctoral tunes of army officers.

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00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:39.319
I put up at the primitive hotel
restaurant, which was the general gathering place

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00:32:39.359 --> 00:32:45.599
of the community. I knew quickly
that the news was true. Russians are

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00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:49.599
the most tactful of any European race
that I've ever met. They did not

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00:32:49.799 --> 00:32:54.279
stare with insolent or pity and curiosity, but there was something changed in their

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00:32:54.319 --> 00:33:00.519
attitude which told me that the traveling
Britain was no longer in their eyes the

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00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:06.680
interesting, respect commanding personality that he
had been in past days. I ran

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00:33:06.759 --> 00:33:09.559
to my own room, where the
samovar was bubbling its familiar tune, and

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00:33:09.640 --> 00:33:15.279
a smiling red shirted Russian boy was
helping my buriat's servant to unpack my wardrobe,

400
00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:20.079
and I asked for any back numbers
of newspapers that could be supplied at

401
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:23.640
a moment's notice. I was given
a bundle of well thumbed cheats, odd

402
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:30.920
pieces of the Novovrim, the Mosko
of Evvadonski, one or two complete numbers

403
00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:35.960
of local papers published at perm and
a mosque. I don't read Russian well,

404
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:40.000
though I speak it fairly readily,
but from the fragments of disconnected telegrams

405
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:45.720
that I pieced together, I gathered
enough information to acquaint me with the extent

406
00:33:45.839 --> 00:33:49.440
of the tragedy that had been worked
out in a few crowding hours in the

407
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:54.039
corner of northwestern Europe. I searched
frantically for telegrams of later dates that would

408
00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:59.039
put a better complexion on the matter, there would retrieve something from the ruin.

409
00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:05.200
Presently, I came across a page
of the illustrated supplement that the Novorimya

410
00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:08.920
publishes once a week. There was
a photograph of a long fronted building with

411
00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:15.800
a flag flying over it, labeled
the new standard floating over Buckingham Palace.

412
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:21.239
The picture was not much more than
a smudge, but the flag, possibly

413
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:25.239
touched up, was unmistakable. It
was the Eagle of the Nimetskid Tzar.

414
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:31.079
I have a vivid recollection of that
plainly furnished little room, with the inevitable

415
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:36.559
guilt icon in one corner, and
the samovar hissing and girdling on the table,

416
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:40.119
and the thrumming music of a bala
liika orchestra coming up from the restaurant

417
00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:46.039
below. The next gooherent thing I
can remember was weeks and weeks later,

418
00:34:46.199 --> 00:34:51.679
discussing in an impersonal, detached manner
whether I was strong enough to stand the

419
00:34:51.719 --> 00:34:55.880
fatigue of the long railway journey to
Finland. Since then, Hallm, I've

420
00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:00.239
been encouraged to keep my mind as
much off the war and public of airs

421
00:35:00.280 --> 00:35:02.960
as possible, and I've been glad
to do so. I knew the worst,

422
00:35:04.239 --> 00:35:07.599
and there was no particular use in
deepening my despondency by dragging out the

423
00:35:07.719 --> 00:35:13.480
details. But now I'm more or
less alive man again. I want to

424
00:35:13.480 --> 00:35:16.440
fit in the gaps in my knowledge
of what happened. You know how much

425
00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:22.159
I know and how little those fragments
of Russian newspapers were about all the information

426
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:27.159
that I had. I don't even
know clearly how the whole thing started.

427
00:35:29.159 --> 00:35:32.199
Yeovil settled himself back in his chair
with the air of a man who has

428
00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:39.199
done some necessary talking and now assumes
the role of listener. It started,

429
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:45.639
said the doctor, but the wholly
unimportant disagreement about some frontier business in East

430
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:51.400
Africa. There was a slight attack
of nerves in the stock markets. Then

431
00:35:51.480 --> 00:35:55.480
the whole thing seemed an a fair
way to being settled. Then the negotiations

432
00:35:55.480 --> 00:36:00.480
of de Fair began to drag,
and duly there was a flatter of nervousness

433
00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:06.880
in the money world. And then
one morning the papers reported a highly menacing

434
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:10.639
speech by one of the German ministers, and the situation began to look black.

435
00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:15.920
Indeed, he would be disavowed,
everyone said over here. But in

436
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:21.119
less than twenty four hours, those
who knew anything knew that the crisis was

437
00:36:21.199 --> 00:36:27.440
on us. Only that knowledge came
too late. War between two such civilized

438
00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:31.800
and enlightened nations as an impossibility,
one of our leaders of public opinion had

439
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:37.480
declared around the Saturday. On the
following Friday, the war had indeed become

440
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:42.480
an impossibility because he could no longer
carry it on. It burst on us

441
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:46.840
with calculated suddenness, and we were
just not enough everywhere where the pressure came.

442
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:52.400
Our ships were good against their ships. Our seamen were better than their

443
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:55.679
seamen, but our ships were not
able to cope with their ships, plus

444
00:36:55.679 --> 00:37:00.960
their superiority an aircraft. Our trade
men were good against their trained men,

445
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:06.360
but they could not be in several
cases at once, and the enemy could.

446
00:37:07.239 --> 00:37:10.360
Our half trained men and our untrained
men could not master the signs of

447
00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:15.719
war at a moment's notice, and
a moment's notice was all they got.

448
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:20.159
The enemy were a nation apprentice in
arms. We were not even the idle

449
00:37:20.199 --> 00:37:24.440
apprentice. We had not deemed apprenticeship
worth a while. There was courage enough

450
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:29.559
for anning loose in the land,
but it was like unharness electricity. They

451
00:37:29.559 --> 00:37:34.599
controlled no forces. It struck no
blues. There was no time for the

452
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:39.320
heroism and their devotion which had drawn
out struggle however hopeless can produce. The

453
00:37:39.400 --> 00:37:44.920
war was over almost as soon as
it had begun. After the reverses were

454
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.840
hung with lightning rapidity in the first
three days of warfare. The newspapers made

455
00:37:49.840 --> 00:37:54.400
no effort to pretend that the situation
could be retrieved. Editors and public alike

456
00:37:54.559 --> 00:37:59.440
recognized that these were blows over the
heart, and that it was a matter

457
00:37:59.519 --> 00:38:02.559
of moment before we were counted out. One might liken the whole affair to

458
00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:07.719
a snap checkmate early in a game
of chess. One side had thought out

459
00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:12.519
the wooves and brought their requisite pieces
into blay. The other side was hampered

460
00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:16.760
and helpless, but its resources unavailable, It striated to discount it in advance

461
00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:23.039
that in a nut show is the
last three of the war. Yoval was

462
00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:28.599
silent for a moment or two,
and then he asked, and the sequel

463
00:38:29.239 --> 00:38:35.639
the peace. Their collapse was so
complete that I fancy even the enemy were

464
00:38:35.719 --> 00:38:40.159
hardly prepared for the consequences of their
victory. No one had quite realized what

465
00:38:40.440 --> 00:38:45.360
one disastrous campaign would mean for an
either nation with a closely packed population.

466
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:51.679
The conquerors were in a position to
dictate what terms they pleased, and it

467
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:55.840
was not wonderful that their ideas of
a grandisement expanded in the hour of intoxication.

468
00:38:57.880 --> 00:39:01.880
There was no European combination did to
see them nay, and certainly no

469
00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:06.480
one power was going to be rush
enough to step in to contest the terms

470
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:10.679
of the treaty that they imposed on
the conquered. The annexation had probably never

471
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:15.199
been a dream before the war.
After the war, it suddenly became temptingly

472
00:39:15.239 --> 00:39:22.000
practical. Varum Nicht became the theme
of leader writers and the German press.

473
00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:28.400
They pointed out that person defeated and
humiliated but with enormous powers of recuperation would

474
00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:32.079
be a dangerous and inevitable enemy for
the German of tomorrow. But Britain,

475
00:39:32.159 --> 00:39:37.840
incorporated within the Holland zal And Empire, would merely be a disaffected province without

476
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:43.719
a navy to make its disaffection,
a serious menace and a great tax paying

477
00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:49.039
capabilities which would be available for relieving
the burdens of the other imperial states.

478
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:57.000
Wherefore why not annex the varon Nicht
party prevailed Our king as un retired with

479
00:39:57.119 --> 00:40:00.400
his court to Delhi as Emperor in
the East, with most of its overseas

480
00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:07.159
dominions still subject is a sway.
The British childs came under the German crown,

481
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:12.159
as Reich's land was sort of Alsace
Lorraine washed by the North Sea instead

482
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:16.039
of the Rhine. We still retain
or Parliament, but it a clipped and

483
00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:21.519
prune down shadow of its former self, with most of its functions in beans.

484
00:40:22.599 --> 00:40:25.519
When elections were held, it was
difficult to get decent candidates to come

485
00:40:25.559 --> 00:40:30.199
forward or to get people to vote. It makes one smile bitterly to think

486
00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:35.320
that a year or two ago we
were seriously squabbling as to who should have

487
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:39.280
votes. A course, the old
party divisions are more or less crumbled away.

488
00:40:40.039 --> 00:40:45.719
The Liberals naturally under the blackest of
clouds for having steered the country to

489
00:40:45.880 --> 00:40:50.400
disaster, not a dodom justice.
It was no more therefore than the fault

490
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:54.480
of any other party in a democracy. Such as ours. Was the government

491
00:40:54.519 --> 00:41:00.199
of the Damers more or less reflect
the ideas and temperament of the Niche in

492
00:41:00.280 --> 00:41:04.760
all vital matters, and the British
nation in those days could not have been

493
00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:08.760
persuaded of the urgent need for military
apprenticeship, or of the deadly nature of

494
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:15.000
its danger. It was willing now
and the end be half frightened and to

495
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:20.559
have half measures, but one might
better say quarter measures taken to reassure it,

496
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:24.239
and the governments of the day were
willing to take them. But any

497
00:41:24.280 --> 00:41:30.960
political party or group of statesmen that
had said that danger is enormous and immediate,

498
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:35.880
the sacrifices and burdens must be enormous
and immediate. But a met with

499
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:39.599
certain defeated the Poles. Still,
of course, the Liberals, as the

500
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:44.920
party that held office for nearly a
decade, incurred the odium of a people

501
00:41:45.039 --> 00:41:51.000
maddened by defeat and humiliation. One
minister, who had less responsibility for military

502
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.880
organization than perhaps any of them,
was attacked and nearly killed at Newcastle.

503
00:41:55.519 --> 00:42:02.320
Another was hiding for three days on
Exmore and escaped in disc And the Conservatives

504
00:42:04.599 --> 00:42:07.960
they are also under eclipse, but
it's more or less voluntary in their case,

505
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:14.679
but gear narrations they had taken their
standards supporters of throne and constitution,

506
00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:19.679
and when they suddenly found a constitution
gone and the throne filled by an alien

507
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:24.519
dynasty, no political orientation had vanished, and in much the same position as

508
00:42:24.519 --> 00:42:30.599
the Jacobites occupied after the hadoberi ennaxation. Many of the leading Tory families have

509
00:42:30.679 --> 00:42:36.480
emigrated to the British lands beyond the
seas. Others are shut up in their

510
00:42:36.480 --> 00:42:42.599
country houses, retrenching their expenses,
sending their ecres and investing their money abroad.

511
00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:47.039
The lab of Action again are almost
in as bad odor as the Liberals,

512
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:52.920
because of having hobnob too effusively and
ostentatiously. But the German Democratic parties

513
00:42:52.960 --> 00:42:58.760
on the evil of the war,
exploiting an evangel of universal brotherhood which did

514
00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:02.760
not blunt a single Tuton Bennet.
When the hour came, I suppose in

515
00:43:02.960 --> 00:43:08.159
time party division will reascet themselves in
some form or other. There will be

516
00:43:08.239 --> 00:43:15.920
a socialist party in the mercantile and
manufacturing interests will evolve a sort of bourgeoisie

517
00:43:15.039 --> 00:43:22.280
party, and the different religious bodies
will try to get themselves represented. The

518
00:43:22.360 --> 00:43:28.119
Oval made a movement of impatience.
All these things that you forecast, he

519
00:43:28.199 --> 00:43:32.639
said, must take time, considerable
time. Is this nightmare then, to

520
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:38.480
go on for ever? There's not
a nightmare, unfortunately, said the doctor.

521
00:43:39.119 --> 00:43:45.639
It is our reality. But surely
a nation such as ours, a

522
00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:52.119
verrile, highly civilized nation with an
age long tradition of mastery behind it,

523
00:43:52.119 --> 00:43:55.079
cannot be held under for ever by
a few thousand bearded and machine guns.

524
00:43:55.639 --> 00:44:01.000
We must surely rise up one day
and drive them out, dear man,

525
00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:07.039
said the doctor. We might,
of course, at some given moment overpower

526
00:44:07.119 --> 00:44:10.880
the garrison that is maintained here and
seize the forts. Perhaps we might be

527
00:44:10.920 --> 00:44:15.239
able to mind the harbors. But
what then, in a fortnight or so

528
00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:22.960
we could be starved into unconditional submission. Remember our the advantages of isolated position

529
00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:28.440
that told in our favor while we
had the sea dominion tell against us.

530
00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:32.199
Now that the sea dominion is in
other hands, the enemy would not need

531
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:37.480
to mobilize a single army corps or
to bring a single battleship into action.

532
00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:42.840
A fleet of nimble cruisers and destroyers
circling round our coasts would be sufficient to

533
00:44:42.840 --> 00:44:49.000
shut out our food supplies. Are
you trying to tell me that this is

534
00:44:49.039 --> 00:44:53.840
a final overthrow, said Jovil in
a shaking voice. Are we to remain

535
00:44:53.920 --> 00:44:59.639
a subject race like the Poles?
Let us hope for a better fate,

536
00:45:00.519 --> 00:45:05.960
said the doctor. Our opportunity may
come if the master power is ever involved

537
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.559
in an unsuccessful naval war with some
other nation, or perhaps in some time

538
00:45:10.559 --> 00:45:16.159
of European crisis, when everything hung
in the balance. Our latent hostility might

539
00:45:16.239 --> 00:45:22.039
have to be squared by a concession
of independence. That's what we have to

540
00:45:22.119 --> 00:45:27.480
hope for and watch for. Mania
the hand the conquerors have to count on

541
00:45:27.639 --> 00:45:32.440
time and tact to weaken and finally
obliterate the old feelings of nationality. The

542
00:45:32.519 --> 00:45:37.800
middle aged of to day will grow
old and acquiescent in the changed state of

543
00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:44.239
things. The young generations will grow
up never having known anything different. It's

544
00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:49.079
a far cried Delhi, as the
old Indian proverb says, and the strange

545
00:45:49.119 --> 00:45:52.960
half European, half Asiatic caught out
there will see more and more a thing

546
00:45:53.039 --> 00:45:59.760
exotic and unreal. The King across
the water was a rallying cry once upon

547
00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:04.119
a time in our history, when
a king on the farther side of the

548
00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:08.519
Indian ocean is a shadowy competitor for
one who alternates between potsdam and windsor.

549
00:46:12.079 --> 00:46:15.000
I want you to tell me everything, said Yeovil, after another pause.

550
00:46:15.719 --> 00:46:21.360
Tell me, hollm, how far
has this obliterating process of time and tact

551
00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:25.639
gone? Seems to be pretty fairly
started already. I bought a newspaper as

552
00:46:25.679 --> 00:46:29.719
soon as I landed, and I
read it in the train coming up,

553
00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:35.239
and I read things that puzzled and
disgusted me. There were announcements of concerts

554
00:46:35.239 --> 00:46:39.039
and plays, and first nights and
private views. There were even small dances.

555
00:46:39.719 --> 00:46:45.119
There are advertisements of houseboats and weekend
cottages, and string bands for garden

556
00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:50.760
parties. It struck me that it
was rather like merrymaking with a dead body

557
00:46:50.840 --> 00:46:57.159
lying in the house. You will, said the doctor. You must bear

558
00:46:57.199 --> 00:47:01.639
in mind, do things first,
the necessity for the life of the country

559
00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:07.280
going on as if nothing had happened. It's true that many thousands of our

560
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:10.440
working men and women have emigrated,
and thousands of our upper and middle class

561
00:47:10.440 --> 00:47:15.800
too. They were the people who
were not tied down by business or who

562
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:21.039
could afford to cut those ties.
But those represent comparatively a few out of

563
00:47:21.119 --> 00:47:24.199
the many. The great businesses,
and the small businesses must go on.

564
00:47:25.079 --> 00:47:30.599
People must be fed and clothed,
and housed and medically treated, And there

565
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:34.800
a thousand and one wants, a
necessity is supplied. Look at me,

566
00:47:35.039 --> 00:47:39.639
for instance, however much I loathed
coming under a foreign domination and paying taxes

567
00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:45.880
to an Earnian government, I can't
abandon me practice and my patience and set

568
00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:50.599
up a new in Toronto or Allahabaden. If I could, some other doctor

569
00:47:50.679 --> 00:47:54.440
would have to take my place here
high or that other doctor must have our

570
00:47:54.480 --> 00:48:00.440
servants and motors, and food and
furniture, and newspapers. Even our sport.

571
00:48:00.440 --> 00:48:05.199
The golf links and the hunting fields
have been well night deserted since the

572
00:48:05.280 --> 00:48:09.239
war. Will they are beginning to
get back their motors because outdoor sports has

573
00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:15.280
become a necessity, and of very
rational necessity, with numbers of men who

574
00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:21.000
have to work otherwise in unnatural and
exacting conditions. That is one factor of

575
00:48:21.079 --> 00:48:27.599
the situation. The other affects London
more especially, But through London it influences

576
00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:30.360
the rest of the country to a
certain extent. You'll see you around you

577
00:48:30.519 --> 00:48:36.239
here much that will strike you as
indications of halfness, indifference to the calamity

578
00:48:36.280 --> 00:48:39.880
that has befallen our nation. Well, you must remember that many things in

579
00:48:39.960 --> 00:48:45.639
modern life, especially in the big
cities, are not national but international.

580
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:50.599
In the world of music and arts
and drama, for instance, the foreign

581
00:48:50.679 --> 00:48:54.360
names a legion they confront with with
every return. Some of our British defaultees

582
00:48:54.400 --> 00:49:00.000
of such answer are more a clim
atties to the ways of Munich and Mosque

583
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:04.480
than they're familiar with the life,
say of Sterning or York. For years

584
00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:08.320
they have lived and thought and spoken
in an atmosphere and jargon of the nationalized

585
00:49:08.400 --> 00:49:14.159
culture. Even those of them who
never left our shores, they would take

586
00:49:14.239 --> 00:49:19.800
pains to be intimately familiar with the
domestic affairs and views of some Galician gipsy

587
00:49:19.920 --> 00:49:24.480
dramatists, and gravably caught and discuss
his opinions on debts and mistresses and cookery.

588
00:49:24.920 --> 00:49:29.360
But they would shudder at ye kin
John Peel as a piece of uncost

589
00:49:29.440 --> 00:49:35.280
barbarity. You cannot expect a world
of that sort to be permanently concerned or

590
00:49:35.320 --> 00:49:38.639
downcast because the crown of Charlemagne takes
its place now on top of the royal

591
00:49:38.719 --> 00:49:44.719
box in the theaters, or don't
they head of programs at State concerts and

592
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:50.039
Lin't are the Jews. There are
many in land, or at least in

593
00:49:50.119 --> 00:49:53.840
London, said Yobel. There are
even more of them now than there used

594
00:49:53.880 --> 00:50:00.239
to be, said hollm And to
a great extent a disliker of je was

595
00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:04.639
myself. But I'll be fair to
them and admit that those of them who

596
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:07.480
were in any genuine sense British should
remain British. And I stuck by us

597
00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:12.920
loyally in our misfortune, all honor
to them. Were are the others,

598
00:50:13.199 --> 00:50:15.880
the men who, by temperament and
everything else, were farm of Teuton,

599
00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:21.719
or Polish or Latin than they were
British. It was not to be expected

600
00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:24.719
that they would be outbroken, because
London had suddenly lost its place among the

601
00:50:24.800 --> 00:50:30.960
political capitals of the world and become
a cosmopolitan city. They had appreciated the

602
00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:36.199
free and easy liberty of the old
days under British for all, but there

603
00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:39.920
was a stiff insularity in the ruling
race that they chafed against. Now.

604
00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:47.159
Putting aside some petty government restrictions that
Teutonic bureaucracy has brought in, were as

605
00:50:47.280 --> 00:50:53.280
rarely in their eyes, more license
and social adaptability in London than before it

606
00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:57.719
has taken on some of the aspects
of a no man's land, and the

607
00:50:57.840 --> 00:51:01.079
Jew, if he likes nay,
almost consider himself as of the dominant race.

608
00:51:01.719 --> 00:51:08.679
But inu rate is ubiquitous pleasure of
the caffeine capaine boulevard, kind a

609
00:51:08.800 --> 00:51:13.800
sort of thing that gave Berlin the
aspect of the gay's capital in Europe within

610
00:51:13.840 --> 00:51:19.480
the last decade. That is the
insidious leaven that will help to d nationalized

611
00:51:19.599 --> 00:51:24.559
London. Berlin will probably climb back
to some of its old austerity and simplicity,

612
00:51:25.039 --> 00:51:30.000
a world ruling city with the great
sense of its position and its responsibilities,

613
00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:36.440
while London will become more and more
the center of what these people understand

614
00:51:36.519 --> 00:51:44.000
by life. Y Oval made a
movement of impatience and disgust. I know,

615
00:51:44.280 --> 00:51:49.920
I know, said the doctor sympathetically. Life and enjoyment mean to una

616
00:51:50.159 --> 00:51:52.679
howl of the wolf in a forest, the call of a wild swan on

617
00:51:52.760 --> 00:51:58.599
the frozen Tumberus, the smell of
a wood fire in some little inn among

618
00:51:58.639 --> 00:52:02.360
the mountains. There's more music to
you in the quick thud thud of hoofs

619
00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:06.960
on deser mud, as a free
stepping horses laid up toar a tent door,

620
00:52:07.039 --> 00:52:09.840
and in all the dronings and flourishing
that highly paide orchestra can relout to

621
00:52:09.880 --> 00:52:15.920
an expensively fed audience. But the
tastes of modern London, as we see

622
00:52:15.960 --> 00:52:20.679
them, crystallize around us li in
a very different direction. People of the

623
00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:23.960
world that I am speaking of,
our dominant world at the present moment,

624
00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:30.559
heard together as close effect to the
square yard as possible, doing nothing worth

625
00:52:30.639 --> 00:52:34.880
doing, and saying nothing worth saying, but doing and saying it over over

626
00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.719
again, listening to the same melodies, watching the same artists, echoing the

627
00:52:38.800 --> 00:52:45.559
same catchwords, hardering the same dishes, in the same restaurants, suffering each

628
00:52:45.559 --> 00:52:52.039
other's cigarette smoke and perfumes, and
conversation feverishly, anxiously, making arrangements to

629
00:52:52.079 --> 00:52:55.079
meet each other again to morrow,
next week, and the week after next,

630
00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:00.800
and repeat the same gregarious experience.
If they would have not heard it

631
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:06.119
together in a corner of western London, watching each other with restless intelligent eyes,

632
00:53:06.760 --> 00:53:09.199
they'd be heard it together at Brighton
or deep doing the same thing.

633
00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:15.639
Well, you will find that life
of that sort goes forward just as usual,

634
00:53:15.079 --> 00:53:20.800
only it's even more prominent and noticeable
now because there's less public life of

635
00:53:20.880 --> 00:53:25.920
other kinds. Yovil said something which
was possibly the burry At word for the

636
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:30.920
near the world outside. In the
neighboring square, a band had been playing

637
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:36.760
at intervals during the evening. Now
it struck up an air that Yovil had

638
00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:42.480
already heard whistle several times since his
landing, an air with a captivating suggestion

639
00:53:42.519 --> 00:53:47.400
of slyness and furtive joyousness running through
it. He rose and walked across the

640
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:52.840
window, opening it a little wider. He listened till the last notes had

641
00:53:52.880 --> 00:54:00.199
died away. What is that you
they've just paid, he asked. You're

642
00:54:00.239 --> 00:54:05.280
here at Darfen enough, said the
doctor. A Frenchman writing in matt Earlia

643
00:54:05.400 --> 00:54:12.159
the day called it the national anthem
of the Feta Comfy. End of chapter

644
00:54:12.280 --> 00:54:28.039
three, Chapter four of When William
Came By Saki. This is a LibriVox

645
00:54:28.119 --> 00:54:34.280
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For further information or

646
00:54:34.320 --> 00:54:40.159
to volunteer, please go to LibriVox
dot org. Reading by and Iminta,

647
00:54:42.559 --> 00:54:52.239
When William Came By Saki, Chapter
four esist verboten. Yeoville wakened next morning

648
00:54:52.519 --> 00:54:58.400
to the pleasant sensation of being in
a household very elaborate machinery for the smooth

649
00:54:58.400 --> 00:55:04.719
achievements of one's daily life was noiselessly
and unceasingly at work. Fever and the

650
00:55:04.800 --> 00:55:09.800
long weariness of convalescence in indifferently comfortable
surroundings had given luxury a new value in

651
00:55:09.880 --> 00:55:15.800
his eyes. Money had not always
been plentiful with him in his younger days.

652
00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:20.639
In his twenty eighth year, he
had inherited a fairly substantial fortune,

653
00:55:21.159 --> 00:55:25.519
and he had married a wealthy woman
a few months later. It was characteristic

654
00:55:25.559 --> 00:55:30.159
of the man and his breed that
the chief use to which he put his

655
00:55:30.239 --> 00:55:35.280
newly acquired wealth had been in seizing
the opportunity which it gave him for indulging

656
00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:38.719
in unlimited travel in wild, out
of the way regions where the comforts of

657
00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:45.760
life were meagerly represented. Cicily occasionally
accompanied him to the threshold of his expeditions,

658
00:55:45.800 --> 00:55:51.800
such as Cairo or Saint Petersburg or
Constantinople, but her own tastes in

659
00:55:51.840 --> 00:55:55.079
the matter of roving were more or
less condensed. Within an area that comprised

660
00:55:55.119 --> 00:56:01.400
Cannes, Homburg, the Scottish Highlands
and the Norwegian boards. Things outlandish and

661
00:56:01.519 --> 00:56:07.679
barbaric appeal to her, chiefly when
presented under artistic but highly civilized stage management

662
00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:12.599
on the boards of Covent Garden,
And if she wanted to look at wolves

663
00:56:12.719 --> 00:56:16.239
or sandgrouse, she preferred doing so
in the company of an intelligent fellow of

664
00:56:16.280 --> 00:56:22.239
the Zoological Society on some fine Sunday
afternoon in Regent's Park. It was one

665
00:56:22.280 --> 00:56:27.840
of the bonds of union and good
fellowship between her husband and herself that each

666
00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:31.320
understood and sympathized with the other's tastes, without in the least wanting to share

667
00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:36.960
them. They went their own ways
and were pleased and comrade like when the

668
00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.679
ways happened to run together for a
span, without self reproach or heart searching

669
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:46.320
when the ways diverged. Moreover,
they had separate and adequate banking accounts,

670
00:56:46.559 --> 00:56:51.840
which constitute, if not the keys
of the matrimonial heaven, at least the

671
00:56:51.880 --> 00:56:57.960
oil that lubricates them. Jovil found
Cicily and breakfast waiting for him in the

672
00:56:57.960 --> 00:57:02.519
cool breakfast room, and enjoyoid with
the appreciation of a recent invalid the comfort

673
00:57:02.559 --> 00:57:07.119
and resources of a meal that had
not to be ordered or thought about in

674
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:10.599
advance, but seemed as though it
were there fore ordained from the beginning of

675
00:57:10.679 --> 00:57:16.119
time. In its smallest detail,
each desire of the breakfasting mind seemed to

676
00:57:16.159 --> 00:57:22.719
have its realization in some dish,
lurking unobtrusively in hidden corners until asked for.

677
00:57:22.679 --> 00:57:28.400
Did one want grilled mushrooms English fashion? They were there, black and

678
00:57:28.519 --> 00:57:35.000
moist and sizzling and extremely edible.
Did one design mushrooms alarous? They appeared

679
00:57:35.239 --> 00:57:39.880
blanched and cool and toothsome under their
white blanketing of sauce. At one's bidding

680
00:57:39.960 --> 00:57:45.000
was a service of coffee, prepared
with rather more foresight and circumspection than would

681
00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:51.840
go to the preparation of a revolution
in a South American republic. The exotic

682
00:57:51.880 --> 00:57:55.960
blooms that reigned in profusion over the
other parts of the house more scrupulously banished

683
00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:00.440
from the breakfast room, bowls of
wild thyme and other flowering weeds of the

684
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:06.039
meadow and hedgerow gave it an atmosphere
of country freshness that was in keeping with

685
00:58:06.119 --> 00:58:12.199
the morning meal. You look dreadfully
tired, still, said Cecily critically.

686
00:58:12.519 --> 00:58:15.280
Otherwise I would recommend a ride in
the park before he gets too hot.

687
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:21.000
There's a new cob in the stable
that you'll just love. But he's rather

688
00:58:21.079 --> 00:58:24.480
lively, and you'd better content yourself
for the present with some more sedate exercise

689
00:58:24.480 --> 00:58:28.360
than he's likely to give you.
He's apt to try and jump out of

690
00:58:28.400 --> 00:58:31.280
his skin when the flies tease him. The park's rather jolly for a walk

691
00:58:31.360 --> 00:58:37.639
just now, I think that will
be about my form after my long journey,

692
00:58:37.239 --> 00:58:43.480
said Jovil, and ours strove before
lunch under the trees, Na or

693
00:58:43.559 --> 00:58:47.039
not fatigue me unduly. In the
afternoon, I'll look at one or two

694
00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:52.679
people. Don't count on finding too
many of your old set, said Cecily,

695
00:58:52.800 --> 00:58:57.679
rather hurriedly. I dare say some
of them will find their way back

696
00:58:57.760 --> 00:59:04.800
sometime, But at present there's been
rather an exodus the breeds, said Yeovil,

697
00:59:05.119 --> 00:59:08.800
Are they here? No? The
breeds are in Scotland at their place

698
00:59:08.800 --> 00:59:15.079
in Sutherlandshire. They don't come south
now. And the Ricards are farming somewhere

699
00:59:15.079 --> 00:59:19.960
in East Africa, the whole lot
of them. Valor has got an appointment

700
00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:22.639
of some sort in the Straits settlement
and has taken his family with him.

701
00:59:23.199 --> 00:59:28.679
The Collards are down at their mother's
place in Norfolk. A German banker has

702
00:59:28.679 --> 00:59:35.880
bought their house in Manchester Square,
and hebways, asked Yovil. Dick headways

703
00:59:35.920 --> 00:59:39.440
in India, said Cecily, But
his mother lives in Paris. Poor Hugo,

704
00:59:39.519 --> 00:59:44.400
you know, was killed in the
war. My friends, the Allenson's

705
00:59:44.480 --> 00:59:49.119
are in Paris too. It's rather
clearance, isn't it. However, there

706
00:59:49.159 --> 00:59:53.199
are some left, and I expect
others will come back in time. Pitherby's

707
00:59:53.280 --> 00:59:57.039
here. He's one of those who
are trying to make the best of things

708
00:59:57.079 --> 01:00:04.440
under the new regime, would be, said Yeovil shortly. It's a difficult

709
01:00:04.519 --> 01:00:07.840
question, said Cecily, whether one
should stay at home and face the music

710
01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:14.400
or go away and live a transplanted
life under the British flag. Either attitude

711
01:00:14.480 --> 01:00:20.599
might be dictated by patriotism. It's
one thing to face the music, it's

712
01:00:20.639 --> 01:00:25.760
another that dance to it, said
Yovil. Cecily poured out some more coffee

713
01:00:25.760 --> 01:00:31.280
for herself and change the conversation.
You'll be into lunch. I suppose the

714
01:00:31.400 --> 01:00:36.039
clubs are not very attractive just now, I believe, and the restaurants are

715
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:39.519
mostly hot. In the middle of
the day. Ronnie's store is coming in.

716
01:00:39.960 --> 01:00:44.960
He's here pretty often these days.
A rather good looking young animal and

717
01:00:45.039 --> 01:00:50.960
with something midway between talent and genius
in the piano playing line, not long

718
01:00:51.039 --> 01:00:53.840
haired and semitic, or check or
anything of that sort, I suppose,

719
01:00:54.599 --> 01:01:00.199
asked Yovil. Cecily laughed at the
vision of Ronnie conjured up her husband's words.

720
01:01:01.079 --> 01:01:06.679
No, beautifully groomed and clipped and
Anglo saxon. I expect you'll like

721
01:01:06.920 --> 01:01:09.599
him. He plays bridge almost as
well as he plays the piano. I

722
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:14.480
suppose you wonder at anyone who can
play bridge well wanting to play the piano.

723
01:01:15.760 --> 01:01:21.000
I'm not quite so intolerant as all
that, said, Yeovil. Anyhow,

724
01:01:21.039 --> 01:01:25.199
I promised to like Ronnie. Is
anyone else coming to lunch? Joan

725
01:01:25.400 --> 01:01:30.599
Mardle will probably drop in. In
fact, I'm afraid she's a certainty.

726
01:01:30.079 --> 01:01:35.519
She invited herself in that way of
hers that brooks of no refusal. On

727
01:01:35.559 --> 01:01:38.960
the other hand, as a mitigating
circumstance, there will be a pont d'asperge

728
01:01:39.079 --> 01:01:45.840
omelet such as few kitchens could turn
out. So don't be late. Yeovil

729
01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:51.039
set out for his morning walk with
the curious sensation of one who starts on

730
01:01:51.079 --> 01:01:54.760
a voyage of discovery in a land
that is well known to him. He

731
01:01:54.880 --> 01:02:00.000
turned into the park at Hyde Park
Corner and made his way along the familiar

732
01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:05.039
paths and alleys that bordered the row. The familiarity vanished when he left the

733
01:02:05.079 --> 01:02:08.719
region of fenced in lawns and rhododendron
bushes and came to the open space that

734
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:15.159
stretched away beyond the bandstand. The
bandstand was still there, and a military

735
01:02:15.159 --> 01:02:20.480
band in sky blue Saxon uniform was
executing the first item in the forenoon program

736
01:02:20.480 --> 01:02:24.000
of music. Around it, instead
of the serried rows of green chairs that

737
01:02:24.079 --> 01:02:29.559
Yo who remembered, was spread out
an acre or so of small round tables,

738
01:02:29.960 --> 01:02:34.079
most of which had their quota of
customers engaged in a steady consumption of

739
01:02:34.400 --> 01:02:38.280
larger beer, coffee, lemonade,
and syrups. Further in the background,

740
01:02:38.360 --> 01:02:44.079
but well within ear shot of the
band, a gaily painted pagoda restaurant sheltered

741
01:02:44.119 --> 01:02:47.679
a number of more commodious tables under
its awnings and gave a hint of convenient

742
01:02:47.760 --> 01:02:53.719
indoor accommodation for wet or windy weather. Movable screens of trellis, trained foliage

743
01:02:53.719 --> 01:02:59.519
and climbing roses formed little hedges by
means of which any particular table could be

744
01:02:59.559 --> 01:03:04.079
shut off from its neighbors, if
semi privacy were desired. One or two

745
01:03:04.119 --> 01:03:09.280
decorative advertisements of popularized brands of champagne
and rhine wines adorned the outside walls of

746
01:03:09.320 --> 01:03:14.920
the building, and under the central
gable of its upper story was a flamboyant

747
01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:20.440
portrait of a stern faced man whose
image and superscription might also be found on

748
01:03:20.440 --> 01:03:24.400
the newer coinage of the land.
A mass of bunting hung in folds round

749
01:03:24.440 --> 01:03:29.199
the flagpole on the gable, and
blew out now and then on the favoring

750
01:03:29.239 --> 01:03:35.039
breeze a long three colored strip black, white and scarlet. And over the

751
01:03:35.079 --> 01:03:39.719
whole scene the elm trees towered with
an absurd sardonic air of nothing having changed

752
01:03:39.760 --> 01:03:45.079
around their roots. The oval stood
for a minute or two, taking in

753
01:03:45.159 --> 01:03:52.519
every detail of the unfamiliar spectacle.
They have certainly accomplished something that we never

754
01:03:52.599 --> 01:03:57.719
attempted, he muttered to himself.
Then he turned on his heel and made

755
01:03:57.800 --> 01:04:01.440
his way to the shady walk that
ran alongside the row. At first sight,

756
01:04:01.639 --> 01:04:06.159
little was changed in the aspect of
the well known exercising ground. One

757
01:04:06.239 --> 01:04:10.840
or two riding masters cantered up and
down, as of yore, with their

758
01:04:10.880 --> 01:04:16.599
attendant broods of anxious faced young girls
and awkwardly bumping women pupils, while horsey

759
01:04:16.599 --> 01:04:21.519
looking men put marketable animals through their
paces or drew up to the rails for

760
01:04:21.599 --> 01:04:28.880
long conversations with horsey looking friends on
foot. Sportingly attired young women sitting astride

761
01:04:28.880 --> 01:04:32.639
of their horses careered by at intervals, as though an extremely game fox were

762
01:04:32.719 --> 01:04:38.480
leading hounds a merry chase a short
way ahead of them. It all seemed

763
01:04:38.559 --> 01:04:43.559
much as usual. Presently, from
the middle distance, a bright patch of

764
01:04:43.599 --> 01:04:47.280
color set in a whirl of dust, drew rapidly nearer and resolved itself into

765
01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:51.920
a group of cavalry officers, extending
their charges in a smart gallop. They

766
01:04:51.960 --> 01:04:57.000
were well mounted and sat their horses
to perfection, and they made a brave

767
01:04:57.079 --> 01:05:00.760
show as they raced past Jovil with
a clink and clatter and rhythmic thud of

768
01:05:00.840 --> 01:05:05.039
hoofs, and became once more a
patch of color in a whirl of dust.

769
01:05:05.599 --> 01:05:10.360
An answering glow of color seemed to
have burnt itself into the gray face

770
01:05:10.440 --> 01:05:15.079
of the young man who had seen
them pass without appearing to look at them.

771
01:05:15.159 --> 01:05:17.960
The stinging rush of blood accompanied by
a choking catch in the throat,

772
01:05:18.239 --> 01:05:23.639
and a hot, white blindness across
the eyes. The weakness of fever broke

773
01:05:23.760 --> 01:05:28.519
down at times the rampart of outward
indifference that a man of Yoville's temperament builds

774
01:05:28.599 --> 01:05:33.920
coldly round his heart strings. The
row and its riders had become suddenly detestable

775
01:05:33.960 --> 01:05:39.239
to the wanderer. He would not
run the risk of seeing that insolently joyous

776
01:05:39.239 --> 01:05:45.000
cavalcade come galloping past again. Beyond
a narrow stretch of tree shaded grass lay

777
01:05:45.039 --> 01:05:48.280
the placid, sunlit water of the
Serpentine, and Jovill made a short cut

778
01:05:48.320 --> 01:05:54.559
across the turf to reach its graveled
bank. Cornch WHU read either English or

779
01:05:54.679 --> 01:05:58.800
German, asked a policeman who confronted
him as he stepped off the turf.

780
01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:02.320
Yovil stared at the man, and
then turned to look at a small,

781
01:06:02.440 --> 01:06:08.639
neatly printed notice to which the official
was imperiously pointing. In two languages.

782
01:06:09.000 --> 01:06:15.800
He was made known that it was
forbidden and verboten, punishable and strarafbar to

783
01:06:15.880 --> 01:06:21.079
walk on the grass three shilling fine, said the policeman, extending his hand

784
01:06:21.119 --> 01:06:27.239
for the money. Do I pay
you? Asked Jovil, feeling almost inclined

785
01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:31.519
to laugh. I'm rather a stranger
to the new order of things. You

786
01:06:31.679 --> 01:06:36.360
pay me, said the policeman,
and you receive acquittance for the sum paid.

787
01:06:36.719 --> 01:06:41.840
And he proceeded to tear a counterfoil
receipt for a three shilling fine from

788
01:06:41.840 --> 01:06:46.800
a small pocket book. May I
ask, said Yovil, as he handed

789
01:06:46.840 --> 01:06:51.679
over the sun demanded and received his
acquittance. What the red and white band

790
01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:57.639
on your sleeve stands for bilingual?
Said the constable, with an air of

791
01:06:57.679 --> 01:07:01.519
importance. Preference is given to members
of the force who qualify both languages.

792
01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:08.360
Nearly all the police engaged on park
duty here bilingual. About as many foreigners

793
01:07:08.400 --> 01:07:13.400
as English used the parks nowadays.
In fact, on a fine Sunday afternoon,

794
01:07:13.559 --> 01:07:16.960
you will find three foreigners to every
two English. The park's habit is

795
01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:23.400
more continental than British. I take
it. And are there many Germans in

796
01:07:23.480 --> 01:07:28.400
the police force, asked Yuval.
Well, yes, a good few there

797
01:07:28.519 --> 01:07:32.280
had to be, said the constable. There were such a lot of resignations

798
01:07:32.280 --> 01:07:36.400
when the change came, and they
had to be filled up somehow. Lots

799
01:07:36.400 --> 01:07:40.880
of men what used to be in
the force immigrated or found work of some

800
01:07:41.039 --> 01:07:45.599
other kind. But everybody couldn't take
that line. Wives and children had to

801
01:07:45.639 --> 01:07:48.360
be thought of. Tis every head
of a family that can chuck up a

802
01:07:48.480 --> 01:07:54.360
job on the chance of finding another
Starvation's been a lot of a good many

803
01:07:54.400 --> 01:07:58.719
that what went out. Those of
us that stayed on got better pay,

804
01:07:58.760 --> 01:08:01.199
and we did before. But then, of course the duties are much more

805
01:08:01.320 --> 01:08:08.719
multitudinous they must be, said Yovil, fingering his three filling state document.

806
01:08:09.400 --> 01:08:14.000
Hi the way, he asked,
are all the green plots in park out

807
01:08:14.039 --> 01:08:17.680
of bounds for human feet? Every
whay where you see the notices, said

808
01:08:17.680 --> 01:08:21.960
the policeman, And that's about three
quarters of the whole grass space. There's

809
01:08:21.960 --> 01:08:27.319
been a lot of new gravel walks
opened up in all directions. People don't

810
01:08:27.359 --> 01:08:30.439
want to walk on the grass when
they've got clean paths to walk on.

811
01:08:30.880 --> 01:08:36.399
And with this parting reproof, the
bilingual constable strode heavily away his loss of

812
01:08:36.399 --> 01:08:43.199
consideration and self esteem as a unito
a sometime ruling race, evidently compensated for

813
01:08:43.399 --> 01:08:48.439
to some extent by his enhanced importance
as an official. Are women and children,

814
01:08:48.920 --> 01:08:54.960
thought Yovil as he looked after the
retreating figure. Yes, that's one

815
01:08:54.960 --> 01:08:59.239
side of the problem, the children
that have to be fed and schooled,

816
01:09:00.159 --> 01:09:02.520
the women folk that have to be
cared for, an old mother, perhaps

817
01:09:02.560 --> 01:09:08.159
in the home that cannot be broken
up, the old case of giving hostages.

818
01:09:10.279 --> 01:09:14.680
He followed the path alongside the Serpentine, passing under the archway of the

819
01:09:14.720 --> 01:09:18.840
bridge, and continuing his walk into
Kensington Gardens. In another moment, he

820
01:09:18.960 --> 01:09:24.159
was within view of the Peter Pan's
statue and at once observed that it had

821
01:09:24.159 --> 01:09:28.560
companions. On one side was a
group representing a scene from one of the

822
01:09:28.560 --> 01:09:32.640
Grim Fairy stories. On the other
was Alice in conversation with Griffin and mock

823
01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:39.960
Turtle, the episode looking distressingly stiff
and meaningless in its sculptured form. Two

824
01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.680
other spaces had been cleared in the
neighboring turf, evidently for the reception of

825
01:09:44.720 --> 01:09:49.880
further statue groups, which Yeoville mentally
assigned to Strowel Peter and Little Lord Fauntleroy

826
01:09:51.720 --> 01:09:58.920
German middle class taste, he commented, but in this matter he certainly gave

827
01:09:59.000 --> 01:10:02.600
them a lead. I suppose the
idea is that childish fancy is dead,

828
01:10:03.279 --> 01:10:09.520
and it is only decent to erect
some sort of memorial to it. The

829
01:10:09.640 --> 01:10:13.920
day was growing hotter, and the
park had ceased to seem a desirable place

830
01:10:13.960 --> 01:10:17.680
to loiter in. Jovial turned his
steps homeward, passing on his way the

831
01:10:17.760 --> 01:10:23.680
van stand with its surrounding acreage of
tables. It was now nearly one o'clock

832
01:10:23.840 --> 01:10:29.159
and luncheon parties were beginning to assemble
under the awnings of the restaurant. Lighter

833
01:10:29.199 --> 01:10:33.479
refreshments in the shape of sausages and
potato salads were being carried out by scurrying

834
01:10:33.520 --> 01:10:39.239
waiters to the drinkers of larger beer
at small tables. A park orchestra in

835
01:10:39.359 --> 01:10:44.720
brilliant trappings had taken the place of
the military band. As Yeovial passed,

836
01:10:44.920 --> 01:10:48.560
the musicians launched out into the tune
which the doctor had truly predicted he would

837
01:10:48.640 --> 01:10:54.479
hear to repletion before he had been
many days in London, the national anthem

838
01:10:54.520 --> 01:11:12.840
of the Fitter compli end of chapter
four, Chapter five of When William Came

839
01:11:13.399 --> 01:11:18.800
By Sarkie. This is a LibriVox
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the

840
01:11:18.840 --> 01:11:26.920
public domain. For further information or
to volunteer, please go to LibriVox dot

841
01:11:27.039 --> 01:11:35.239
org. Reading by and Imenta,
When William Came By Sarkie, Chapter five,

842
01:11:36.199 --> 01:11:43.520
La detre Cuisine. Joan Mardle had
reached forty in the leisurely, untroubled

843
01:11:43.560 --> 01:11:46.319
fashion of a woman who intends to
be comely and attractive. At fifty,

844
01:11:46.760 --> 01:11:51.079
she cultivated a jovial, almost joyous
manner, with the top dressing of hearty

845
01:11:51.119 --> 01:11:57.680
goodwill and good nature, which disarmed
strangers and recent acquaintances. On getting to

846
01:11:57.760 --> 01:12:02.159
know her better, they hastily rearmed
themselves. Someone had once aptly described her

847
01:12:02.199 --> 01:12:06.439
as a hedgehog with the protective mimicry
of a puff ball. If there was

848
01:12:06.479 --> 01:12:12.920
an awkward remark to be made at
an inconvenient moment before undesired listeners, Joan

849
01:12:13.000 --> 01:12:16.279
invariably made it, and when the
occasion did not present itself, she was

850
01:12:16.359 --> 01:12:21.119
usually capable of creating it. She
was not without a certain popularity, the

851
01:12:21.199 --> 01:12:27.640
sort of popularity that a dashing highwaymen
sometimes achieved among those who were not in

852
01:12:27.680 --> 01:12:31.840
the habit of traveling on his particular
highway. A great aunt on her mother's

853
01:12:31.840 --> 01:12:38.119
side of the family had married so
often that Joan imagined herself justified in claiming

854
01:12:38.119 --> 01:12:43.439
cousinship with a large circle of disconnected
houses and treating them all on a relationship

855
01:12:43.479 --> 01:12:48.960
footing which theoretical kinship enabled her to
extract luncheons and other accommodations under the plea

856
01:12:49.000 --> 01:12:55.279
of keeping the lamp of family life
aglow, I felt I simply had to

857
01:12:55.319 --> 01:12:59.079
come to day, She chuckled at
Yeovil. I was just dying to see

858
01:12:59.079 --> 01:13:02.279
the return. Of course, I
know perfectly well that neither of you want

859
01:13:02.359 --> 01:13:05.600
me when you haven't seen each other
for so long, and must have heaps

860
01:13:05.600 --> 01:13:10.399
and heaps to say to one another. But I thought I would risk the

861
01:13:10.399 --> 01:13:14.119
odio of being the third person on
an occasion when two a company and three

862
01:13:14.199 --> 01:13:17.119
are a nuisance. Wasn't it brave
of me? She spoke, in the

863
01:13:17.159 --> 01:13:20.760
full knowledge of the fact that the
luncheon party would not in any case have

864
01:13:20.840 --> 01:13:26.119
been restricted to Yeovil and his wife, Having seen Ronnie arrive in the hall

865
01:13:26.199 --> 01:13:30.920
as she was being shown upstairs.
Ronnie's store is coming, I believe,

866
01:13:30.119 --> 01:13:34.600
said Cecily. So you're not breaking
into a tete a tete Ronnie. I

867
01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:40.600
don't count him, said Joan Gaily. He's just a boy who looks nice

868
01:13:40.600 --> 01:13:45.560
and meets asparagus. I hear he's
getting to play the piamo rarely well such

869
01:13:45.600 --> 01:13:48.520
a pity, he will grow fat. Musicians always do, and it will

870
01:13:48.600 --> 01:13:56.079
ruin him. I speak feelingly because
I'm gravitating towards plantnus myself. The divine

871
01:13:56.199 --> 01:14:00.920
architect turns us out fearfully and wonderfully
built, and there is as charming to

872
01:14:00.960 --> 01:14:03.840
the eye. And then he adds
another chin and two or three extra inches

873
01:14:03.920 --> 01:14:09.039
round the waist, and the effect
is ruined. Fortunately, you can always

874
01:14:09.079 --> 01:14:13.640
find another Ronnie when this one grows
fat and uninteresting. The supply of boys

875
01:14:13.680 --> 01:14:17.800
who look nice and eat asparagus is
unlimited. Hell alone, mister store.

876
01:14:17.920 --> 01:14:24.640
We were all talking about you.
Nothing very damaging, I hope, said

877
01:14:24.760 --> 01:14:29.680
Ronnie, who had just entered the
room. No, we were merely deciding

878
01:14:29.720 --> 01:14:32.680
that, whatever you may do with
your life, your chin must remain single.

879
01:14:33.199 --> 01:14:38.159
When one's chin begins to lead a
double life, one's own opportunities for

880
01:14:38.239 --> 01:14:44.000
depravity are insensibly narrowed. You needn't
tell me that you haven't any hankerings afterpravity.

881
01:14:44.359 --> 01:14:48.399
People with your colored eyes and hair
are always depraved. Let me introduce

882
01:14:48.399 --> 01:14:51.720
you to my husband, Ronnie,
said Cecily, and then let's go and

883
01:14:51.760 --> 01:14:57.159
begin lunch. You two must almost
feel as if you were honeymooning again,

884
01:14:57.640 --> 01:15:01.039
said Joan as they sat down.
You must have quite forgotten each other's tastes

885
01:15:01.079 --> 01:15:06.520
and peculiarities since you last met.
Old Emily Fromley was talking about you yesterday

886
01:15:06.560 --> 01:15:12.359
when I mentioned that Mary was expected
home. Curious sort of marriage tie,

887
01:15:12.640 --> 01:15:16.039
she said, in that stupid staring
way of hers. When husband and wife

888
01:15:16.079 --> 01:15:19.920
spend most of their time in different
consonans, I don't call it marriage at

889
01:15:19.960 --> 01:15:24.640
all, nonsense, I said,
it's the best way of doing things.

890
01:15:24.920 --> 01:15:29.439
The ovals will be a united and
devoted couple long after heaps of their married

891
01:15:29.439 --> 01:15:33.039
contemporaries have trundled through the divorce court. I forgot at the moment that her

892
01:15:33.079 --> 01:15:38.279
youngest girl had divorced her husband last
year, and that her second girl is

893
01:15:38.319 --> 01:15:43.760
rumored to be contemplating a similar step. One can't remember everything. Joan Mardle

894
01:15:43.920 --> 01:15:47.319
was remarkable for being able to remember
the smallest details in the family lives of

895
01:15:47.359 --> 01:15:53.680
two or three hundred acquaintances. From
personal matters, she went with a bound

896
01:15:53.720 --> 01:15:58.039
to the political or small talk of
the moment. The official declaration as to

897
01:15:58.039 --> 01:16:00.479
the House of Lords is out at
last, she said, I bought a

898
01:16:00.520 --> 01:16:03.960
paper just before coming here, but
I left it in the tube. All

899
01:16:04.119 --> 01:16:10.439
existing titles at elapse if three successive
holders, including the present ones, failed

900
01:16:10.439 --> 01:16:15.760
to take the oath of allegiance.
Have any taken it up to the present,

901
01:16:15.239 --> 01:16:19.920
asked Yobil. Only about nineteen so
far, and none of them representing

902
01:16:20.039 --> 01:16:25.319
very leading families. Of course,
others will come in gradually as the change

903
01:16:25.359 --> 01:16:29.079
of dynasty becomes more and more an
accepted fact. And of course there will

904
01:16:29.119 --> 01:16:32.239
be lots of new creations to fill
up the gaps. I here for certain

905
01:16:32.279 --> 01:16:36.520
that Fitherby is to get a title
of some sort in recognition of his literary

906
01:16:36.600 --> 01:16:42.079
labors. He has written a short
history of the House of Hohensalend for use

907
01:16:42.119 --> 01:16:45.520
in schools, you know, and
he is bringing out a popular life of

908
01:16:45.560 --> 01:16:49.960
Frederick the Great, at least he
hopes it will be popular. I didn't

909
01:16:50.000 --> 01:16:56.159
know that writing was much in his
nine, said Yobil me on the occasional

910
01:16:56.319 --> 01:17:00.960
editing of a company prospectus. I
understand, and that his historical researches are

911
01:17:01.000 --> 01:17:08.239
given every satisfaction in exalted Quarters,
said Joan. Something may be lacking in

912
01:17:08.279 --> 01:17:12.600
the style, perhaps, but the
August approval can make good that defect.

913
01:17:12.600 --> 01:17:16.279
With the style of Baron Fitherby has
such a kind heart and kind hearts and

914
01:17:16.439 --> 01:17:21.399
more than coronets we'll know. But
the two go quite well together. And

915
01:17:21.479 --> 01:17:27.399
the dear man is not content with
his services to literature. He's blossoming forth

916
01:17:27.439 --> 01:17:30.560
as a liberal patron of the arts. He's taken quite a lot of tickets

917
01:17:30.560 --> 01:17:35.760
for dear Gauler's debut. Half the
second row the chest circle. Do you

918
01:17:35.840 --> 01:17:41.880
mean garlum musselford, asked Yobil,
catching at the name. What on earth

919
01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:46.520
is she having a debut about?
What? Cried Joan in loud voiced amazement,

920
01:17:46.720 --> 01:17:50.600
haven't you heard? Hasn't Cicily told
you? How funny that you shouldn't

921
01:17:50.640 --> 01:17:54.640
have heard? Why it's going to
be one of the events of the season.

922
01:17:55.000 --> 01:17:59.920
Everybody's talking about it. She's going
to do suggestion dancing at the caravans

923
01:18:00.079 --> 01:18:04.960
or a theater. Lord heavens,
what is suggestion dancing, asked Yobil.

924
01:18:05.760 --> 01:18:10.880
Oh, something quite new, explained
Joan. At any rate, the name

925
01:18:11.000 --> 01:18:14.800
is quite new, and Gaula is
new as far as the public had concerned.

926
01:18:14.840 --> 01:18:18.239
And that's enough to establish the novelty
of the thing. Amongst other things,

927
01:18:18.279 --> 01:18:21.880
she does a dance suggesting the life
of a fern, I saw one

928
01:18:21.880 --> 01:18:26.760
of the rehearsals, and to me
it would equally well have suggested the life

929
01:18:26.760 --> 01:18:30.239
of John Wesley. However, it
is probably the fault of my imagination.

930
01:18:30.479 --> 01:18:34.840
I've either got too much or too
little. Anyhow, it's ununderstood thing that

931
01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:41.479
she's to take Landon by storm.
When I last saw Gaula muscle Vord,

932
01:18:41.880 --> 01:18:46.039
observed Yeovil, she was rather serious
flapper who thought the world was in urgent

933
01:18:46.159 --> 01:18:51.199
need of regeneration, and was not
certain whether she would regenerate it or take

934
01:18:51.279 --> 01:18:57.680
up miniature painting. I forget which
she attempted. Ultimately, she is quite

935
01:18:57.680 --> 01:19:01.039
serious about her art, put in
itsily. She has studied a good deal

936
01:19:01.079 --> 01:19:05.600
abroad and worked hard at mastering the
technique of her profession. She's not at

937
01:19:05.640 --> 01:19:11.279
mere Amata with the hankering after the
footlights. I fancy she will do well.

938
01:19:12.520 --> 01:19:16.600
But what do her people say about
it, asked Yovil, who they're

939
01:19:16.680 --> 01:19:21.880
simply furious about it, answered Joan. The idea of a daughter of the

940
01:19:21.920 --> 01:19:28.199
House of Muscleford prancing and twisting about
the stage for Prussian officers and Hamburg Jews,

941
01:19:28.239 --> 01:19:32.119
to Gazette, is a dreadful cup
of humiliation for them. It's unfortunate,

942
01:19:32.159 --> 01:19:35.560
of course that they should feel so
cutely about it, but still one

943
01:19:35.560 --> 01:19:41.039
can understand their point of view.
I don't see what other point of view

944
01:19:41.039 --> 01:19:46.039
they could possibly take, said Yobil
sharply. If Galla thinks that the necessities

945
01:19:46.079 --> 01:19:50.960
of art or her own inclinations demand
that she should dance in public, why

946
01:19:50.960 --> 01:19:55.800
can't she do it in Paris or
even Vienna. Anywhere would be better,

947
01:19:55.840 --> 01:20:00.840
one would think, than in London
under the present conditions. He had given

948
01:20:00.920 --> 01:20:04.039
Joan the indication that she was looking
for as to his attitude towards the fate

949
01:20:04.079 --> 01:20:09.840
of Compli. Without asking a question. She had discovered that husband and wife

950
01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:14.279
were divided on the fundamental issue that
underlay all others. At the present moment,

951
01:20:15.119 --> 01:20:18.600
Cecily was weaving social schemes for the
future. Yeovil had come home in

952
01:20:18.640 --> 01:20:23.840
a frame of mind that threatened the
destruction of those schemes, or at any

953
01:20:23.920 --> 01:20:29.399
rate, a serious hindrance to their
execution. The situation presented itself to Joan's

954
01:20:29.399 --> 01:20:34.119
mind with an alluring piquanci your giving
a grand supper party for Gauler on the

955
01:20:34.239 --> 01:20:40.439
night of her Debutan Chiu, She
asked Cicily several people spoke to me about

956
01:20:40.479 --> 01:20:44.239
it, so I suppose it must
be true. Tony Luton and Young Store

957
01:20:44.359 --> 01:20:47.279
had taken care to spread the news
of the projected supper function in order to

958
01:20:47.279 --> 01:20:53.520
insure against a change of plans on
Sicily's part. Gauler is a great friend

959
01:20:53.560 --> 01:20:57.760
of mine, said Cecily, trying
to talk as if the conversation had taken

960
01:20:57.800 --> 01:21:01.800
a perfectly indifferent turn. Also,
I think she deserves a little encouragement after

961
01:21:01.800 --> 01:21:05.000
the hard work she's been through.
I thought it would be doing her a

962
01:21:05.079 --> 01:21:10.439
kindness to arrange a supper party for
her. On the first night. There

963
01:21:10.560 --> 01:21:15.600
was a moment's silence. Jovill said
nothing, and Joan understood the value of

964
01:21:15.640 --> 01:21:21.079
being occasionally tongue tied. The whole
question is continued Cecily, as the silence

965
01:21:21.079 --> 01:21:26.439
became oppressive. Whether one is to
mope and hold aloof from the national life

966
01:21:26.680 --> 01:21:29.840
or take our share in it.
The life has got to go on,

967
01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:32.600
whether we participate in it or not. It seems to me to be more

968
01:21:32.640 --> 01:21:36.720
patriotic to come down into the dust
of the marketplace than to withdraw one's self

969
01:21:36.760 --> 01:21:42.680
beyond walls or beyond the seas.
Of course, the industrial life of the

970
01:21:42.720 --> 01:21:46.720
country has to go on, said
Yovil. No one could criticize Gaula if

971
01:21:46.760 --> 01:21:53.119
she interested herself in organizing cottage industries
or anything of that sort in which she

972
01:21:53.159 --> 01:21:57.760
would be helping her own people.
That one could understand. But I don't

973
01:21:57.840 --> 01:22:02.880
think that a cosmopolitan can sound the
music hall business calls for personal sacrifices from

974
01:22:02.920 --> 01:22:08.840
young women of good family at a
moment like the present. It's just at

975
01:22:08.840 --> 01:22:12.399
a moment like the present, that
the people want something to interest them and

976
01:22:12.520 --> 01:22:17.199
take them out of themselves, said
Cicily argumentatively. What has happened has happened,

977
01:22:17.359 --> 01:22:21.560
and we can't undo it or escape
the consequences. What we can do,

978
01:22:21.760 --> 01:22:25.920
or attempt to do, is to
make things less dreary and make people

979
01:22:26.039 --> 01:22:31.039
less unhappy, in a word more
contented, said Yeovil. If I were

980
01:22:31.079 --> 01:22:35.319
a German statesman, that is the
end I would labor for and encourage others

981
01:22:35.319 --> 01:22:41.119
to labor for, to make the
people forget that they were discontented. All

982
01:22:41.159 --> 01:22:45.359
this work of recalvinizing the social side
of London life may be sometime in the

983
01:22:45.399 --> 01:22:50.479
phrase that by a poor Laurid Pruf. I don't think there's any use in

984
01:22:50.560 --> 01:22:56.520
discussing the matter further, said Cecily. I can see that grand supper party

985
01:22:56.640 --> 01:23:02.119
not coming off, said Joan provocatively. Ronnie looked anxiously at Cicily. You

986
01:23:02.159 --> 01:23:06.039
can see it coming on if you're
gifted with the prophetic vision of a reliable

987
01:23:06.119 --> 01:23:11.399
kind, said Cicily. Of course, as Mary doesn't take kindly to the

988
01:23:11.479 --> 01:23:15.399
idea of Gaula's enterprise, I won't
have the party here. I'll give it

989
01:23:15.439 --> 01:23:17.520
at a restaurant. That's all.
I can see Mary's point of view and

990
01:23:17.600 --> 01:23:23.600
sympathize with it, but I'm not
going to throw Gaula over. There was

991
01:23:23.640 --> 01:23:29.840
another pause of uncomfortably protracted duration.
I say this is a top hole omelet,

992
01:23:30.319 --> 01:23:33.840
said Ronnie. It was his only
contribution to the conversation, but it

993
01:23:33.920 --> 01:23:45.640
was a valuable one. End of
chapter five Chapter six of When William Came

994
01:23:45.199 --> 01:23:53.000
By SARKI this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public

995
01:23:53.039 --> 01:24:00.119
domain. For further information or to
volunteer, please go to LibriVox dot or

996
01:24:00.960 --> 01:24:10.239
Reading by and imentor When William Came
By Sarkee. Chapter six. Hervon Quarle,

997
01:24:11.560 --> 01:24:15.920
her von Karl sat at his favorite
table in the Brandenburg Cafe, the

998
01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:19.760
new building that made such an imposing
show and did such thriving business at the

999
01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:25.960
lower end of what most of its
patrons called the Dragenish Thrauser. Though the

1000
01:24:26.079 --> 01:24:30.960
establishment was new, it had already
achieved its unwritten code of customs and the

1001
01:24:30.000 --> 01:24:35.119
sanctity of hevon Quarle's special reserved table
had acquired the authority of a tradition.

1002
01:24:36.119 --> 01:24:40.760
A set of chessmen, a copy
of the Quite Saitung and the Times,

1003
01:24:41.159 --> 01:24:45.039
and a slim necked bottle of Rhenish
wine ice school from the cellar were always

1004
01:24:45.039 --> 01:24:48.760
to be found there early in the
forenoon, and the honored guest for whom

1005
01:24:48.760 --> 01:24:55.760
these preparations were made usually arrived on
the scene shortly after eleven o'clock. For

1006
01:24:55.800 --> 01:24:59.880
an hour or so he would read
and silently digest the contents of his two

1007
01:25:00.039 --> 01:25:03.560
newspapers, and then, at the
first sign of flagging interest on his part,

1008
01:25:03.840 --> 01:25:09.399
another of the cafe's regular customers would
march across the floor, exchange a

1009
01:25:09.439 --> 01:25:12.760
word or two on the affairs of
the day, and bebidden with a wave

1010
01:25:12.840 --> 01:25:15.800
of the hand. Into the opposite
seat, a waiter would instantly place the

1011
01:25:15.920 --> 01:25:20.920
chessboard with its marshaled ranks of combatants
in the required position, and the contest

1012
01:25:20.960 --> 01:25:27.960
would begin here. Von Qual was
a heavily built man of mature middle age,

1013
01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:31.760
of the blonde North German type,
with the facial aspect that suggested stupidity

1014
01:25:31.840 --> 01:25:38.560
and brutality. The stupidity of his
mien masked a nobility and a shrewdness that

1015
01:25:38.720 --> 01:25:43.560
was distinctly above the average, and
the suggestion of brutality was belied by the

1016
01:25:43.600 --> 01:25:46.239
fact that von Qual was as kind
hearted a man as one could meet with

1017
01:25:46.319 --> 01:25:50.680
in a day's journey. Early in
life, almost before he was in his

1018
01:25:50.800 --> 01:25:55.840
teens, Fritz von Pal had made
up his mind to accept the world as

1019
01:25:55.880 --> 01:26:00.159
it was, and to that philosophical
resolution, steadfast he adhered to. He

1020
01:26:00.199 --> 01:26:06.600
attributed his excellent digestion and his unruffled
happiness. Perhaps he confused cause and effect.

1021
01:26:08.000 --> 01:26:12.439
The excellent digestion may have been responsible
for at least some of the philosophical

1022
01:26:12.520 --> 01:26:16.800
serenity. He was a bachelor of
the type that is called confirmed, and

1023
01:26:16.880 --> 01:26:23.000
which might better be labeled consecrated.
From his early youth onward to his present

1024
01:26:23.039 --> 01:26:27.920
age, he had never had the
faintest flickering intention of marriage, children and

1025
01:26:28.039 --> 01:26:32.239
animals he adored. Women and plants
he accounted somewhat of a nuisance. A

1026
01:26:32.319 --> 01:26:36.720
world without women and roses and asparagus
would, he admitted, be robbed of

1027
01:26:36.800 --> 01:26:42.000
much of its charm. But with
all their charm, these things were tarsome

1028
01:26:42.039 --> 01:26:45.479
and thorny and capricious, always wanting
to climb or creep in places where they

1029
01:26:45.520 --> 01:26:50.079
were not wanted, and resolutely drooping
and fading away when they were desired to

1030
01:26:50.079 --> 01:26:55.319
flourish. Animals, on the other
hand, accepted the world as it was

1031
01:26:55.439 --> 01:26:59.319
and made the best of it.
And children, at least nice children,

1032
01:26:59.520 --> 01:27:03.199
uncontent aminated by grown up influences,
lived in worlds of their own making.

1033
01:27:04.600 --> 01:27:10.199
Von Val held no acknowledged official position
in the country of his residence, but

1034
01:27:10.319 --> 01:27:15.000
it was an open secret that those
responsible for the real direction of affairs sought

1035
01:27:15.079 --> 01:27:18.800
his counsel on nearly every step that
they meditated, and that his counsel was

1036
01:27:18.920 --> 01:27:26.039
very rarely disregarded. Some of the
shrewdest and most successful enactments of the ruling

1037
01:27:26.119 --> 01:27:30.359
power were believed to have originated in
the brain cells of the bovine fronted schamgast

1038
01:27:30.680 --> 01:27:35.920
of the Brandenburg Cafe. Around the
wood paneled walls of the cafe were set

1039
01:27:35.960 --> 01:27:41.359
at intervals well mounted heads of boar, elk, stag, roebuck, and

1040
01:27:41.520 --> 01:27:45.800
other game beasts of a northern forest, while in between were carved armorial escutcheons

1041
01:27:45.800 --> 01:27:51.439
of the principal cities of the lately
expanded realm Magdeburg, Manchester, Hamburg,

1042
01:27:51.560 --> 01:27:57.239
Bremen, Bristol, and so forth. Below these came shelves, on which

1043
01:27:57.239 --> 01:28:01.600
stood a wonderful array of stone beer
mugs, each decorated with some fantastic device

1044
01:28:01.680 --> 01:28:06.319
or motto, and most of them
pertaining individually and sacredly to some regular and

1045
01:28:06.479 --> 01:28:12.560
unfailing customer. In one particular corner
of the highest shelf, greatly at his

1046
01:28:12.640 --> 01:28:16.680
ease and in no wise to be
disturbed, slept vhoton the huge gray house

1047
01:28:16.720 --> 01:28:21.880
cat, dreaming doubtless of certain nimble
and audacious mice down in the cellar three

1048
01:28:21.880 --> 01:28:27.880
floors below, whose nimbleness and audacity
were as precious to him as the forwardness

1049
01:28:27.920 --> 01:28:30.800
of the birds is to a skilled
gun on a grouse moor. Once every

1050
01:28:30.920 --> 01:28:36.239
day, Foton came marching in stately
fashion across the polished floor, halted midway

1051
01:28:36.319 --> 01:28:42.600
to resume an unfinished toilet operation,
and then proceeded to pay his leisurely respects

1052
01:28:42.680 --> 01:28:46.000
to his friend von Quar. The
latter was said to be prouder of this

1053
01:28:46.119 --> 01:28:51.640
daily demonstration of esteem than of his
many coveted orders of merit. Several of

1054
01:28:51.640 --> 01:28:57.199
his friends and acquaintances shared with him
the distinction of having achieved the black Eagle,

1055
01:28:57.640 --> 01:29:00.640
but not one of them had ever
succeeded in obtain the slightest recognition of

1056
01:29:00.680 --> 01:29:06.720
their existence from Votan. The daily
greeting had been exchanged, and the proud

1057
01:29:06.800 --> 01:29:12.159
gray beast had marched away to the
music of a slumbrous purr. The kreuz

1058
01:29:12.279 --> 01:29:16.159
Zeitung and the Times underwent a final
scrutiny and were pushed aside, and von

1059
01:29:16.239 --> 01:29:21.039
far gazed aimlessly out of the July
sunshine bathing the walls and windows of the

1060
01:29:21.079 --> 01:29:28.359
Piccadilly Hotel. Er Rebinoch, the
plump little Pomeranian banker, stepped across the

1061
01:29:28.399 --> 01:29:32.079
floor almost as noiselessly as Voton had
done, though with considerably less grace,

1062
01:29:32.600 --> 01:29:38.560
and some half a minute later was
engaged in sliding pawns and knights and bishops

1063
01:29:38.600 --> 01:29:42.880
to and fro on the chessboard in
a series of lightning moves. Bewildering to

1064
01:29:42.920 --> 01:29:46.720
look on. Neither he nor his
opponent played with the skill that they severally

1065
01:29:46.760 --> 01:29:51.000
brought to bear on banking and stake
craft, nor did they conduct their game

1066
01:29:51.079 --> 01:29:57.399
with the politeness that they punctiliously observed
in other affairs of life. A running

1067
01:29:57.439 --> 01:30:01.720
fire of contemptuous remarks and aggressive that
are accompanied each move, and the mere

1068
01:30:01.800 --> 01:30:06.840
record of the conversation would have given
an uninitiated onlooker the puzzling impression that an

1069
01:30:06.840 --> 01:30:15.119
easy and crushing victory was assured to
both players. He has puzzled two men.

1070
01:30:15.800 --> 01:30:19.039
He doesn't know what to do.
He thinks he would have moved there?

1071
01:30:19.159 --> 01:30:24.720
Does he much good that you'll do
him? Never have I seen such

1072
01:30:24.720 --> 01:30:29.960
a mess as he is in.
He cannot do anything. He is absolutely

1073
01:30:29.199 --> 01:30:35.159
helpless. Oh you'll take my bishop? Do you much? I care for

1074
01:30:35.279 --> 01:30:41.159
that? Nothing? See? I
give you a check? H No,

1075
01:30:41.399 --> 01:30:45.680
he isn't a fright. He doesn't
know where to go. What a mess

1076
01:30:45.920 --> 01:30:51.159
is it? So the game proceeded
with a brisk exchange of pieces and incivilities,

1077
01:30:51.159 --> 01:30:56.199
and the fluctuation of fortunes, till
the little banker lost his queen as

1078
01:30:56.199 --> 01:31:00.479
a result of an incautious move,
and after several woebegone contortions of his shoulders

1079
01:31:00.479 --> 01:31:06.600
and hands declined further contest a sleek
hair Piccolo rushed forward to remove the board

1080
01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:13.159
and the erstwhile combatants resumed the courteous
dignity that they discarded in their chess playing

1081
01:31:13.239 --> 01:31:17.680
moments. If your sins are Gamania
today, asked Harry Ebenoch, as soon

1082
01:31:17.720 --> 01:31:23.760
as the boy had receded to a
respectful distance, No, said von Quar.

1083
01:31:24.640 --> 01:31:28.760
Anniversy to Gammania. A count on
you to tell me if there is

1084
01:31:28.800 --> 01:31:34.279
anything noteworthy in it. It has
an article today headed occupation or assimilation,

1085
01:31:34.840 --> 01:31:40.720
said the banker. It is of
some importance and very written. It is

1086
01:31:41.079 --> 01:31:46.560
very pessimistic. Catholic papers are always
pessimistic about things of this world, said

1087
01:31:46.640 --> 01:31:51.159
von Quar, just as they are
unduly optimistic of all things of the next

1088
01:31:51.199 --> 01:31:57.640
world. What line does it take? It's thus that our conquest of written

1089
01:31:57.720 --> 01:32:02.479
can only result in a temporary patient
whether notice to quit. Always hanging over

1090
01:32:02.520 --> 01:32:08.560
our heads is that we can never
hope to assimilate the people of these islands

1091
01:32:08.640 --> 01:32:14.159
in our empire as a sort of
married time saxony of Bavaria or the teaching

1092
01:32:14.199 --> 01:32:18.600
of history is against it. Saxony
in Bavaria are part of the Empire because

1093
01:32:18.640 --> 01:32:25.119
of their past history. England is
being bound into the Empire in spite of

1094
01:32:25.119 --> 01:32:29.960
her past history, and so forth. The writer of the article has not

1095
01:32:30.119 --> 01:32:34.720
studied history very deeply, said von
qual. The impossible thing that he speaks

1096
01:32:34.720 --> 01:32:41.000
off has been done before, done
in these very islands too. The Norman

1097
01:32:41.079 --> 01:32:46.479
conquest became an assimilation in comparatively fuel
generation. Ah. In those days,

1098
01:32:46.600 --> 01:32:53.439
yes, said the banker, But
the conditions were altogether different. There was

1099
01:32:53.479 --> 01:32:58.279
not a rapid transmission of news in
the means of keeping the public mind instructed

1100
01:32:58.319 --> 01:33:01.079
in what was happening. In fact, one can scarcely say that the public

1101
01:33:01.239 --> 01:33:06.800
man was there to instruct. There
was not the same bond of brotherhood between

1102
01:33:06.840 --> 01:33:13.119
men of the same nation that exists
now. Northumberland was almost as fall into

1103
01:33:13.199 --> 01:33:16.640
Devon or Kent as Normandy was in
the church. In those dates was a

1104
01:33:16.800 --> 01:33:23.239
great international factor in the crusades,
bound men together fighting under one leader for

1105
01:33:23.319 --> 01:33:28.600
a common cause. Also, there
was not a great national past to be

1106
01:33:28.680 --> 01:33:34.359
forgotten is in this case. There
are many factors certainly that are against us,

1107
01:33:35.000 --> 01:33:40.680
conceded the statesman. But you must
also take into account of those that

1108
01:33:40.800 --> 01:33:45.960
will help us. In most cases
in recent history, where the conquered have

1109
01:33:45.079 --> 01:33:50.640
stood out against all attempts at dissimulation, there has been a religious difference to

1110
01:33:50.800 --> 01:33:57.039
enter the racial one Lake Poland,
for instance, and the Catholic parts of

1111
01:33:57.119 --> 01:34:02.439
Ireland. If the Bretons ever seriously
begin to assert their nationality as against the

1112
01:34:02.479 --> 01:34:08.960
Fridge, it will be because he
have remained more Catholic in practice and sentiment

1113
01:34:09.039 --> 01:34:15.439
of their neighbors. Here there is
no such complication. We are, in

1114
01:34:15.560 --> 01:34:19.800
the bout a Protestant nation with a
Catholic minority, and the same may be

1115
01:34:19.880 --> 01:34:26.479
said of the British. Then in
modern days there is the alchemy of sport

1116
01:34:26.600 --> 01:34:31.319
and the drama to bring men of
different races amicably together. One or two

1117
01:34:31.479 --> 01:34:36.680
sportsmen like Germans in a London football
team will do more to break down racial

1118
01:34:36.760 --> 01:34:43.600
antagonism than anything the governments or councils
can effect. As for the state,

1119
01:34:43.880 --> 01:34:47.560
it had long been international in his
tendencies. You can see that every day

1120
01:34:48.439 --> 01:34:55.239
the banker nodded his head. London
is not our greatest difficulty, continued vonk

1121
01:34:55.319 --> 01:35:00.920
Val. You must remember the steady
influx of Germans since the War Old districts

1122
01:35:00.920 --> 01:35:05.239
are changing the complexion of their inhabitants, and in some streets you might almost

1123
01:35:05.279 --> 01:35:11.520
fancy yourself in a German town.
We can scarcely hope to make much impression

1124
01:35:11.600 --> 01:35:15.680
on the country districts and the provincial
towns at present. But you must remember

1125
01:35:15.760 --> 01:35:20.800
the thousands and thousands of the more
virile and restless old men have emigrated,

1126
01:35:21.279 --> 01:35:27.840
and thousands more will follow their example. We shall fill up their places with

1127
01:35:27.960 --> 01:35:32.239
our own surplus population, as the
Teuton race is colonized England in the old

1128
01:35:32.319 --> 01:35:38.520
pre Christian days. Let is better
is it not to people the fat meadows

1129
01:35:38.560 --> 01:35:43.640
of the Thames Valley and the healthy
downs and uplands of Sussex and the Berkshire,

1130
01:35:44.479 --> 01:35:47.079
than to go hunting the elbow room
among the flies and fevers of the

1131
01:35:47.159 --> 01:35:51.880
tropics. We have somewhere to go
to now, better than the scrub and

1132
01:35:53.000 --> 01:35:59.079
the belts and the thorn jungles.
Of course, of course, assented her

1133
01:35:59.239 --> 01:36:06.079
Raybinoch. But why this desirable process
of infiltration and assimilation goes on? How

1134
01:36:06.119 --> 01:36:12.239
are you going to provide against the
hostility of a concarnation. A people is

1135
01:36:12.279 --> 01:36:17.000
a right tradition behind them, and
a ruling instinct strongly developed. What sees

1136
01:36:17.039 --> 01:36:23.079
her eyes closed and hands folded while
you carry on the process of Germanization?

1137
01:36:23.960 --> 01:36:30.159
What will keep them quiet? The
hopelessness of the situation. For Saint Jury's

1138
01:36:30.239 --> 01:36:33.960
Boyton has ruled the seas and been
able to dictator half the world in consequence,

1139
01:36:34.560 --> 01:36:40.279
then she let slip the mastery of
the seas of something too costly own

1140
01:36:40.279 --> 01:36:45.119
earth to keep up, something which
allows too much jealousy and uneasiness in others.

1141
01:36:45.239 --> 01:36:50.000
And now the Seese rule her avo
you wave that breaks on her shore

1142
01:36:50.319 --> 01:36:55.399
rattles the keys of her prison.
I'm no fire e to her, I

1143
01:36:55.479 --> 01:37:00.640
binock, but I confess that when
I am at Dover or Southampton and see

1144
01:37:00.640 --> 01:37:04.159
those dark blots on the sea,
and those great specks in the sky,

1145
01:37:04.960 --> 01:37:11.199
our battleships and cruises and the aircraft, and realize what they mean to us,

1146
01:37:11.520 --> 01:37:15.920
our heartbeats just a little quaker.
If every German was flung out of

1147
01:37:15.960 --> 01:37:19.800
England tomorrow, in three weeks time, we shall be coming in again on

1148
01:37:19.800 --> 01:37:26.119
our own terms. With our sea
scouts and the air scouts spread in organized

1149
01:37:26.159 --> 01:37:30.359
network around, not a shipload of
food staff could reach the country. They

1150
01:37:30.479 --> 01:37:36.319
know that they can calculate how many
days of independence since starvation they could endure,

1151
01:37:36.960 --> 01:37:41.640
and they will make no attempt to
bring about such a certain fiasco.

1152
01:37:42.600 --> 01:37:46.079
Brave men fight for it for lown
hope, but the babies do not fight

1153
01:37:46.159 --> 01:37:53.439
for an issue they know to be
hopeless, so said Herr Rebinock. As

1154
01:37:53.520 --> 01:37:58.479
things are at present, they can
do nothing from within, absolutely nothing be

1155
01:37:58.680 --> 01:38:03.760
away all that before. But as
the Germania points out, there is another

1156
01:38:03.920 --> 01:38:10.960
Briton beyond the seas. Supposing the
Court a Deli were to engineer league in

1157
01:38:11.159 --> 01:38:16.000
league, a league with whom interrupted
the statesman Russia, we could watch and

1158
01:38:16.199 --> 01:38:20.880
ruled. We are rather nearer to
its western frontier and Delis, and we

1159
01:38:20.960 --> 01:38:27.359
could sortle its multi trade at five
thousand notice Swan Sat Holland or not inclined

1160
01:38:27.439 --> 01:38:31.119
to provoke our hostility. They would
have everything to lose by such a course.

1161
01:38:32.199 --> 01:38:36.159
There are other forces in the world
that might be reined against us,

1162
01:38:36.720 --> 01:38:43.359
argued the banker, The United States, Japan, Italy, They all have

1163
01:38:43.560 --> 01:38:47.960
navies. Does the teaching of history
show you that it is a strong power,

1164
01:38:48.199 --> 01:38:51.920
armed and ready, that has to
suffer from the hostility of the world,

1165
01:38:53.439 --> 01:38:58.479
asked von quar As far as the
sentiment goes, perhaps, but not

1166
01:38:58.600 --> 01:39:03.000
in practice. The danger has always
been for the weak, dismembered nation.

1167
01:39:03.760 --> 01:39:10.079
Think you, for a moment,
as the enfeebled, scattered British embower oversees

1168
01:39:10.199 --> 01:39:15.720
no undefended territories that our attemptation to
earn neighbors as you pan, nothing to

1169
01:39:15.840 --> 01:39:23.119
glean. Where we have harvested are
the known North American positions which might slip

1170
01:39:23.199 --> 01:39:30.000
into other keeping as Russia herself.
No traditional temptations beyond the Oxus find you.

1171
01:39:30.439 --> 01:39:35.560
We are not making the misdag Napoleon
made any forced all Europe to before

1172
01:39:35.640 --> 01:39:41.880
him or against him. We reaten
no world aggressions. We all satisfied where

1173
01:39:41.880 --> 01:39:45.920
he was insatiable. We have cast
down one overshadowing power from the face of

1174
01:39:45.920 --> 01:39:50.479
the world because it stood in our
way. But we have made no attempt

1175
01:39:50.520 --> 01:39:55.199
to spread our branches all over the
space that he's cover'd. We have not

1176
01:39:55.359 --> 01:40:00.159
tried to set up a tributary Canadian
Republic or to partitions out Africa. We

1177
01:40:00.199 --> 01:40:05.600
have dreamed no dream of making ourselves
lords of Hindustan. On the contrary,

1178
01:40:06.039 --> 01:40:12.159
we have given proof of our friendly
intentions towards our neighbors. We backed France

1179
01:40:12.279 --> 01:40:15.720
up the aster day in her squabble
with Swain over the Moroccan boundaries, and

1180
01:40:15.880 --> 01:40:21.239
proclaimed our opinion that the Republic houses
indisputable omission on the North African coast,

1181
01:40:21.319 --> 01:40:25.640
as we have in the North Sea. That is not the action or the

1182
01:40:25.720 --> 01:40:32.079
language of aggression. No, continued
Banquar, after a moment's silence. The

1183
01:40:32.199 --> 01:40:36.279
world may fear us and dislike us, but for the present, at any

1184
01:40:36.359 --> 01:40:42.119
rate, there will be no leagues
against us. No, there is one

1185
01:40:42.239 --> 01:40:45.840
rock on which our attempt, at
our simulation will found her or fine firm

1186
01:40:45.960 --> 01:40:54.159
anchorage, And that is the use
of the country. The generation that is

1187
01:40:54.199 --> 01:40:58.720
at the threshold. Now it is
them that we must capture. We must

1188
01:40:58.760 --> 01:41:02.600
teach them to learn and coax them
to forget. In course of time,

1189
01:41:03.319 --> 01:41:09.439
Anglo Saxon may blend with German,
as the Elder Saxons and the Bavarians and

1190
01:41:09.520 --> 01:41:14.800
the Shavians have blended with the Prussians
into a loyal united people under the Septo

1191
01:41:14.840 --> 01:41:20.439
of the Horns Lands. Then we
should be doubly strong Roman Carthage rolled into

1192
01:41:20.479 --> 01:41:27.079
one, an empire of the West
greater than Shalla Mine ever knew. Then

1193
01:41:27.239 --> 01:41:30.640
we could look slav and Latin and
asiatic in the face, and keep our

1194
01:41:30.720 --> 01:41:36.039
place as a central dominant force of
their civilized world. The speaker paused for

1195
01:41:36.039 --> 01:41:41.680
a moment and drank a deep draft
of wine, as though he were invoking

1196
01:41:41.680 --> 01:41:46.000
the prosperity of that future world power. Then he resumed in a more level

1197
01:41:46.079 --> 01:41:51.880
tone. On the other hand,
the younger generation of Britons may grow up

1198
01:41:51.880 --> 01:41:59.000
in hereditary hatred, repulsing all our
overtures, forgetting nothing and forgiving nothing.

1199
01:41:59.520 --> 01:42:03.680
Wait and watching for the time when
some weakness assails us, when some crisis

1200
01:42:03.880 --> 01:42:09.760
entangles us, when we cannot be
everywhere at once, then our work will

1201
01:42:09.800 --> 01:42:15.880
be imperialed, perhaps and done.
There lies the danger. There lies the

1202
01:42:15.960 --> 01:42:23.800
hope the younger generation. There is
another danger, said the banker, after

1203
01:42:23.880 --> 01:42:28.359
he had pondered over Bonquarle's remarks for
a moment or two, amid the incense

1204
01:42:28.399 --> 01:42:31.920
clouds of a fat cigar, A
danger, as at I foresee in the

1205
01:42:31.960 --> 01:42:38.479
immediate future. Perhaps not so much
a danger as an element of exasperation,

1206
01:42:38.600 --> 01:42:44.720
which may ultimately defeat your plans.
The law as to military service will have

1207
01:42:44.800 --> 01:42:49.600
to be promulgated shortly, ones that
cannot fail to be bitterly unpopular. The

1208
01:42:49.640 --> 01:42:54.199
people of these islands will have to
be brought into line with the rest of

1209
01:42:54.199 --> 01:42:59.319
the Empire in the matter of military
training and military service. Now will they

1210
01:42:59.399 --> 01:43:05.159
like that we're not the enforcing of
such a measure infuriatum against us? Remember,

1211
01:43:05.760 --> 01:43:12.159
they have made great sacrifices to avoid
the burton of military service. Do

1212
01:43:12.319 --> 01:43:18.399
your got exclaimed her v unclar whn't
you say you have made sacrifices on their

1213
01:43:18.560 --> 01:43:33.159
altar? End of chapter six Chapter
seven of When William Came by Sarkee.

1214
01:43:34.359 --> 01:43:40.319
This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

1215
01:43:40.840 --> 01:43:47.239
For further information or to volunteer,
please go to LibriVox dot org. Reading

1216
01:43:47.439 --> 01:43:59.640
by and imentor When William Came by
Sarkee Chapter seven the lure Sicily had successfully

1217
01:43:59.640 --> 01:44:03.800
insisted did on having her own way
concerning the projected supper party. Yovil had

1218
01:44:03.840 --> 01:44:09.199
said nothing further in opposition to it, whatever his feelings on the subject might

1219
01:44:09.279 --> 01:44:13.359
be. Having gained her point,
however, she was anxious to give her

1220
01:44:13.439 --> 01:44:16.560
husband the impression of having been consulted, and to put her victory as far

1221
01:44:16.600 --> 01:44:21.199
as possible on the footing of a
compromise. It was also rather a relief

1222
01:44:21.239 --> 01:44:26.560
to be able to discuss the matter
out of range of Jones's disconcerting tongue and

1223
01:44:26.680 --> 01:44:31.520
observant eyes. I hope you're not
really annoyed about this silly supper party,

1224
01:44:31.800 --> 01:44:35.760
she said, on the morning before
the much talked of first night, and

1225
01:44:35.880 --> 01:44:40.560
had pledged myself to give it,
so I couldn't back out without seeming mean

1226
01:44:40.640 --> 01:44:44.399
to Gaula. And in any case
it would have been impolitic to cry off.

1227
01:44:45.279 --> 01:44:50.159
Why impolitic, asked Yovil coldly.
It would give a fence in quarters

1228
01:44:50.159 --> 01:44:56.399
where I don't want to give a
fence, said Cecily, In quarters where

1229
01:44:56.439 --> 01:45:02.000
the fate of Conti is an object
of solicitude, said Yeovil. Look here,

1230
01:45:02.680 --> 01:45:06.840
said Cecily, in her most disarming
manner. It's just as well to

1231
01:45:06.880 --> 01:45:11.800
be perfectly frank about the whole matter. If one wants to live in the

1232
01:45:11.920 --> 01:45:15.680
London of the present day, one
must make up one's mind to accept the

1233
01:45:15.680 --> 01:45:19.159
fatter compli with as good a grace
as possible. I do want to live

1234
01:45:19.159 --> 01:45:23.520
in London, and I don't want
to change my way of living and start

1235
01:45:23.600 --> 01:45:28.399
under different conditions in some other place. I can't face the prospect of tearing

1236
01:45:28.479 --> 01:45:32.039
up my life by the roots.
I feel certain I shouldn't bear transplanting.

1237
01:45:32.600 --> 01:45:38.880
I can't imagine myself recreating my circle
of interests in some foreign town or colonial

1238
01:45:38.960 --> 01:45:43.279
center, or even in a country
town in England, India. I couldn't

1239
01:45:43.319 --> 01:45:46.159
stand. London is not merely a
home to me. It's a world,

1240
01:45:46.359 --> 01:45:49.399
and it happens to be just the
world that suits me, and that I'm

1241
01:45:49.439 --> 01:45:55.000
suited to. The German occupation or
whatever one likes to call it, is

1242
01:45:55.000 --> 01:45:59.640
a calamity, but it's not like
a molten deluge from Vesuvius that needs send

1243
01:45:59.760 --> 01:46:03.920
us all all scuttling away from another
Pompeii. Of course, she added,

1244
01:46:04.439 --> 01:46:09.359
there are things that jarre horribly on
one, even when one has got more

1245
01:46:09.439 --> 01:46:13.880
or less accustomed to them. But
one must just learn to be philosophical and

1246
01:46:14.000 --> 01:46:19.760
bear them, supposing they're not bearable, said Yeovil. During the few days

1247
01:46:19.800 --> 01:46:24.720
that I've been in the land,
I've seen things that I cannot imagine will

1248
01:46:24.760 --> 01:46:30.199
ever be bearable. That is because
they're new to you, said Cecily.

1249
01:46:30.319 --> 01:46:35.239
I don't wish that they should ever
come to seem bearable, retorted Yovil.

1250
01:46:35.800 --> 01:46:40.760
I've been bred and reared as a
unit of a ruling race. I don't

1251
01:46:40.760 --> 01:46:45.159
want to find myself settling down resignedly
as a member of an enslaved one.

1252
01:46:45.600 --> 01:46:50.960
There's no need to make things out
worse than they are protested Cecily. We've

1253
01:46:50.960 --> 01:46:56.199
had a military disaster on a big
scale, and there's been a great political

1254
01:46:56.239 --> 01:47:00.680
dislocation in consequence. But there's no
reason why everything shouldn't right itself in time,

1255
01:47:01.119 --> 01:47:05.119
as it has done after other similar
disasters in the history of nations.

1256
01:47:05.880 --> 01:47:10.239
We are not scattered to the winds
or wiped off the face of the earth.

1257
01:47:10.640 --> 01:47:15.159
We are still an important racial unit, our racial unit in a foreign

1258
01:47:15.239 --> 01:47:19.760
empire, commented Yeovil. We may
arrive at the position of being the dominant

1259
01:47:19.800 --> 01:47:26.199
factor in that empire, said Cecily, impressing our national characteristics on it and

1260
01:47:26.359 --> 01:47:30.439
perhaps dictating its dynastic future and a
whole trend of its policy. Such things

1261
01:47:30.479 --> 01:47:34.399
have happened in history. Or we
may become strong enough to throw off the

1262
01:47:34.439 --> 01:47:40.800
foreign connection at a moment when it
can be done effectually and advantageously. But

1263
01:47:41.039 --> 01:47:45.720
meanwhile, it is necessary to preserve
our industrial life and our social life,

1264
01:47:45.199 --> 01:47:51.199
and for that reason we must accommodate
ourselves to present circumstances, however distasteful they

1265
01:47:51.239 --> 01:47:58.279
may be. Immigration to some colonial
wilderness, or holding ourselves rigidly aloof from

1266
01:47:58.279 --> 01:48:01.319
the life of the capital won't help
matters, really, Bury. If you

1267
01:48:01.359 --> 01:48:04.880
will think things over a bit,
you will see that the course I am

1268
01:48:04.960 --> 01:48:13.359
following is the one dictated by sane
patriotism, whom the gods wish to render

1269
01:48:13.439 --> 01:48:18.359
harmless. They first a fit with
sanity, said Yovil bitterly. You may

1270
01:48:18.399 --> 01:48:23.760
be content to wait for a hundred
years or so for this national revival to

1271
01:48:23.880 --> 01:48:29.600
creep and crawl us back into a
semblance of independence and world importance. I'm

1272
01:48:29.640 --> 01:48:33.119
afraid I haven't the patience or the
philosophy to sit down comfortably and wait for

1273
01:48:33.159 --> 01:48:36.960
a change of fortune that won't come
in my time, if it comes at

1274
01:48:38.000 --> 01:48:43.880
all. Cecily changed the drift of
the conversation. She had only introduced the

1275
01:48:44.000 --> 01:48:47.399
argument for the purpose of defining her
point of view and accustoming Yovil to it.

1276
01:48:47.760 --> 01:48:51.560
As one leads a nervous horse up
to an unfamiliar barrier that he is

1277
01:48:51.560 --> 01:48:58.880
required eventually to jump. In any
case, she said, from the immediately

1278
01:48:58.920 --> 01:49:01.560
practical standpoint, in England is the
best place for you till you've shaken off

1279
01:49:01.600 --> 01:49:06.720
all traces of that fever. Pass
the time away somehow till the hunting begins,

1280
01:49:08.119 --> 01:49:11.680
and then go down to the East
Wessex country. They're looking out for

1281
01:49:11.680 --> 01:49:15.319
a new master after this season,
and if you were strong enough you might

1282
01:49:15.359 --> 01:49:18.199
take it on for a while.
You could go to Norway for fishing in

1283
01:49:18.239 --> 01:49:23.800
the summer and hunt the East Wessex
in the winter. I'll come down and

1284
01:49:23.880 --> 01:49:27.119
do a bit of hunting two and
we'll have house parties and get a little

1285
01:49:27.159 --> 01:49:31.960
golf in between miles. It will
be like old times. Yeovil looked at

1286
01:49:32.000 --> 01:49:36.880
his wife and laughed her was an
old fellow who used to hunt his hounds

1287
01:49:36.920 --> 01:49:42.960
regularly throughout the fiercest times of the
Great Civil War. There's a picture of

1288
01:49:43.039 --> 01:49:46.560
him by Caton Woodville. I think, leading his pack between King Charles his

1289
01:49:46.720 --> 01:49:50.760
army and the parliament forces, just
as some battle was going to begin.

1290
01:49:51.840 --> 01:49:57.279
I've often thought that the King must
have disliked him rather more than he disliked

1291
01:49:57.279 --> 01:50:00.199
the men who were in arms against
him. They at lea cared one way

1292
01:50:00.279 --> 01:50:04.439
or the other. I fancy that
old chat would have a great many imitators

1293
01:50:04.479 --> 01:50:10.880
nowadays, though when it comes to
question of sport against soldiering. I don't

1294
01:50:10.920 --> 01:50:15.199
know whether anyone has said it,
but one might almost assert that the German

1295
01:50:15.319 --> 01:50:18.760
victory was one on the golf links
of Bittan. I don't see why you

1296
01:50:18.760 --> 01:50:26.159
should saddle one particular form of sport
with the special responsibility protested Cicily. Of

1297
01:50:26.399 --> 01:50:30.920
course, not, said Jovil,
except that it absorbed perhaps more of the

1298
01:50:30.079 --> 01:50:34.640
energy and attention of the leisured class
than other sports did. And in this

1299
01:50:34.840 --> 01:50:41.600
country the leisured class was the only
bulwark we had against sufficial indifference. The

1300
01:50:41.720 --> 01:50:45.479
working classes had a big share of
the apathy, and indirectly a greater share

1301
01:50:45.520 --> 01:50:50.880
of the responsibility, because the voting
power was in their hands. They had

1302
01:50:50.920 --> 01:50:55.479
not the leisure, however, to
sit down and think clearly what the danger

1303
01:50:55.720 --> 01:51:00.359
was. Their own industrial warfare was
more real to them than anything that was

1304
01:51:00.399 --> 01:51:04.359
threatening from the nation that they only
knew from samples of German clerks and German

1305
01:51:04.399 --> 01:51:11.119
waiters. In any case, said
Cecily. As regards the hunting, there

1306
01:51:11.199 --> 01:51:15.039
is no civil war or national war
raging just now, and there is no

1307
01:51:15.119 --> 01:51:18.640
immediate likelihood of one. A good
many hunting seasons will have to come and

1308
01:51:18.720 --> 01:51:24.279
go before we can think of a
war of independence as even a distant possibility,

1309
01:51:24.640 --> 01:51:29.319
and in the meantime, hunting and
horse breeding and country sports generally are

1310
01:51:29.359 --> 01:51:32.840
the things most likely to keep Englishmen
together on the land. That's why so

1311
01:51:32.920 --> 01:51:36.960
many men who hate the German occupation
are trying to keep field sports alive and

1312
01:51:38.079 --> 01:51:43.199
in the right hands. However,
I won't go on arguing you and I

1313
01:51:43.319 --> 01:51:46.720
always think things out for ourselves and
decide for ourselves, which is much the

1314
01:51:46.760 --> 01:51:53.319
best in the long run. Cecily
slipped away to her writing room to make

1315
01:51:53.439 --> 01:51:59.079
final arrangements over the telephone for the
all important supper party, leaving Yeovil's turn

1316
01:51:59.159 --> 01:52:02.039
over in his mind the suggestion that
she had thrown out. It was an

1317
01:52:02.079 --> 01:52:05.840
obvious lure, a lure to draw
him away from the fret and fury that

1318
01:52:05.920 --> 01:52:12.479
possessed him so inconveniently, but its
obvious nature did not detract from its effectiveness.

1319
01:52:13.359 --> 01:52:16.880
Yeovil had pleasant recollections of the East
Wessex, a cheery little hunt that

1320
01:52:16.960 --> 01:52:21.880
afforded good sport in an unpretentious manner, A joyous thread of life running through

1321
01:52:21.920 --> 01:52:28.640
a rather sleepy countryside, like a
merry brook careering through a placid valley for

1322
01:52:28.680 --> 01:52:31.840
a man coming slowly and yet eagerly
backed to the activities of life from the

1323
01:52:31.880 --> 01:52:36.319
weariness of a long fever. The
prospect of a leisurely season with the East

1324
01:52:36.319 --> 01:52:42.520
Wessex was singularly attractive, and side
by side with its attractiveness, there was

1325
01:52:42.560 --> 01:52:47.640
a tempting argument in favor of yielding
to its attractions. Among the small squires

1326
01:52:47.640 --> 01:52:51.680
and yeoman farmers, doctors, country
tradesmen, auction years and so forth,

1327
01:52:51.720 --> 01:52:56.760
who would gather at the covert side
and at the hunt breakfasts, there might

1328
01:52:56.880 --> 01:53:00.800
be a local nucleus of revolt against
the enslavement of the land, a discouraged

1329
01:53:00.800 --> 01:53:06.000
and leaderless band waiting for some one
to mold their resistance into effective shape and

1330
01:53:06.119 --> 01:53:11.560
keep their loyalty to the old dynasty
in the old national cause steadily burning.

1331
01:53:12.600 --> 01:53:16.680
Yovil could see himself taking up that
position, stimulating the spirit of hostility to

1332
01:53:16.720 --> 01:53:23.960
the fatal compli organizing stubborn opposition to
every germanizing influence that was brought into play,

1333
01:53:24.239 --> 01:53:29.199
schooling the youth of the countryside to
look steadily deliwood. That was the

1334
01:53:29.239 --> 01:53:32.600
bait that Yovil threw out to his
conscience, while slowly considering the other bait

1335
01:53:32.640 --> 01:53:38.199
that was appealing so strongly to his
senses. The dry, warm scent of

1336
01:53:38.239 --> 01:53:42.399
the stable, the nip of the
morning air, the pleasant squelch squelch of

1337
01:53:42.439 --> 01:53:45.760
the saddle leather, the moist,
earthy fragrance of the autumn woods and wet

1338
01:53:45.800 --> 01:53:50.680
fallows, the cold white mists of
winter days, the whimper of hounds,

1339
01:53:50.680 --> 01:53:55.840
and the hot, restless pushing of
the pack through ditch and hedgerow and undergrowth.

1340
01:53:56.520 --> 01:54:00.479
The birds that flew up and clucked
and chattered as you passed, The

1341
01:54:00.560 --> 01:54:05.359
hearty greeting and pleasant gossip in farmhouse
kitchens and market day bar parlors. All

1342
01:54:05.439 --> 01:54:11.560
these remembered delights of the chase marshaled
themselves in the brain and made a cumulative

1343
01:54:11.560 --> 01:54:15.479
appeal that came with special intensity to
a man who was a little tired of

1344
01:54:15.560 --> 01:54:19.319
his wanderings, more than a little
drawn away from the jarring centers of life.

1345
01:54:19.960 --> 01:54:25.359
The hot London sunshine, baking the
sook grind walls, and the ugly,

1346
01:54:25.439 --> 01:54:29.720
incessant hoot and grunt of the motor
traffic gave an added charm to the

1347
01:54:29.800 --> 01:54:34.159
vision of hill and hollow and copse
that flickered in Jovill's mind. Slowly,

1348
01:54:34.239 --> 01:54:40.079
with the sensuous lingering over detail,
his imagination carried him down to a small,

1349
01:54:40.279 --> 01:54:45.600
sleepy yet with all pleasantly bustling market
town, and placed him unerringly in

1350
01:54:45.640 --> 01:54:48.439
a wide, straw littered yard,
half full of men and quarter full of

1351
01:54:48.479 --> 01:54:53.000
horses, with a bob tailed sheep
dog or two, trying not to get

1352
01:54:53.079 --> 01:54:58.119
in everybody's way, but insisting on
being in the thicker things. The horses

1353
01:54:58.159 --> 01:55:01.880
gradually detached themselves from the proud of
unimportant men, and came one by one

1354
01:55:01.920 --> 01:55:06.720
into momentary prominence, to be discussed
and appraised for their good points and bad

1355
01:55:06.800 --> 01:55:12.600
points, and finally to be bid
for. And always there was one horse

1356
01:55:12.640 --> 01:55:17.199
that detached itself conspicuously from the rest
the ideal hunter, or at any rate,

1357
01:55:17.319 --> 01:55:21.760
Yeoville's ideal of the ideal hunter.
Mentally, it was put through its

1358
01:55:21.800 --> 01:55:27.840
paces before him, its pedigree and
brief history recounted to him. Mentally,

1359
01:55:27.880 --> 01:55:30.199
he saw a stable lad put it
over a jump or two, with credit

1360
01:55:30.239 --> 01:55:35.600
to all concerned, and inevitably he
saw himself outbidding less discerning rivals, and

1361
01:55:35.720 --> 01:55:41.439
securing the desired piece of horse flesh
to be the chief glory and mainstay of

1362
01:55:41.479 --> 01:55:45.319
his hunting stable, to carry him
well and truly and cleverly through many a

1363
01:55:45.439 --> 01:55:50.319
joyous long to be remembered run.
That scene had been one of the recurring

1364
01:55:50.359 --> 01:55:55.920
half waking dreams of his long days
of weakness in the far away finished nursing

1365
01:55:55.960 --> 01:56:00.640
home, a dream sometimes of tantalizing
mockery, sometimes of pleasure, in the

1366
01:56:00.680 --> 01:56:05.079
foretaste of a joy to come.
And now it need scarcely be a dream

1367
01:56:05.119 --> 01:56:09.880
any longer. He had only to
go down at the right moment and take

1368
01:56:09.920 --> 01:56:14.960
an actual part in his oft rehearsed
vision. Everything would be there exactly as

1369
01:56:15.000 --> 01:56:18.079
his imagination had placed it, even
down to the bob tailed sheep dogs.

1370
01:56:18.439 --> 01:56:21.800
The horse of his imagining would be
there waiting for him, or, if

1371
01:56:21.880 --> 01:56:27.399
not absolutely the ideal animal, something
very like it. He might even go

1372
01:56:27.479 --> 01:56:30.399
beyond the limits of his dream and
pick up a couple of desirable animals.

1373
01:56:30.560 --> 01:56:34.720
Nor would probably be fewer purchasers for
good class hunters in these days than of

1374
01:56:34.800 --> 01:56:40.640
yore. And with the coming of
this reflection, his dream faded suddenly,

1375
01:56:41.119 --> 01:56:44.640
and his mind came back with a
throb of pain to the things he had

1376
01:56:44.640 --> 01:56:48.279
for the moment forgotten. The weary
hateful things that were symbolized for him by

1377
01:56:48.279 --> 01:56:55.840
the standard that floated yellow and black
over the frontage of Buckingham Palace. Jovial

1378
01:56:55.920 --> 01:57:00.960
wandered down to his snuggery, a
mood of listless dejectioning him. He fidgeted

1379
01:57:01.000 --> 01:57:04.960
aimlessly with one or two books and
papers, filled the pipe, and half

1380
01:57:05.000 --> 01:57:12.039
filled the waste paper basket with torn
circulars and accumulating writing table litter. Then

1381
01:57:12.119 --> 01:57:15.119
he lit the pipe and settled down
in his most comfortable armchair with an old

1382
01:57:15.159 --> 01:57:20.439
notebook in his hand. It was
a sort of disjointed diary, running fitfully

1383
01:57:20.479 --> 01:57:26.199
through the winter months of some past
years, and recording noteworthy days with the

1384
01:57:26.199 --> 01:57:31.359
East Wessex and over the telephone.
Cecily talked and arranged and consulted with men

1385
01:57:31.399 --> 01:57:34.760
and women to whom the joys of
a good gallop or the love of a

1386
01:57:34.800 --> 01:57:49.880
stricken fatherland were as letters in an
unknown alphabet. End of chapter seven Chapter

1387
01:57:50.039 --> 01:57:58.359
eight of When William Came by Sake. This is a libri box recording.

1388
01:57:58.880 --> 01:58:03.880
All LibriVox audings are in the public
domain. For further information or to volunteer,

1389
01:58:04.319 --> 01:58:13.399
please go to librovox dot org.
Reading by and imentor When William came

1390
01:58:13.960 --> 01:58:24.359
by Sarkee Chapter eight. The first
night, huge posters outside the Caravansary Theater

1391
01:58:24.439 --> 01:58:30.960
of Varieties announced the first performance of
the uniquely interesting Suggestion Dances, interpreted by

1392
01:58:30.960 --> 01:58:36.239
the Honorable Gaula musselford An impressionist portrait
of a rather severe looking young woman gave

1393
01:58:36.239 --> 01:58:41.319
the public some idea of what the
dancers might be like in appearance, and

1394
01:58:41.439 --> 01:58:45.119
the further information was added that her
performance was the greatest dramatic event of the

1395
01:58:45.159 --> 01:58:49.960
season. Yet another piece of information
was conveyed to the public a few minutes

1396
01:58:50.000 --> 01:58:55.399
after the doors had opened, in
the shape of large notices bearing the brief

1397
01:58:55.399 --> 01:59:00.039
announcement house full for the first night
function. Most of the had been reserved

1398
01:59:00.039 --> 01:59:04.840
for specially invited guests or else bespoken
by those who considered it due to their

1399
01:59:04.840 --> 01:59:11.039
own importance to be visible on such
an occasion. Even at the commencement of

1400
01:59:11.079 --> 01:59:15.319
the ordinary program of the evening,
Gaula was not due to appear till late

1401
01:59:15.359 --> 01:59:18.479
in the list. The theater was
crowded with the throng of chattering, expectant

1402
01:59:18.520 --> 01:59:24.119
human beings. It seemed as though
everyone had come early to see everyone else

1403
01:59:24.239 --> 01:59:28.159
arrive. As a matter of fact, it was the rumor heralded arrival of

1404
01:59:28.239 --> 01:59:31.720
one personage in particular, that had
drawn people early to their seats and given

1405
01:59:31.760 --> 01:59:38.319
a double edge to the expectancy of
the moment. At first sight and first

1406
01:59:38.399 --> 01:59:43.199
hearing. The bulk of the audience
seemed to comprise representatives of the chief European

1407
01:59:43.319 --> 01:59:47.920
races in well distributed proportions, but
if one gave it closer consideration, it

1408
01:59:48.000 --> 01:59:55.199
could be seen that the distribution was
geographically rather than ethnographically diversified. Men and

1409
01:59:55.319 --> 01:59:59.439
women there were from Paris, Munich, Rome, Moscow and Vienna, from

1410
01:59:59.479 --> 02:00:03.399
Sweden and Holland, and divers other
cities and countries, but in the majority

1411
02:00:03.439 --> 02:00:09.399
of cases the Jordan Valley had supplied
their forefathers with the common cradle ground.

1412
02:00:10.319 --> 02:00:14.279
The lack of a fire burning on
a national altar seemed to have drawn them

1413
02:00:14.279 --> 02:00:18.199
by universal impulse to the congenial flare
of the footlights, Whether as artists,

1414
02:00:18.239 --> 02:00:23.920
producers, impresarios, critics, agents, go betweens, or merely as highly

1415
02:00:23.960 --> 02:00:29.680
intelligent and fearsomely well informed spectators,
they were prominent in the chief seats.

1416
02:00:29.720 --> 02:00:33.079
They were represented more sparsely, but
still in fair numbers in the cheaper places,

1417
02:00:33.479 --> 02:00:39.439
and everywhere there were voluble lymphatic,
sanguine or skeptical, prodigal of word

1418
02:00:39.479 --> 02:00:43.600
and gesture, with eyes that seemed
to miss nothing and acknowledge nothing, and

1419
02:00:43.680 --> 02:00:47.840
a general restless dread of not being
seen and noticed. Of the theater going

1420
02:00:47.920 --> 02:00:53.199
London public. There was also a
fair muster, more particularly centered in the

1421
02:00:53.279 --> 02:00:58.239
less expensive parts of the house,
while in boxes, stalls and circles a

1422
02:00:58.319 --> 02:01:01.680
sprinkling of military uniform gave an unfamiliar
tone to the scene in the eyes of

1423
02:01:01.720 --> 02:01:06.439
those who had not previously witnessed a
first night performance under the new conditions.

1424
02:01:08.880 --> 02:01:13.920
Yeoville, while standing aloof from his
wife's participation in this social event, had

1425
02:01:13.960 --> 02:01:17.279
made private arrangements for being a personal
spectator of the scene. As one of

1426
02:01:17.319 --> 02:01:20.840
the ticket buying public. He had
secured a seat in the back rove,

1427
02:01:20.960 --> 02:01:26.800
a low price gallery, whence he
might watch, observant and unobserved the much

1428
02:01:26.840 --> 02:01:30.079
talked of debut of Gaula Musselford and
the writing of a new chapter in the

1429
02:01:30.159 --> 02:01:35.479
history of the Fete compli. Around
him, he noticed an incessant undercurrent of

1430
02:01:35.560 --> 02:01:42.079
jangling laughter, an unending give and
take of meaningless mirthless jest and catchword.

1431
02:01:42.520 --> 02:01:45.560
He had noticed the same thing in
streets and public places since his arrival in

1432
02:01:45.680 --> 02:01:49.920
London, a noisy, empty interchange
of chaff and laughter that he had been

1433
02:01:49.960 --> 02:01:55.159
at a loss to account for.
The Londoner is not well adapted for the

1434
02:01:55.199 --> 02:02:00.239
irresponsible noisiness of jesting tongue that bubbles
up naturally in a Southern race. And

1435
02:02:00.319 --> 02:02:03.279
the effort to be volatile was the
more noticeable because it so obviously was an

1436
02:02:03.319 --> 02:02:08.960
effort. Turning over the pages of
a book that told the story of Bulgarian

1437
02:02:09.079 --> 02:02:13.479
social life in the days of Turkish
rule, the oval had that morning come

1438
02:02:13.520 --> 02:02:16.039
across a passage that seemed to throw
some light on the thing that had puzzled

1439
02:02:16.119 --> 02:02:23.600
him. Bondage has this one advantage. It makes a nation merry where far

1440
02:02:23.720 --> 02:02:28.960
reaching ambition has no scope for its
development. The community squanders its energy on

1441
02:02:29.039 --> 02:02:32.920
the trivial and personal cares of its
daily life, and seeks relief and recreation

1442
02:02:33.079 --> 02:02:40.520
in simple and easily obtained material enjoyment. The writer was a man who had

1443
02:02:40.560 --> 02:02:45.479
known bondage, so he spoke at
any rate with authority of the London of

1444
02:02:45.520 --> 02:02:47.479
the moment. It could not,
however, be said with any truth that

1445
02:02:47.520 --> 02:02:53.039
it was merry, but merely that
its inhabitants made desperate endeavor not to appear

1446
02:02:53.079 --> 02:02:58.680
crushed under their catastrophe. Surrounded as
he was now with a babble of tongues

1447
02:02:58.720 --> 02:03:03.159
and shrill mechanical party, Jovill's mind
went back to the book and its account

1448
02:03:03.159 --> 02:03:08.159
of a theater audience in the Turkish
days of Bulgaria, with its light and

1449
02:03:08.319 --> 02:03:14.720
laughing crowd of critics and spectators.
Bulgaria, the thought of that determined little

1450
02:03:14.800 --> 02:03:18.239
nation came to him with a sharp
sense of irony. There was a people

1451
02:03:18.279 --> 02:03:21.880
who had not thought it beneath the
dignity of their manhood to learn the trade

1452
02:03:21.880 --> 02:03:28.039
and discipline of arms. They had
their reward torn and exhausted, and debt

1453
02:03:28.119 --> 02:03:32.479
encumbered from their campaigns. They were
masters in their own house. The Bulgarian

1454
02:03:32.520 --> 02:03:38.800
flag threw over the Bulgarian mountains,
and Yeovil stole a glance at the crown

1455
02:03:38.840 --> 02:03:45.880
of Charlemagne set over the royal box
in a capacious box immediately opposite the one

1456
02:03:45.920 --> 02:03:50.600
set aside for royalty. But Lady
Shalam sat in well considered prominence, confident

1457
02:03:50.720 --> 02:03:55.560
that every press critic and reporter would
note her presence, and that one or

1458
02:03:55.560 --> 02:04:00.960
two of them would describe or misdescribe
her toilet. Already, quite a considerable

1459
02:04:00.000 --> 02:04:03.479
section of the audience knew her by
name, and the frequency with which she

1460
02:04:03.520 --> 02:04:09.640
graciously nodded towards various quarters of the
house suggested the presence of a great many

1461
02:04:09.680 --> 02:04:15.680
personal acquaintances. She had attained to
that desirable feminine altitude of person position when

1462
02:04:15.720 --> 02:04:19.960
people who go about everywhere know you
well by sight and have never met your

1463
02:04:20.039 --> 02:04:27.239
dress before. Lady Shaylam was a
woman of commanding presence, of that type

1464
02:04:27.239 --> 02:04:31.720
which suggests to consciousness that the command
may not necessarily be obeyed. She had

1465
02:04:31.760 --> 02:04:36.520
observant eyes and a well managed voice. Her successes in life had been worked

1466
02:04:36.520 --> 02:04:41.840
for, but they were also,
to some considerable extent the result of accident.

1467
02:04:42.560 --> 02:04:45.720
Her public history went back to the
time when, in the person of

1468
02:04:45.720 --> 02:04:49.880
her husband, mister Conrad Daught,
she had contested too hopeless and very expensive

1469
02:04:49.960 --> 02:04:56.159
parliamentary elections on behalf of her party. On each occasion, the declaration of

1470
02:04:56.159 --> 02:05:00.399
the poll had shown a heavy though
reduced majority on the wrong side. But

1471
02:05:00.520 --> 02:05:04.520
she might have perpetrated an apt misquotation
of the French monarch's traditional message. After

1472
02:05:04.560 --> 02:05:10.760
the defeat of Pavia and assured the
world all is lost save honors. The

1473
02:05:10.840 --> 02:05:15.560
forthcoming honors list had duly proclaimed the
fact that Conrad d'ort esquire had entered Parliament

1474
02:05:15.640 --> 02:05:20.640
by another door, as Baron Shalamb
of Wireskilne in the County of Suffolk.

1475
02:05:21.439 --> 02:05:26.520
Success had crowned the lady's efforts as
far as the achievement of the title went,

1476
02:05:27.079 --> 02:05:31.279
but her social ambitions seemed unlikely to
make further headway. The new baron

1477
02:05:31.359 --> 02:05:35.640
and his wife. Their title and
money, notwithstanding, did not go down

1478
02:05:35.680 --> 02:05:41.640
in their particular segment of county's society, and in London there were other titles

1479
02:05:41.640 --> 02:05:45.119
and incomes to compete with. People
were willing to worship the Golden Calf,

1480
02:05:45.479 --> 02:05:50.079
but allowed themselves a choice of altars. No one could justly say that the

1481
02:05:50.159 --> 02:05:57.039
Shalambs were either oppressively vulgar or insufferably
bumptuous. Probably the chief reason for their

1482
02:05:57.119 --> 02:06:01.399
lack of popularity was their intense and
obvious desire to be popular. They kept

1483
02:06:01.439 --> 02:06:06.239
open house in such an insistently open
manner that they created a social draft.

1484
02:06:08.159 --> 02:06:12.680
The people who accepted their invitations for
the second or third time were not the

1485
02:06:12.720 --> 02:06:16.159
sort of people whose names gave importance
to a dinner party or a house gathering.

1486
02:06:16.640 --> 02:06:21.600
Failure in a thinly disguised form attended
the assiduous efforts of the Shalembs to

1487
02:06:21.640 --> 02:06:26.880
play a leading role in the world
that they had climbed into. The Baron

1488
02:06:27.000 --> 02:06:31.520
began to observe to his acquaintances that
gadding about and entertaining on a big scale

1489
02:06:31.800 --> 02:06:36.119
was not much in his line.
A quiet after dinner pipe and talk with

1490
02:06:36.159 --> 02:06:42.920
some brother legislator was his ideal way
of spending an evening. Then came the

1491
02:06:42.960 --> 02:06:48.319
great catastrophe involving the old order of
society in the national overthrow. Lady Shalem,

1492
02:06:48.520 --> 02:06:53.960
after a decent interval of patriotic mourning, began to look around her and

1493
02:06:54.119 --> 02:06:58.880
take stock of her chances and opportunities. Under the new regime. It was

1494
02:06:58.920 --> 02:07:02.720
easier to achieve distinction as a titled
oasis in the social desert that London had

1495
02:07:02.760 --> 02:07:08.319
become than it had been to obtain
recognition as a new growth in a rather

1496
02:07:08.439 --> 02:07:15.159
overcrowded field. The observant eyes and
agile brain quickly noted this circumstance, and

1497
02:07:15.279 --> 02:07:18.720
her ladyship set to work to adapt
herself to the altered conditions that governed her

1498
02:07:18.800 --> 02:07:24.039
world. Lord Shalem was one of
the few peers who kissed the hand of

1499
02:07:24.079 --> 02:07:28.039
the new sovereign. His wife was
one of the few hostesses who attempted to

1500
02:07:28.039 --> 02:07:31.600
throw a semblance of gaiety and lavish
elegance over the travesty of a London season

1501
02:07:31.760 --> 02:07:38.119
following the year of the disaster.
The world of tradesmen and purveyors and caterers,

1502
02:07:38.119 --> 02:07:42.199
and the thousands who were dependent on
them for employment, privately blessed the

1503
02:07:42.279 --> 02:07:45.640
example set by Shalem House, whatever
their feelings might be towards the fate.

1504
02:07:45.800 --> 02:07:50.920
Compli and the august newcomer, who
had added an old Saxon kingdom and some

1505
02:07:51.079 --> 02:07:56.760
of its accretions to the Teutonic realm
of Charlemagne, was duly beholden to an

1506
02:07:56.800 --> 02:08:00.880
acquired subject who was willing to forget
the bitterness of defeat eat and to help

1507
02:08:00.920 --> 02:08:05.439
others to forget it. Also,
among other acts of imperial recognition, an

1508
02:08:05.479 --> 02:08:09.279
earldom was being held in readiness for
the baron, who had known how to

1509
02:08:09.319 --> 02:08:15.039
accept accomplished facts with a good grace. One of the wits of the Coquetrice

1510
02:08:15.119 --> 02:08:18.800
Club had asserted that the new Earl
would take us supporters for his coat of

1511
02:08:18.920 --> 02:08:24.319
arms. A lion and a unicorn
oubliers. In the box with Lady Shalam

1512
02:08:24.600 --> 02:08:28.000
was the Griffin von Tolb, a
well dressed woman of some fifty six years,

1513
02:08:28.159 --> 02:08:33.319
comfortable and placid in appearance, yet
alert withal rather suggesting a thoroughly wide

1514
02:08:33.319 --> 02:08:39.279
awake dormouse. Rich, amiable,
and intelligent were the adjectives which would have

1515
02:08:39.319 --> 02:08:43.560
best described her character and her life
story. In her own rather difficult social

1516
02:08:43.600 --> 02:08:48.000
circle at Paderborne, she had earned
for herself the reputation of being one of

1517
02:08:48.039 --> 02:08:54.199
the most tactful and discerning hostesses in
Germany, and it was generally suspected that

1518
02:08:54.279 --> 02:08:58.239
she had come over and taken up
her residence in London in response to a

1519
02:08:58.319 --> 02:09:03.680
wish expressed in High Quarters. The
lavish hospitality which she dispensed at her house

1520
02:09:03.720 --> 02:09:09.560
in Barcley Square was a considerable reinforcement
to the stricken social life of the metropolis.

1521
02:09:11.119 --> 02:09:15.840
In a neighboring box, Cicily Yoville
presided over a large and lively party,

1522
02:09:16.199 --> 02:09:18.920
which of course included Ronnie Store,
who was for once in a way

1523
02:09:20.000 --> 02:09:24.520
in a chattering mood, and also
included an American dowager who had never been

1524
02:09:24.560 --> 02:09:28.520
known to be in anything else.
A tone of literary distinction was imparted to

1525
02:09:28.560 --> 02:09:33.239
the group by the presence of Augustus
Smith, better known under her pen name

1526
02:09:33.319 --> 02:09:39.079
of Rhapsody Pantril, author of a
play that had a limited but well advertised

1527
02:09:39.119 --> 02:09:43.119
success in Sheffield and the United States
of America. Author also of a book

1528
02:09:43.119 --> 02:09:50.119
of reminiscences entitled Things I Cannot Forget. She had beautiful eyes, a knowledge

1529
02:09:50.119 --> 02:09:54.399
of how to dress, and a
pleasant disposition, cankered just a little by

1530
02:09:54.479 --> 02:10:00.239
perpetual dread of the non recognition of
her genius. As the woman Augustus Myth,

1531
02:10:00.560 --> 02:10:05.720
she probably would have been unreservedly happy. As the superwoman Rhapsody Pantril,

1532
02:10:05.239 --> 02:10:11.880
she lived within the border line of
discontent. Her most ordinary remarks were framed

1533
02:10:11.880 --> 02:10:15.680
with the view of arresting attention.
Some one once said of her that she

1534
02:10:15.840 --> 02:10:18.560
ordered a sack of potatoes with the
air of one who is making inquiry for

1535
02:10:18.600 --> 02:10:24.800
a love filter. Do you see
what color the curtain is, she asked

1536
02:10:24.840 --> 02:10:30.520
Cecily, throwing a note of intense
meaning into her question. Cecily turned quickly

1537
02:10:30.560 --> 02:10:33.760
and looked at the drop curtain.
Rather a nice blue, she said,

1538
02:10:35.960 --> 02:10:41.640
Alexandrine blue, my color, the
color of hope, said rhapsody. Impressively.

1539
02:10:41.760 --> 02:10:46.800
He goes well with the general color
scheme, said Cecily, feeling that

1540
02:10:46.840 --> 02:10:50.800
she was hardly rising to the occasion. Say is it really true that his

1541
02:10:50.920 --> 02:10:56.319
majesty is coming, asked the lively
American Dowager. I put on my newest

1542
02:10:56.319 --> 02:11:01.439
frock and my best diamonds on purpose, and should be modified to death if

1543
02:11:01.439 --> 02:11:07.159
he doesn't see them there, pouted
Ronnie. I felt certain you'd put them

1544
02:11:07.159 --> 02:11:11.159
on for me. Why no,
I should have put on rubies and orange

1545
02:11:11.159 --> 02:11:16.199
opals for you. People with our
color of hair always like barbaric display.

1546
02:11:16.920 --> 02:11:20.960
They don't, said Ronnie. They
have chaste, cold tastes. You're absolutely

1547
02:11:22.000 --> 02:11:26.119
mistaken. Well, I think I
ought to know, protested the Dowger.

1548
02:11:26.279 --> 02:11:31.279
I've lived longer in the world than
you have. Anyway, yes, said

1549
02:11:31.359 --> 02:11:37.199
Ronnie with devastating truthfulness. But my
hair has been this color longer than yours

1550
02:11:37.239 --> 02:11:41.800
has. Peace was restored by the
opportune arrival of a middle aged man of

1551
02:11:41.840 --> 02:11:46.720
blond North German type with an expression
of brutality on his rather stupid face,

1552
02:11:48.199 --> 02:11:50.319
who sat in the front of the
box for a few minutes on a visit

1553
02:11:50.319 --> 02:11:56.399
of ceremony to sicily. His appearance
caused a slight buzz of recognition among the

1554
02:11:56.439 --> 02:12:00.520
audience, and if Yoval had cared
to make inquiry of his neighbors, he

1555
02:12:00.640 --> 02:12:05.359
might have learned that this decorated and
obviously important personage was the redoubtable von Caval,

1556
02:12:07.079 --> 02:12:09.800
artificer and shaper of much of the
state craft for which other men got

1557
02:12:09.840 --> 02:12:16.199
the public credit. The orchestra played
a selection from The Gondola Girl, which

1558
02:12:16.279 --> 02:12:22.039
was the leading musical comedy of the
moment. Most of the audience, those

1559
02:12:22.079 --> 02:12:24.640
in the more expensive seats at any
rate, heard the same airs two or

1560
02:12:24.640 --> 02:12:30.359
three times daily at restaurant lanches,
teas, dinners and suppers, and occasionally

1561
02:12:30.359 --> 02:12:33.960
in the park. They were justified
therefore in treating the music as a background

1562
02:12:35.039 --> 02:12:39.239
to slightly louder conversation than they had
hitherto indulged in. The music came to

1563
02:12:39.279 --> 02:12:45.359
an end. Episode number two in
the evening's entertainment was signaled. The curtain

1564
02:12:45.399 --> 02:12:50.800
of Alexandrine Blue rolled heavily upward,
and a troop of performing wolves was presented

1565
02:12:50.800 --> 02:12:56.680
to the public. Yeoville had encountered
wolves in North Africa deserts and in Siberian

1566
02:12:56.760 --> 02:13:01.479
forest and wold. He had seen
them at twilight, stealing like dark shadows

1567
02:13:01.520 --> 02:13:05.920
across the snow, and heard their
long whimpering howl in the darkness amid the

1568
02:13:05.960 --> 02:13:09.600
pines. He could well understand how
a magic law had grown up round them

1569
02:13:09.640 --> 02:13:15.479
through the ages among peoples of four
continents, how their name had passed into

1570
02:13:15.520 --> 02:13:20.880
a hundred strange sayings and inspired a
hundred traditions. And now he saw them

1571
02:13:20.960 --> 02:13:24.720
ride round the stage on tricycles,
with grotesque ruffles round their necks and clown

1572
02:13:24.800 --> 02:13:30.640
caps on their heads, their eyes
blinking miserably in the blaze of the footlights.

1573
02:13:31.560 --> 02:13:35.760
In response to the applause of the
house, a stout, atrociously smiling

1574
02:13:35.800 --> 02:13:39.960
man in evening dress came forward and
bowed. He had had nothing to do

1575
02:13:39.079 --> 02:13:43.880
either with the capture or the training
of the animals, having brought them ready

1576
02:13:43.880 --> 02:13:48.479
for use from a continental emporium where
wild beasts were prepared for the music hall

1577
02:13:48.560 --> 02:13:54.439
market. But he continued bowing and
smiling till the curtain fell. Two American

1578
02:13:54.520 --> 02:14:00.000
musicians, with comic tendencies denoted by
the elaborate rags and tatters of their costumes,

1579
02:14:00.239 --> 02:14:05.319
succeeded the wolves. Their musical performance
was not without merit, but their

1580
02:14:05.359 --> 02:14:09.159
comic business seemed to have been invented
long ago by some man who had patented

1581
02:14:09.199 --> 02:14:13.560
a monopoly of all music, hall
humor, and forthwith retired from the trade.

1582
02:14:15.600 --> 02:14:20.760
Some day Yovil reflected the rights of
the monopoly might expire a new business

1583
02:14:20.800 --> 02:14:28.600
become available for the knock about profession. The audience brightened considerably when item number

1584
02:14:28.600 --> 02:14:33.039
five of the program was signaled.
The orchestra struck up a rollicking measure,

1585
02:14:33.279 --> 02:14:37.079
and Tony Luton made his entrance amid
a rousing storm of applause. He was

1586
02:14:37.159 --> 02:14:41.720
dressed as an errand boy of some
west end shop, with a livery and

1587
02:14:41.760 --> 02:14:46.319
a box tricycle, as spruce and
decorative as the most ambitious errand boy could

1588
02:14:46.319 --> 02:14:50.119
see himself in his most ambitious dreams. His song was a lively and very

1589
02:14:50.159 --> 02:14:56.680
audacious chronicle of life behind the scenes
in a big retail establishment, and sparkled

1590
02:14:56.680 --> 02:15:01.159
with allusions which might fitly have been
described as suggestive. At any rate,

1591
02:15:01.199 --> 02:15:05.039
they appeared to suggest meanings to the
audience quite as clearly as Gaula Musseleford's dances

1592
02:15:05.039 --> 02:15:09.199
were likely to do, even with
the aid in her case of long explanations

1593
02:15:09.199 --> 02:15:16.279
on the programs. When the final
verse seemed about to reach an unpardonable climax,

1594
02:15:16.680 --> 02:15:20.560
a stage policeman opportunely appeared and moved
the lively songster on for obstructing the

1595
02:15:20.560 --> 02:15:26.960
imaginary traffic of an imaginary Bond Street. The house received the new number with

1596
02:15:26.119 --> 02:15:33.039
genial enthusiasm and mingled its applause with
demands for an earlier favorite. The orchestra

1597
02:15:33.159 --> 02:15:37.159
struck up the familiar air, and
in a few moments the smart errand boy

1598
02:15:37.399 --> 02:15:41.119
transformed now into a smart jockey,
was singing. They quaffed the gay Bubbley

1599
02:15:41.159 --> 02:15:48.520
in Eccleston Square to an audience that
hummed and nodded its unstinted approval. The

1600
02:15:48.640 --> 02:15:52.239
next number but one was the Gaulla
Musseleford debut, and the house settled itself

1601
02:15:52.279 --> 02:15:56.000
down to yawn and fidget and chatter
for ten or twelve minutes, while the

1602
02:15:56.039 --> 02:16:03.000
troop of talented Japanese jugg theers performed
artistic and quite uninteresting marvels with fans and

1603
02:16:03.159 --> 02:16:07.880
butterflies and lacquer boxes. The interval
of waiting was not destined, however,

1604
02:16:07.960 --> 02:16:11.000
to be without its interest. In
its way, it provided the one really

1605
02:16:11.039 --> 02:16:16.319
important and dramatic moment of the evening, one or two uniforms and eving toilettes

1606
02:16:16.439 --> 02:16:22.640
had already made their appearance in the
Imperial Box now, though was observable in

1607
02:16:22.680 --> 02:16:28.279
that quarter a slight commotion, an
unobtrusive reshuffling and reseating, and then every

1608
02:16:28.399 --> 02:16:31.920
eye in the suddenly quiet, semi
darkened house focused itself on one figure.

1609
02:16:33.479 --> 02:16:37.680
There was no public demonstration from the
newly loyal it had been particularly wished that

1610
02:16:37.680 --> 02:16:41.600
there should be none, but a
ripple of whisper went through the vast audience

1611
02:16:41.680 --> 02:16:48.120
from end to end. Majesty had
arrived. The Japanese Marvel workers went through

1612
02:16:48.159 --> 02:16:54.239
their display with even less attention than
before. Lady Shalam, sitting well in

1613
02:16:54.360 --> 02:16:58.959
front of her box, lowered her
observant eyes to her program and her massive

1614
02:16:58.040 --> 02:17:05.559
bangles. The evidence of her triumph
did not need staring. At end of

1615
02:17:05.719 --> 02:17:20.559
chapter eight chapter nine of When William
Came By Sakie. This is a LibriVox

1616
02:17:20.600 --> 02:17:26.760
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For further information or

1617
02:17:26.799 --> 02:17:35.280
to volunteer, please go to LibriVox
dot org. Reading by and imentor When

1618
02:17:35.319 --> 02:17:45.040
William Came By Sakie Chapter nine,
an evening to be remembered. To the

1619
02:17:45.159 --> 02:17:50.799
uninitiated or unappreciative, the dancing of
Gaula Musselvord did not seem widely different from

1620
02:17:50.879 --> 02:17:56.079
much that had been exhibited aforetime by
exponents of the posturing school. She was

1621
02:17:56.120 --> 02:18:01.079
not naturally graceful of movement. She
had not undergone years of arduous tutelage.

1622
02:18:01.440 --> 02:18:05.639
She had not the instinct for sheered
joyous energy of action that is stored in

1623
02:18:05.719 --> 02:18:11.399
some natures. Out of these unpromising
negative qualities, she had produced a style

1624
02:18:11.399 --> 02:18:16.639
of dancing that might best be labeled
a conscientious departure from accepted methods. The

1625
02:18:16.719 --> 02:18:22.479
highly imaginative titles that she had bestowed
on her dances, The Life of a

1626
02:18:22.600 --> 02:18:26.079
Fern, The Sole Dream of a
Topaz, and so forth, at least

1627
02:18:26.159 --> 02:18:31.600
gave her audience and her critics something
to talk about. In themselves, they

1628
02:18:31.639 --> 02:18:35.639
meant absolutely nothing, but they induced
discussion, and that to Gaula meant a

1629
02:18:35.680 --> 02:18:41.280
great deal. It was a season
of dearth and emptiness in the footlights and

1630
02:18:41.360 --> 02:18:46.360
box office world, and her performance
received a welcome that would scarcely have befallen

1631
02:18:46.399 --> 02:18:50.559
it in a more crowded and prosperous
day. Her success, indeed had been

1632
02:18:50.600 --> 02:18:54.200
waiting for her ready maid as far
as the managerial profession was concerned, and

1633
02:18:54.360 --> 02:18:58.440
nothing had been left undone in the
way of advertisement to secure for it the

1634
02:18:58.479 --> 02:19:05.200
appearance at any rate of popular favor
and loud above the interested applause of those

1635
02:19:05.239 --> 02:19:11.600
who had personal or business motives for
reclaiming a success swelled the exaggerated enthusiasm of

1636
02:19:11.639 --> 02:19:16.799
the fairly numerous art satellites, who
are unstinted in their praise of anything that

1637
02:19:16.920 --> 02:19:22.479
they are certain they cannot understand,
whatever might be the subsequent verdict of the

1638
02:19:22.479 --> 02:19:26.639
theater filling public. The majority of
the favored first night audience was determined to

1639
02:19:26.680 --> 02:19:31.959
set the seal of its approval on
the suggestion dances, and a steady roll

1640
02:19:31.040 --> 02:19:37.280
of applause greeted the conclusion of each
item. The dancer gravely bowed her thanks

1641
02:19:37.399 --> 02:19:43.280
in marked contradistinction to the gentleman who
had presented the performing wolves. She did

1642
02:19:43.319 --> 02:19:48.639
not permit herself the luxury of a
smile. It teaches us a great deal,

1643
02:19:50.159 --> 02:19:54.879
said Rhapsody Pantrill, vaguely but impressively, after the Fern dance had been

1644
02:19:54.879 --> 02:19:58.040
given and applauded at any rate.
We know now that a fern takes life

1645
02:19:58.159 --> 02:20:03.559
very seriously, broke in Joan Mardle, who had somehow wriggled herself into Sicily's

1646
02:20:03.600 --> 02:20:09.360
box. As Yovil, from the
back of his gallery watched Gaula running and

1647
02:20:09.520 --> 02:20:15.840
ricocheting about the stage, looking rather
like a wagtail in energetic pursuit of invisible

1648
02:20:15.879 --> 02:20:20.280
gnats and midges, he wondered how
many of the middle aged women who were

1649
02:20:20.360 --> 02:20:24.399
eagerly applauding her would have taken the
least notice of similar gymnastics on the part

1650
02:20:24.440 --> 02:20:30.200
of their offspring in nursery or garden, beyond perhaps asking them not to make

1651
02:20:30.200 --> 02:20:35.079
so much noise. And a bitterer
Tinge came to his thoughts as he saw

1652
02:20:35.120 --> 02:20:39.360
the bouquets being handed up, thoughts
of the brave old dowager down at Torywood,

1653
02:20:39.920 --> 02:20:45.040
the woman who had worked and wrought
so hard and so unsparingly in her

1654
02:20:45.120 --> 02:20:48.600
day for the well being of the
state, the state that had fallen helpless

1655
02:20:48.639 --> 02:20:54.799
into alien hands before her tired eyes. Her eldest son lived invalid wise in

1656
02:20:54.840 --> 02:21:01.040
the south of France. Her second
son lay fathoms deep in the sea with

1657
02:21:01.159 --> 02:21:05.600
the hulk of a broken battleship for
a burial vault. And now the granddaughter

1658
02:21:05.719 --> 02:21:11.680
was standing here in the limelight,
bowing her thanks for the patronage and favor

1659
02:21:11.079 --> 02:21:16.120
meted out to her by this cosmopolitan
company, with its lavish sprinkling of the

1660
02:21:16.239 --> 02:21:22.799
uniforms of an alien army. Prominent
among the flowers at her feet was one

1661
02:21:22.959 --> 02:21:28.239
large golden petalled bouquet of gorgeous blooms, tied with a broad streamer of golden

1662
02:21:28.360 --> 02:21:33.360
ribband. The tribute rendered by Caesar
to the things that were Caesar's. The

1663
02:21:33.440 --> 02:21:37.719
new chapter of the Fata comply had
been written that night, and written well.

1664
02:21:39.719 --> 02:21:45.760
The audience poured slowly out with the
triumphant music of Jancovius's Kaiser Wilhelm March,

1665
02:21:46.280 --> 02:21:50.760
played by the orchestra, as a
happy inspiration peeling in its ears.

1666
02:21:52.159 --> 02:21:56.440
It has been a great evening,
a most successful evening, said Lady Shaylamb

1667
02:21:56.520 --> 02:22:01.000
to her van Quar, whom she
was conveying in her electric broom, to

1668
02:22:01.040 --> 02:22:07.040
sicily Yeovil's supper party. An important
evening, she added, choosing her adjectives

1669
02:22:07.040 --> 02:22:11.520
with deliberation. It should give pleasure
in high quarters, should it not,

1670
02:22:11.639 --> 02:22:18.280
And she turned her observant eyes on
the impassive face of her companion. Gracious

1671
02:22:18.399 --> 02:22:24.719
lady, he replied with deliberation and
meaning, it has given pleasure. It

1672
02:22:24.840 --> 02:22:31.280
is an evening to be remembered.
The gracious lady suppressed a sigh of satisfaction.

1673
02:22:31.920 --> 02:22:35.639
Memory in high places was the thing
fruitful and precious, beyond computation.

1674
02:22:37.040 --> 02:22:43.760
Cicily's party at the Porphiry restaurant had
grown to imposing dimensions. Every one whom

1675
02:22:43.760 --> 02:22:48.879
she asked had come, and so
had Johan Mardle. Lady Shalam had suggested

1676
02:22:48.920 --> 02:22:52.040
several names at the last moment,
and there was quite a strong infusion of

1677
02:22:52.079 --> 02:22:58.159
the Teutonic military and official world.
It was just as well, Cicily reflected

1678
02:22:58.559 --> 02:23:03.360
that the upper was being given at
a restaurant and not in Barkshire Street.

1679
02:23:03.840 --> 02:23:09.000
Quite left all times, purred the
beaming proprietor in Cicily's ear. As the

1680
02:23:09.040 --> 02:23:15.719
staircase and cloak rooms filled up with
a jostling, laughing throng, the guests

1681
02:23:15.760 --> 02:23:20.760
settled themselves at four tables, taking
their places where chance or fancy led them,

1682
02:23:20.319 --> 02:23:24.799
latecomers having to fit in wherever they
could find room. A babel of

1683
02:23:24.879 --> 02:23:30.639
tongues in various languages reigned round the
tables, amid which the rattle of knives

1684
02:23:30.639 --> 02:23:35.520
and forks and plates, and the
popping of corks made a subdued hubbub Galla

1685
02:23:35.600 --> 02:23:39.360
musselford the motive for all this sound
and movement, this chatter of guests and

1686
02:23:39.520 --> 02:23:46.239
scurrying of waiters, sat motionless in
the fatigued, self conscious silence of a

1687
02:23:46.319 --> 02:23:52.319
great artist who has delivered a great
message. Do sit at Lady Peach's table

1688
02:23:52.399 --> 02:23:56.319
like a dear boy, cicily begged
of Tony Luton, who had come in

1689
02:23:56.399 --> 02:24:00.680
late. She and Gerald Droughtley have
got together in spite of all my efforts,

1690
02:24:01.000 --> 02:24:03.760
and they're both so dull. Try
and laven things up a bit.

1691
02:24:05.200 --> 02:24:11.159
A loud barking sound, as of
fur seels calling across Arctic ice, came

1692
02:24:11.239 --> 02:24:16.879
from another table, where missus Menteith
Mendelssohn, one of the Mendelssohn's of inver

1693
02:24:16.040 --> 02:24:20.840
Gordon, as she was wont to
describe herself, was proclaiming the glories and

1694
02:24:20.920 --> 02:24:28.000
subtleties of Gaula's achievement. It was
a revelation, she shouted. I sat

1695
02:24:28.040 --> 02:24:33.879
there and saw a whole new scheme
of thought unfold itself before my eyes.

1696
02:24:33.520 --> 02:24:39.559
One could not define it. It
was thought translated into action. The best

1697
02:24:39.719 --> 02:24:43.680
art cannot be defined. One has
sat there and knew that one was seeing

1698
02:24:43.760 --> 02:24:48.079
something one had never seen before,
and yet one felt that one had seen

1699
02:24:48.159 --> 02:24:52.719
it in one's brain all one's life. That was what was so wonderful.

1700
02:24:54.000 --> 02:24:58.040
Ye, yes, please, She
broke off sharply as a fat quail in

1701
02:24:58.120 --> 02:25:03.120
aspect was presented to her by a
questioning waiter. The voice of mister Morleverer

1702
02:25:03.200 --> 02:25:07.799
Moore came across the table like another
seal, barking at a greater distance.

1703
02:25:09.399 --> 02:25:15.200
A roland, he observed with studied
emphasis, has been called Le prince de

1704
02:25:15.399 --> 02:25:22.280
jactifinopine. Missus Muscleford deserves to be
described as the Queen of unexpected movement.

1705
02:25:22.799 --> 02:25:28.399
Oh I said you heard that,
exclaimed missus Menteith Mendelssohn to as wide an

1706
02:25:28.399 --> 02:25:33.159
audience as she could achieve. A
rostunt has been called. Tell them what

1707
02:25:33.280 --> 02:25:37.559
you said, mister Moore. She
broke off, suddenly, mistrusting her ability

1708
02:25:37.600 --> 02:25:41.719
to handle a French sentence. At
the top of her voice, mister Moore

1709
02:25:41.799 --> 02:25:46.120
repeated his remark. Pass it on
to the next table, commanded missus Menteith

1710
02:25:46.159 --> 02:25:52.600
Mendelssohn. It's too good to be
lost. At the next table, however,

1711
02:25:52.840 --> 02:25:56.040
a grave impressive voice was dwelling at
length on a topic remote from the

1712
02:25:56.079 --> 02:26:01.079
event of the evening. Lady Peach
considered that all social gatherings, of whatever

1713
02:26:01.159 --> 02:26:07.360
nature we were intended for the recital
of minor domestic tragedies. She lost no

1714
02:26:07.520 --> 02:26:11.520
time in regaling the company around her
with the detailed history of an interrupted weekend

1715
02:26:11.600 --> 02:26:18.120
in a Norfolk cottage, the most
charming and delightful old world spot that you

1716
02:26:18.159 --> 02:26:22.639
can imagine, clean and quite comfortable, just a nice distance from the sea

1717
02:26:22.840 --> 02:26:26.559
and within easy walk of the broads, the very place for the children.

1718
02:26:26.840 --> 02:26:31.280
We'd brought everything for a four day's
stay and meant to have a really delightful

1719
02:26:31.360 --> 02:26:35.159
time. And then on Sunday morning
we found that someone had left the spring

1720
02:26:35.200 --> 02:26:39.360
head where our only supply of drinking
water came from, uncovered, and a

1721
02:26:39.479 --> 02:26:43.719
dead bird was floating in it.
It had fallen in somehow and got drowned.

1722
02:26:45.200 --> 02:26:48.120
Of course, we couldn't use the
water that a dead body had been

1723
02:26:48.120 --> 02:26:52.479
floating in, and there was no
other supply for miles around, so we

1724
02:26:52.520 --> 02:26:56.959
had to come away then and there, Now, what do you say to

1725
02:26:56.040 --> 02:27:01.760
that, ah? That a linnet
should dye in the spring, quoted Tony

1726
02:27:01.840 --> 02:27:07.959
Luton with intense feeling. There was
an immediate outburst of hilarity where Lady Peach

1727
02:27:09.040 --> 02:27:16.079
had confidently looked for expressions of concern
and sympathy. Isn't Tony just perfectly cute,

1728
02:27:16.479 --> 02:27:20.879
Isn't he? Exclaimed a young American
woman with an enthusiasm to which Lady

1729
02:27:20.920 --> 02:27:26.360
Peach entirely failed to respond. She
had intended following up her story with the

1730
02:27:26.360 --> 02:27:31.799
account of another tragedy of similar nature
which had befallen her three years ago.

1731
02:27:31.840 --> 02:27:37.239
In argylesher, and now the opportunity
had gone, she turned bossuely to the

1732
02:27:37.239 --> 02:27:41.639
consolations of a tongue salad. At
the center table, the excellent von Tolb

1733
02:27:41.760 --> 02:27:46.600
led a chorus of congratulation and compliment, to which Gaula listened with an air

1734
02:27:46.639 --> 02:27:52.799
of polite detachment. Much as the
Sheikh Islam might receive the homage of a

1735
02:27:52.799 --> 02:27:56.559
Wesleyan conference. To a close observer, it would have seemed probable that her

1736
02:27:56.600 --> 02:28:01.520
attitude of fatigued indifference to the flat
remarks that were showered on her had been

1737
02:28:01.559 --> 02:28:07.879
as carefully studied and rehearsed as any
of her postures on the stage. It

1738
02:28:07.040 --> 02:28:11.760
is something that one will appearciate more
and more fully every time one sees it.

1739
02:28:11.840 --> 02:28:15.879
One cannot see it too often.
I could have sat and watch it

1740
02:28:15.920 --> 02:28:18.840
for ours. You know, I'm
looking forward to tomorrow evening when i can

1741
02:28:18.879 --> 02:28:22.520
see it again. I knew it
was going to be good, but I

1742
02:28:22.559 --> 02:28:28.520
had no idea, so chimed the
chorus between mouthfuls of quail and bites of

1743
02:28:28.559 --> 02:28:35.360
asparagus. Weren't the performing wolves wonderful? Exclaimed Joan in her fresh, joyous

1744
02:28:35.399 --> 02:28:39.079
voice that rang round the room like
the laughter of a woodpecker. If there

1745
02:28:39.200 --> 02:28:43.040
is one thing that disturbs the complacency
of a great artist of the halls,

1746
02:28:43.440 --> 02:28:48.280
it is the consciousness of sharing his
or her triumphs with performing birds and animals.

1747
02:28:48.680 --> 02:28:52.399
But of course, Joan was not
to be expected to know that.

1748
02:28:52.319 --> 02:28:56.559
She pursued her subject with the assurance
of one who has hit on a particularly

1749
02:28:56.600 --> 02:29:01.360
acceptable topic. It must have taken
in them years of training and concentration to

1750
02:29:01.399 --> 02:29:07.840
master those tricycles, she continued in
high pitched soliloquy. The nice thing about

1751
02:29:07.879 --> 02:29:11.600
them is that they don't realize a
bit how clever an educational they are.

1752
02:29:11.120 --> 02:29:13.879
It would be dreadful to have them
putting on airs, wouldn't it? And

1753
02:29:15.440 --> 02:29:18.719
yet I suppose the knowledge of being
able to jump through a hoop better than

1754
02:29:18.760 --> 02:29:24.479
any other wolf would just have her
certain amount of side. Fortunately, at

1755
02:29:24.520 --> 02:29:28.159
this moment, a young Italian journalist
at another table rose from his seat and

1756
02:29:28.239 --> 02:29:33.799
delivered a two minutation in praise of
the heroine of the evening. He spoke

1757
02:29:33.840 --> 02:29:37.639
in rapid, nervous French with a
North Italian accent, but much of what

1758
02:29:37.760 --> 02:29:41.799
he said could be understood by the
majority of those present, and the applause

1759
02:29:41.840 --> 02:29:45.760
was unanimous. At any rate,
he'd been brief, and it was permissible

1760
02:29:45.760 --> 02:29:50.760
to suppose that he had been witty. It was the opening for which mister

1761
02:29:50.840 --> 02:29:54.959
gerald Drowley had been watching and waiting. The moment that the Italian enthusiast had

1762
02:29:56.040 --> 02:30:00.680
dropped back into his seat amid a
rattle of handclapping and rapping of forks and

1763
02:30:00.760 --> 02:30:05.399
knives on the tables, Drily sprang
to his feet, pushed his chair well

1764
02:30:05.440 --> 02:30:09.639
away as for a long separation,
and begged to endorse what had been so

1765
02:30:09.920 --> 02:30:16.840
atty and gracefully, and might he
add truly said by the previous speaker,

1766
02:30:16.760 --> 02:30:20.440
This was only the prelude to the
real burden of his message. With the

1767
02:30:20.520 --> 02:30:26.159
dexterity that comes of practice, he
managed in a couple of hurried sentences to

1768
02:30:26.200 --> 02:30:30.760
divert the course of his remarks to
his own personality and career, and to

1769
02:30:30.799 --> 02:30:35.600
inform his listeners that he was an
actor of some note and experience, and

1770
02:30:35.760 --> 02:30:41.000
had had the honor of acting under
and here followed a string of names of

1771
02:30:41.079 --> 02:30:46.520
eminent actor managers of the day.
He thought he might be pardoned for mentioning

1772
02:30:46.559 --> 02:30:54.159
the fact that his performance of Peterkin
in the Broken Nutshell had one the unstinted

1773
02:30:54.159 --> 02:31:00.559
approval of the dramatic critics of the
provincial press. Towards the end of what

1774
02:31:00.719 --> 02:31:03.479
was a long speech, and which
seemed even longer to its hearers, he

1775
02:31:03.559 --> 02:31:09.399
reverted to the subject of Gaula's dancing
and bestowed on it such loudatory remarks as

1776
02:31:09.399 --> 02:31:15.559
he had left over. Drawing his
chair once again into his immediate neighborhood,

1777
02:31:15.799 --> 02:31:20.079
he sat down a glow, with
the satisfied consciousness of a good work worthily

1778
02:31:20.079 --> 02:31:26.079
performed. I once acted the small
part in some theatricals, got up for

1779
02:31:26.159 --> 02:31:31.680
a charity, announced Joan in a
ringing confidential voice. The Clapham Courier said

1780
02:31:31.680 --> 02:31:37.319
that all the minor parts were very
creditably sustained. Though to its very words,

1781
02:31:37.680 --> 02:31:39.959
I felt I must tell you that, and also say how much I

1782
02:31:41.079 --> 02:31:46.600
enjoyed miss Musselford's dancing. Tony Luton
cheered wildly. Death's a Cleveret's speech so

1783
02:31:46.719 --> 02:31:52.360
far. He proclaimed he had been
asked to liven things up at his table,

1784
02:31:52.600 --> 02:31:56.559
and was doing his best to achieve
that result. But mister Gerald drowly

1785
02:31:56.680 --> 02:32:03.040
joined Lady Peach in the unfavorable opinion
she had formed of that irrepressible youth Ronnie,

1786
02:32:03.239 --> 02:32:07.280
on whom Cecily kept a solicit As
I showed no sign of any intention

1787
02:32:07.319 --> 02:32:11.879
of falling in love with Gaula.
He was more profitably engaged in paying court

1788
02:32:11.920 --> 02:32:16.239
to the Gryffin von Tolb, whose
hospitable mansion in Belgrave Square invested her with

1789
02:32:16.280 --> 02:32:20.840
a special interest. In his eyes. As a professional prince charming, he

1790
02:32:20.959 --> 02:32:26.479
had every inducement to encourage the cult
of fairy Godmother. Yes, yes,

1791
02:32:26.559 --> 02:32:30.799
I read, I will come and
hear you play as I did a promise,

1792
02:32:31.319 --> 02:32:33.440
said the Gryffin, And you must
come and dine with me one night

1793
02:32:33.520 --> 02:32:37.479
and play to me afterwards. That
is a promise. Also, yes,

1794
02:32:37.360 --> 02:32:41.639
that is very nice of you to
come and see a task an old woman.

1795
02:32:41.920 --> 02:32:46.239
I am passionately fond of music.
If I have honest I would tell

1796
02:32:46.280 --> 02:32:48.879
you also that I am very fond
of good looking boys. But this is

1797
02:32:48.920 --> 02:32:52.680
not the age of honesty, so
I must leave you to guess that.

1798
02:32:52.479 --> 02:32:58.399
Come on Thursday next week you can. That is nice. A heavy reigning

1799
02:32:58.479 --> 02:33:01.719
prince dining pis me that night,
poor man. He wants cheering up the

1800
02:33:01.920 --> 02:33:07.319
art of being a reigning prince is
not a very pleasing one nowadays. He

1801
02:33:07.399 --> 02:33:11.319
has made it a boast all his
life that he is liberal and his subjects

1802
02:33:11.399 --> 02:33:15.879
conservative. Now as that is changed, No, not all. He is

1803
02:33:15.920 --> 02:33:20.479
still liberal, but his subjects,
unfortunately I become socialists. You must play

1804
02:33:20.479 --> 02:33:26.639
your best for him. Are there
many socialists over there in Germany? I

1805
02:33:26.719 --> 02:33:30.840
mean, asked Ronnie, who was
rather out of his depth where politics were

1806
02:33:30.840 --> 02:33:35.440
concerned. You bile, said the
Griffin, with emphasis if quiver, I

1807
02:33:35.479 --> 02:33:41.319
don't know whether it comes from better
education than verse digestions. I suppose.

1808
02:33:41.680 --> 02:33:45.959
I'm sure digestion has a good deal
to do with it. In my husband's

1809
02:33:46.000 --> 02:33:50.719
family, for example, his generation
had excellent digestions, as I wasn't a

1810
02:33:50.760 --> 02:33:56.799
case of socialism or suicide among them. The younger generation have no digestions worth

1811
02:33:56.840 --> 02:34:01.479
speaking of. And I have been
two suicides and three socialists within the last

1812
02:34:01.479 --> 02:34:05.200
six years. Now I must really
be going. I'm not a badly known

1813
02:34:05.399 --> 02:34:11.319
let outs don't suit my bay of
life. Ronnie bent low over the Gryffin's

1814
02:34:11.360 --> 02:34:15.239
hand and kissed it, partly because
she was the kind of woman who naturally

1815
02:34:15.280 --> 02:34:18.840
invoked such homage, but chiefly because
he knew that the gesture showed off his

1816
02:34:18.959 --> 02:34:26.399
smooth, burnished head to advantage.
The observant eyes of Lady Shalem had noted

1817
02:34:26.399 --> 02:34:31.559
the animated conversation between the Gryffin and
Ronnie, and she has overheard fragments of

1818
02:34:31.600 --> 02:34:35.760
the invitation that had been accorded to
the latter. Take as the little foxes,

1819
02:34:35.840 --> 02:34:41.840
the little foxes that spoil the vines, she quoted to herself. Not

1820
02:34:41.040 --> 02:34:46.360
that that music boy would do much
in the destructive line, but the principle

1821
02:34:46.559 --> 02:35:00.479
is good. End of chapter nine, Chapter ten of When Will You Came?

1822
02:35:01.040 --> 02:35:07.360
By Saki. This is a LibriVox
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in

1823
02:35:07.360 --> 02:35:13.559
the public domain for further information or
to volunteer, please go to LibriVox dot

1824
02:35:13.680 --> 02:35:22.959
org. Reading by and imentor When
William Came by Saki Chapter ten, Some

1825
02:35:24.079 --> 02:35:31.239
Reflections and Ta Daum cicily awoke on
the morning after the memorable evening with the

1826
02:35:31.319 --> 02:35:35.680
satisfactory feeling of victory achieved tempered by
a troubled sense of having achieved it in

1827
02:35:35.719 --> 02:35:41.159
the face of a reasonably grounded opposition. She had burned her boats and was

1828
02:35:41.239 --> 02:35:45.680
glad of it, but the reek
of their burning drifted rather unpleasantly across the

1829
02:35:45.760 --> 02:35:52.680
jubilant incense swinging of her Tadum service
last night had marked an immense step forward

1830
02:35:52.760 --> 02:35:58.360
in her social career. Without running
after the patronage of influential personages, she

1831
02:35:58.479 --> 02:36:03.319
had seen it quietly and actfully put
at her service. People such as the

1832
02:36:03.360 --> 02:36:07.040
Gryffin von Tolb were going to be
a power in the London world for a

1833
02:36:07.120 --> 02:36:11.479
very long time to come. Her
Von Karl, with all his useful qualities

1834
02:36:11.479 --> 02:36:16.639
of brain and temperament, might conceivably
fall out of favor in some unexpected turn

1835
02:36:16.680 --> 02:36:20.319
of the political wheel, and the
Shalembs would probably have their little day and

1836
02:36:20.440 --> 02:36:26.920
then a long afternoon of diminishing social
importance, the placid dormouse like Gryffin would

1837
02:36:26.959 --> 02:36:33.479
outlast them all. She had the
qualities which make either for contented mediocrity or

1838
02:36:33.520 --> 02:36:39.520
else for very durable success, according
as circumstances may dictate. She was one

1839
02:36:39.520 --> 02:36:43.680
of those characters that can neither thrust
themselves to the front, nor have any

1840
02:36:43.719 --> 02:36:46.719
wish to do so, but being
there, no ordinary power can thrust them

1841
02:36:46.760 --> 02:36:52.920
away. With the Gryffin, as
her friend, Cecily found herself in altogether

1842
02:36:52.959 --> 02:36:56.840
a different position from that involved by
the mere interested patronage of Lady Shalamb.

1843
02:36:58.559 --> 02:37:01.399
A vista of social succes Sessoud opened
up to her, and she did not

1844
02:37:01.520 --> 02:37:07.280
mean it to be just the ordinary
success of a popular and influential hostess moving

1845
02:37:07.280 --> 02:37:11.200
in an important circle. That people
with naturally bad manners should have to be

1846
02:37:11.280 --> 02:37:16.239
polite and considerate in their dealings with
her, That people who usually held themselves

1847
02:37:16.239 --> 02:37:20.639
aloof should have to be gracious and
damiable, That the self assured should have

1848
02:37:20.719 --> 02:37:24.959
to be just a little humble and
anxious. Where she was concerned, these

1849
02:37:24.959 --> 02:37:28.200
things, of course, she intended
to happen. She was a woman,

1850
02:37:28.680 --> 02:37:33.920
But she told herself she intended a
great deal more than that, when she

1851
02:37:33.000 --> 02:37:37.879
traced the pattern for her scheme of
social influence. In her heart, she

1852
02:37:37.959 --> 02:37:43.399
detested the German occupation as a hateful
necessity. But while her heart registered the

1853
02:37:43.399 --> 02:37:50.239
hatefulness, the brain recognized the necessity. The great fighting machines that the Germans

1854
02:37:50.239 --> 02:37:54.239
had built up and maintained on land, on sea, and in air were

1855
02:37:54.280 --> 02:38:00.520
three solid, crushing facts that demonstrated
the hopelessness of any immediate thought of revolt.

1856
02:38:00.959 --> 02:38:05.360
Twenty years hence, when the present
generation was older and greyer, the

1857
02:38:05.479 --> 02:38:11.159
chances of armed revolt would probably be
equally hopeless, equally remote seeming. But

1858
02:38:11.319 --> 02:38:16.600
in the meantime something could have been
effected in another way. The conquerors might

1859
02:38:16.680 --> 02:38:20.040
partially Germanize London, but on the
other hand, if the thing was skillfully

1860
02:38:20.079 --> 02:38:24.959
managed, the British element within the
empire might impress the mark of its influence

1861
02:38:26.000 --> 02:38:31.360
on everything German. The fighting men
might remain Prussian or Bavarian, but the

1862
02:38:31.440 --> 02:38:35.079
thinking men, and eventually the ruling
men, could gradually come under British influence,

1863
02:38:35.360 --> 02:38:41.520
or even be of British blood.
An English liberal conservative center might stand

1864
02:38:41.559 --> 02:38:46.719
as a bulwork against the junkodum socialism
of continental Germany. So cecily reasoned with

1865
02:38:46.760 --> 02:38:52.120
herself in a fashion induced perhaps by
an earlier apprenticeship to the reading of nineteenth

1866
02:38:52.120 --> 02:38:58.639
century articles in which the possible political
and racial developments of various countries were examined

1867
02:38:58.680 --> 02:39:05.239
and discussed and put away in the
pigeonholes of probable happenings. She had sufficient

1868
02:39:05.319 --> 02:39:09.520
knowledge of political history to know that
such a development might possibly come to pass,

1869
02:39:09.520 --> 02:39:15.319
she had not sufficient insight into actual
conditions to know that the possibility was

1870
02:39:15.319 --> 02:39:18.719
as remote as that of armed resistance. And the role which she saw herself

1871
02:39:18.760 --> 02:39:24.879
playing was that of her deft and
courtly political intriguer, rallying the British element

1872
02:39:24.959 --> 02:39:28.760
and making herself agreeable to the German
element, a political inspiration to the one

1873
02:39:30.120 --> 02:39:33.520
and a social distraction to the other. At the back of her mind there

1874
02:39:33.639 --> 02:39:39.799
lurked an honest confession that she was
probably overrating her powers of statecraft and personality,

1875
02:39:41.360 --> 02:39:45.120
that she was more likely to be
carried along by the current of events

1876
02:39:45.159 --> 02:39:50.000
than to control or divert its direction. The political daydream remained, however,

1877
02:39:50.280 --> 02:39:56.200
as daydreams will, in spite of
the clear light of probability shining through them.

1878
02:39:56.079 --> 02:40:00.079
At any rate, she knew,
as usual what she wanted to do,

1879
02:40:00.680 --> 02:40:05.879
and as usual she had taken steps
to carry out her intentions. Last

1880
02:40:05.959 --> 02:40:09.879
night remained in her mind a night
of important victory. There also remained the

1881
02:40:09.879 --> 02:40:16.360
anxious proceeding of finding out if the
victory had entailed any serious losses. Cicily

1882
02:40:16.479 --> 02:40:20.920
was not one of those ill regulated
people who treat the first meal of the

1883
02:40:20.000 --> 02:40:24.799
day as a convenient occasion for serving
up any differences or contentions that have been

1884
02:40:24.879 --> 02:40:30.840
left over from the day before,
more overlooked in the press of other matters.

1885
02:40:30.840 --> 02:40:35.319
She enjoyed her breakfast and gave you
Ovill unhindered opportunity for enjoying his.

1886
02:40:35.040 --> 02:40:39.840
A discussion as to the right cooking
of a dish that he had first tasted

1887
02:40:39.879 --> 02:40:45.079
among the Orenburg tartars was the prevailing
topic on this particular morning, and blended

1888
02:40:45.120 --> 02:40:50.120
well with trout and toast and coffee
in a cozy nook of the smoking room

1889
02:40:50.440 --> 02:40:56.360
in participation of the after breakfast cigarettes, Cecily made her dash into debatable ground.

1890
02:40:56.760 --> 02:41:01.719
You haven't asked me how my supper
party went off, she said.

1891
02:41:01.360 --> 02:41:05.879
There's a notice of it in two
of the morning papers with a list of

1892
02:41:05.920 --> 02:41:11.200
those present. Said Yeovil, The
conquering race seems to have been very well

1893
02:41:11.239 --> 02:41:16.719
represented. Several races were represented,
said Cecily. A function of that sort,

1894
02:41:18.079 --> 02:41:22.120
celebrating a dramatic first night was bound
to be cosmopolitan. In fact,

1895
02:41:22.200 --> 02:41:26.000
blending of races and nationalities is the
tendency of the age we live in.

1896
02:41:26.239 --> 02:41:31.040
The blending of races seems to have
been consummated already in one of the individuals

1897
02:41:31.079 --> 02:41:37.760
at your party, said Yeovil dryly. The name Menteith Mendelssohn struck me as

1898
02:41:37.760 --> 02:41:46.239
a particularly happy obliteration of racial landmarks, Cicily laughed. A noisy and very

1899
02:41:46.319 --> 02:41:50.360
wearisome sort of woman, she commented, She reminds one of garlic that's been

1900
02:41:50.440 --> 02:41:54.920
planted by mistake in the conservatory.
Still, she is useful as an advertising

1901
02:41:54.959 --> 02:42:00.440
agent to anyone who rubs her the
right way. She'll be invaluable claiming the

1902
02:42:00.479 --> 02:42:03.639
merits of Gaula's performance to all and
sundry. That's why I invited her.

1903
02:42:05.120 --> 02:42:09.680
She'll probably lunch today at the hotel
Cecil, and everyone's sitting within a hundred

1904
02:42:09.760 --> 02:42:13.959
yards of her table will hear what
an emotional education they can get by going

1905
02:42:13.000 --> 02:42:18.079
to see Gaula. Dance at the
Caravanswery. She seems to be like the

1906
02:42:18.159 --> 02:42:22.920
Salvation Army, said Yovil. Her
noise reaches a class of people who wouldn't

1907
02:42:22.959 --> 02:42:30.200
travel to read press notices exactly,
said Cecily. Gaula gets quite good notices

1908
02:42:30.239 --> 02:42:33.239
on the whole, doesn't she.
The one that took my fancy was the

1909
02:42:33.280 --> 02:42:37.920
one in the standard, said Yovil, picking up the paper from a table

1910
02:42:39.000 --> 02:42:45.280
by his side and searching its columns
for the notice in question. The wolves,

1911
02:42:45.319 --> 02:42:50.120
which appeared earlier in the evening's entertainment
are the programmershows us trained entirely by

1912
02:42:50.239 --> 02:42:54.879
kindness. It would have been a
further kindness at any rate to the audience

1913
02:42:56.319 --> 02:43:00.399
if some of the training, which
the wolves doubtless do not appreciate at its

1914
02:43:00.440 --> 02:43:05.280
proper value, had been expended on
Miss Musseleford's efforts at stage dancing. We

1915
02:43:05.319 --> 02:43:11.680
are assured again on the authority of
the program at the much talked of suggestion

1916
02:43:11.840 --> 02:43:18.600
dances of the last word imposture dancing. The last word belongs by immemorial right

1917
02:43:18.719 --> 02:43:22.360
to the sex which Miss Musseleford a
dawns, and it would be ungallant to

1918
02:43:22.440 --> 02:43:28.559
seek to deprive her of her privilege. As far as the educational aspect of

1919
02:43:28.600 --> 02:43:33.680
her performance is concerned, we must
admit that the life of the Fern remains

1920
02:43:33.719 --> 02:43:37.920
to us a private life. Still, Miss Musseleford has abandoned her own private

1921
02:43:39.000 --> 02:43:43.159
life in an unveiling attempt to draw
the Fern into the gaze of publicity.

1922
02:43:43.000 --> 02:43:48.639
And so it was with her other
suggestions. They suggested many things, but

1923
02:43:48.840 --> 02:43:54.520
nothing that was announced on the program. Chiefly, they suggested one outstanding reflection

1924
02:43:54.079 --> 02:44:00.319
that stage dancing is not like those
advertised breakfast foods that can be served up

1925
02:44:00.360 --> 02:44:05.959
after three minutes preparation. Half a
lifetime, or rather half a youth time,

1926
02:44:05.120 --> 02:44:13.399
is a much more satisfactory allowance.
The standard is prejudiced, said Cecily.

1927
02:44:13.639 --> 02:44:16.319
Some of the other papers are quite
enthusiastic. The Dawn gives her a

1928
02:44:16.399 --> 02:44:20.159
column and a quarter of notice,
nearly all of it complimentary. It says

1929
02:44:20.159 --> 02:44:24.600
the report of her fame as a
dancer went before her, but that her

1930
02:44:24.639 --> 02:44:28.959
performance last night caught it up and
outstripped it. I should not like to

1931
02:44:30.000 --> 02:44:33.840
suggest that The Dawn is prejudiced,
said Yoval, But shame them is a

1932
02:44:33.879 --> 02:44:39.319
managing director on it, and one
of its biggest childers. Gall As dancing

1933
02:44:39.440 --> 02:44:43.799
is an event of the social season, and shame them is one of those

1934
02:44:43.920 --> 02:44:48.479
most interested in keeping out the appearance
at any rate of a London social season.

1935
02:44:50.399 --> 02:44:54.799
Besides, her debut gave the opportunity
for an imperial visit to the theater,

1936
02:44:54.680 --> 02:45:00.440
the first appearance at a festive public
function of the conqueror among the monkad.

1937
02:45:01.079 --> 02:45:05.319
Apparently the experiment passed off well.
Shalem has every reason to feel pleased

1938
02:45:05.360 --> 02:45:11.680
with himself and well disposed towards Gaula. Find a way, added Yobil,

1939
02:45:13.159 --> 02:45:18.959
talking of Gaula, I'm going down
to Torywood one day next week to Torywood,

1940
02:45:18.799 --> 02:45:24.760
exclaimed Cecily. The turn of her
exclamation gave the impression that the announcement

1941
02:45:24.840 --> 02:45:28.600
was not very acceptable to her.
I promised the old lady that I would

1942
02:45:28.600 --> 02:45:33.159
go and have a talk with her
when I came back from my Siberian trip.

1943
02:45:33.760 --> 02:45:37.680
She traveled in eastern Russia, you
know, long before the Trans Siberian

1944
02:45:37.799 --> 02:45:43.319
Railway was built, and she's enormously
interested in those parts. In any case,

1945
02:45:43.360 --> 02:45:46.319
I should like to see her again. She does not see many people

1946
02:45:46.399 --> 02:45:52.520
nowadays, said Cecily. I fancy
she's breaking up. Rather she was very

1947
02:45:52.559 --> 02:45:54.879
fond of the son who went down. You know, she has seen a

1948
02:45:54.920 --> 02:46:00.639
great many of the things she cared
for go down, said Yobil. It

1949
02:46:00.840 --> 02:46:03.399
is a sad old life that's left
to her when one thinks of all that

1950
02:46:03.520 --> 02:46:07.879
the past has been to her,
of the part she used to play in

1951
02:46:07.920 --> 02:46:11.879
the world, the work she used
to get through. Is used to seem

1952
02:46:11.920 --> 02:46:15.559
as though she could never grow old, as if she would die standing up

1953
02:46:15.600 --> 02:46:20.479
with some unfinished command on her lips. Now I suppose her tragedy is that

1954
02:46:20.559 --> 02:46:26.959
she has grown old, bitterly old, and cannot die. Cecily was silent

1955
02:46:28.000 --> 02:46:31.840
for a moment and seemed about to
leave the room. Then she turned back

1956
02:46:31.879 --> 02:46:35.959
and said, I don't think I
would say anything about Gaula to her.

1957
02:46:37.000 --> 02:46:39.840
If I were you, it would
not have occurred to me to drag her

1958
02:46:39.920 --> 02:46:46.000
name into our conversation, said Yovil
coldly. But in any case, the

1959
02:46:46.040 --> 02:46:50.920
accounts of her dancing performance will have
reached Torryward through the newspapers, also the

1960
02:46:52.000 --> 02:46:58.159
record of your racially blended supper party. Cecily said nothing. She knew that

1961
02:46:58.200 --> 02:47:03.840
by last night affair she had definitely
identified her in public opinion. With the

1962
02:47:03.879 --> 02:47:07.479
Shalem clique and that many of her
old friends would look on her with distrust

1963
02:47:07.520 --> 02:47:13.280
and suspicion. On that account,
it was unfortunate, but she reckoned it

1964
02:47:13.319 --> 02:47:18.159
a lesser evil than tearing herself away
from her London life, its successes and

1965
02:47:18.239 --> 02:47:24.520
pleasures and possibilities. These social dislocations
and severings of friendship were to be looked

1966
02:47:24.559 --> 02:47:30.040
for after any great and violent change
and state affairs. It was Yeovil's attitude

1967
02:47:30.120 --> 02:47:33.040
that really troubled her. She would
not give way to his prejudices and accept

1968
02:47:33.120 --> 02:47:37.639
his point of view, but she
knew that a victory that involved estrangement from

1969
02:47:37.719 --> 02:47:43.120
him would only bring a mockery of
happiness. She still hoped that he would

1970
02:47:43.120 --> 02:47:46.879
come round to an acceptance of established
facts and then his political malaise in the

1971
02:47:46.920 --> 02:47:52.200
absorbing distraction of field sports. The
visit to tory Wood was a misfortune.

1972
02:47:52.719 --> 02:47:58.840
It might just turn the balance in
the undesired direction. Only a few weeks

1973
02:47:58.879 --> 02:48:03.079
of late summer and early morning remained
before the hunting season and its preparations would

1974
02:48:03.079 --> 02:48:07.239
be at hand, and Yovil might
be caught in the meshes of an old

1975
02:48:07.399 --> 02:48:11.120
enthusiasm. In those few weeks,
however, he might be fired by another

1976
02:48:11.159 --> 02:48:18.000
sort of enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which
would sooner or later mean voluntary or enforced

1977
02:48:18.079 --> 02:48:22.719
exile for his part, and the
probable breaking up of her own social plans

1978
02:48:22.719 --> 02:48:28.399
and ambitions. But Cecily knew something
of the futility of improvising objections where no

1979
02:48:28.600 --> 02:48:35.239
real obstacle exists. The visit to
Torywood was a graceful attention on Yovil's part

1980
02:48:35.360 --> 02:48:37.920
to an old friend. There was
no decent ground on which it could be

1981
02:48:37.959 --> 02:48:43.600
opposed. If the influence of that
visit came athwart Yovil's life and hers with

1982
02:48:43.719 --> 02:48:50.520
disastrous effect, that was kismet,
And once again the reek from her burned

1983
02:48:50.520 --> 02:48:54.680
and smoldering boats mingled threateningly with the
incense fumes of her taedium for victory.

1984
02:48:56.399 --> 02:49:00.239
She left the room, and Yovil
turned once more to an item of use

1985
02:49:00.319 --> 02:49:05.120
in the morning's papers that had already
arrested his attention. The Imperial auf Clarum

1986
02:49:05.399 --> 02:49:09.239
on the subject of military service was
to be made public in the course of

1987
02:49:09.280 --> 02:49:26.280
the day end of chapter ten Chapter
eleven of When William came by Saki.

1988
02:49:28.719 --> 02:49:33.680
This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

1989
02:49:33.239 --> 02:49:41.639
For further information or to volunteer,
please go to LibriVox dot org. Reading

1990
02:49:41.799 --> 02:49:52.559
by and imentor when William came by
Saki chapter eleven the tea shop, Yeovil

1991
02:49:52.680 --> 02:49:58.520
wandered down Piccadilly that afternoon in a
spirit of restlessness and expectancy. The long

1992
02:49:58.520 --> 02:50:03.440
awaited auf Clarum dealing with the new
law of military service had not yet appeared.

1993
02:50:03.040 --> 02:50:07.920
At any moment he might meet the
horse throated newsboys running along with their

1994
02:50:07.920 --> 02:50:11.399
papers announcing the special edition which would
give the terms of the edict to the

1995
02:50:11.440 --> 02:50:18.600
public. Every sound or movement that
detached itself with isolated significance from the general

1996
02:50:18.639 --> 02:50:22.399
word and scurity of the streets seemed
to Yovil to herald the oncoming clamor and

1997
02:50:22.520 --> 02:50:28.200
rush that he was looking for.
But the long endless succession of motors and

1998
02:50:28.360 --> 02:50:33.399
buses and vans went by, hooting
and grunting, and such newsboys as were

1999
02:50:33.440 --> 02:50:37.440
to be seen, hung about listlessly, bearing no more attractive bait on their

2000
02:50:37.479 --> 02:50:41.959
posters than the announcement of an earthquake
shock in Hungary fear loss of life.

2001
02:50:43.000 --> 02:50:46.680
The Green Park end of Piccadilly was
a changed, and in some respect a

2002
02:50:46.799 --> 02:50:52.920
livelier thoroughfare than that which Yovill remembered
with affectionate regret. A great political club

2003
02:50:54.000 --> 02:50:58.120
had migrated from its palatial home to
a shrunken habitation in a less prosperous quarter.

2004
02:51:00.120 --> 02:51:05.879
Place was filled by the flamboyant frontage
of the hotel Constantinople. Gorgeous Turkey

2005
02:51:05.920 --> 02:51:11.200
carpets were spread over the wide entrance
steps, and boys in Circassian and Anatolian

2006
02:51:11.319 --> 02:51:16.399
costumes hung about the doors or dashed
forth in none oriental haste to carry such

2007
02:51:16.440 --> 02:51:20.959
messages, as the telephone was unable
to transmit Picturesque sellers of Turkish delight,

2008
02:51:22.280 --> 02:51:28.479
atter of roses and brasswork coffee services
squatted under the portico on terms of obvious

2009
02:51:28.520 --> 02:51:33.120
good understanding with the hotel management.
A few doors further down, a service

2010
02:51:33.159 --> 02:51:37.760
club that had long been a Piccadilly
landmark was a landmark still as the home

2011
02:51:37.799 --> 02:51:41.920
of the Army aeronaut Club, and
there was a constant coming and going of

2012
02:51:43.040 --> 02:51:48.440
gay hued uniforms Saxon, Prussian,
Bavarian, Hessian and so forth through its

2013
02:51:48.479 --> 02:51:52.520
portals. The mastering of the air
and the creation of a scientific aerial war

2014
02:51:52.639 --> 02:51:58.280
fleet second anon in the world was
an achievement of which the conquering race was

2015
02:51:58.360 --> 02:52:03.600
pardonably proud, which it had good
reason to be duly thankful. Over the

2016
02:52:03.639 --> 02:52:07.239
gateways was blazoned the badge of the
Club, an elephant, whale and eagle,

2017
02:52:07.600 --> 02:52:13.000
typifying the three armed forces of the
state by land and sea and air.

2018
02:52:13.920 --> 02:52:18.319
The eagle bore in its beak a
scroll with the proud legend the last

2019
02:52:18.360 --> 02:52:22.440
am I, but not the least. To the eastward of this gaily humming

2020
02:52:22.520 --> 02:52:28.239
hive, the long shuttered front,
who are deserted ducal mansions struck a note

2021
02:52:28.280 --> 02:52:33.159
of protest and mourning amid the noise
and whirl and color of a seemingly uncaring

2022
02:52:33.239 --> 02:52:37.440
city. On the other side of
the roadway, on the graveled paths of

2023
02:52:37.479 --> 02:52:43.159
the Green Park, small ragged children
from the back streets of Westminster looked wistfully

2024
02:52:43.200 --> 02:52:46.079
at the smooth, trim stretches of
grass on which it was now forbidden in

2025
02:52:46.120 --> 02:52:52.760
two languages to set foot. Only
the pigeons, disregarding the changes of political

2026
02:52:52.760 --> 02:52:56.200
geography, walked about as usual,
wondering, perhaps if they ever wondered at

2027
02:52:56.239 --> 02:53:03.520
anything, At the sudden change in
the distribute of park humans, Jovial turned

2028
02:53:03.559 --> 02:53:07.360
his steps out of the hot sunlight
into the shade of the Burlington Arcade,

2029
02:53:07.920 --> 02:53:11.920
familiarly known to many of its newer
frequenters as the Passage. Here, the

2030
02:53:13.040 --> 02:53:18.239
change that new conditions and requirements had
wrought was more immediately noticeable than anywhere else

2031
02:53:18.239 --> 02:53:20.920
in the West End. Most of
the shops on the western side had been

2032
02:53:20.959 --> 02:53:26.760
cleared away, and in their place
had been installed an open air cafe,

2033
02:53:26.000 --> 02:53:31.520
converting the long alley into a sort
of promenade tea garden, Flanked on one

2034
02:53:31.559 --> 02:53:35.920
side by a line of haberdashers,
perfumers and jewelers show windows. The patrons

2035
02:53:35.959 --> 02:53:41.040
of the cafe could sit at the
little round tables, drinking their coffee and

2036
02:53:41.159 --> 02:53:45.360
syrups and aperitifs, and gazing,
if they were so minded, at the

2037
02:53:45.399 --> 02:53:50.360
pajamas and cravats and Brazilian diamonds spread
out for inspection Before them. A string

2038
02:53:50.479 --> 02:53:56.280
orchestra hidden away somewhere in a gallery
was alternating Grand Opera with the Gondola Girl

2039
02:53:56.680 --> 02:54:03.639
and the latest gems of Transatlantic melody. From around the tightly packed tables arose

2040
02:54:03.680 --> 02:54:07.440
a babble of tongues made up chiefly
of German, a South American rendering of

2041
02:54:07.479 --> 02:54:13.239
Spanish and a North American rendering of
English, with here and there the sharp,

2042
02:54:13.440 --> 02:54:18.399
shaken out staccato of Japanese. A
sleepy looking boy in a nondescript uniform

2043
02:54:18.600 --> 02:54:24.680
was wandering to and fro among the
customers, offering for sale the Matta New

2044
02:54:24.760 --> 02:54:30.079
York Herald, bone in a tagerblat, and a host of crudely colored illustrated

2045
02:54:30.079 --> 02:54:35.280
papers embodying the hard worked wit of
a world legion of comic artists. Y

2046
02:54:35.319 --> 02:54:39.239
Oval hurried through the arcade. It
was not here, in this atmosphere of

2047
02:54:39.319 --> 02:54:43.639
staring alien eyes and jangling tongues,
that he wanted to read the news of

2048
02:54:43.680 --> 02:54:48.920
the Imperial Aufklarul. By a succession
of byways, he reached Hanover Square and

2049
02:54:50.040 --> 02:54:54.680
thence made his way into Oxford Street. There was no commotion of activity to

2050
02:54:54.719 --> 02:54:58.559
be noticed yet among the newsboys.
The posters, still concerned themselves with the

2051
02:54:58.600 --> 02:55:03.079
earthqua making Hungary, varied with references
to the health of the King of Roumania

2052
02:55:03.360 --> 02:55:09.200
and a motor accident in South London. Yeovil wandered aimlessly along the street for

2053
02:55:09.239 --> 02:55:11.840
a few dozen yards, and then
turned down into the smoking room of a

2054
02:55:11.920 --> 02:55:16.239
cheap tea shop, where he judged
that the flourishing foreign element would be less

2055
02:55:16.280 --> 02:55:22.280
conspicuously represented. Quiet, voiced,
smooth headed youths from neighboring shops and wholesale

2056
02:55:22.280 --> 02:55:28.879
houses sat drinking tea in munching pastry, some of them reading, others making

2057
02:55:28.879 --> 02:55:33.079
a fitful rattle with dominoes on the
marble topped tables. A clean, wholesome

2058
02:55:33.120 --> 02:55:39.440
smell of tea and coffee made itself
felt through clouds of cigarette smoke. Cleanliness

2059
02:55:39.440 --> 02:55:43.239
and listlessness seemed to be the dominant
notes of the place, a cleanliness that

2060
02:55:43.360 --> 02:55:48.799
was commendable and a listlessness that seemed
unnatural and undesirable. Where so much youth

2061
02:55:48.920 --> 02:55:54.879
was gathered together for a refreshment and
recreation, Yeovil seated himself at a table

2062
02:55:54.959 --> 02:56:00.680
already occupied by a young clergyman who
was smoking a cigarette over The remains were

2063
02:56:00.719 --> 02:56:05.440
plateful of buttered toast. He had
a keen, clever, hard lined face,

2064
02:56:05.879 --> 02:56:09.360
the face of a man who,
in an earlier stage of European history

2065
02:56:09.719 --> 02:56:13.760
might have been a warlike prior,
awkward to tackle. At the council board,

2066
02:56:13.120 --> 02:56:18.760
greatly to be avoided. Where blows
were being exchanged, a pale,

2067
02:56:18.920 --> 02:56:22.760
silent, damosel drifted up to Yovil, and took his order with an air

2068
02:56:22.799 --> 02:56:26.680
of being mentally some hundreds of miles
away and utterly indifferent to the requirements of

2069
02:56:26.719 --> 02:56:31.280
those whom she served. If she
had brought calf's foot jelly instead of a

2070
02:56:31.319 --> 02:56:35.520
pot of china tea he had asked
for, Yeovil would hardly have been surprised.

2071
02:56:37.040 --> 02:56:41.000
However, the tea Julie arrived on
the table, and the pale Damosel

2072
02:56:41.040 --> 02:56:43.760
scribbled a figure on a slip of
paper, put it silently by the side

2073
02:56:43.760 --> 02:56:48.760
of the teapot, and drifted silently
away. Yovil had seen the same sort

2074
02:56:48.799 --> 02:56:54.959
of thing done on the musical comedy
stage, and done rather differently. The

2075
02:56:54.159 --> 02:56:58.639
can who tell me, sir,
is the Imperial announcement out yet, asked

2076
02:56:58.639 --> 02:57:03.360
the young clergyman, after a brief
scrutiny of his neighbor. Now, I've

2077
02:57:03.399 --> 02:57:07.319
been waiting about from the last half
hour on the lookout for it, said

2078
02:57:07.399 --> 02:57:13.399
Yeovil. The special editions ought to
be out now, Then, he added,

2079
02:57:13.079 --> 02:57:18.399
I have only just lately come back
from abroad. I know scarcely anything

2080
02:57:18.440 --> 02:57:22.399
of Landon as it is now.
You may imagine that a good deal of

2081
02:57:22.479 --> 02:57:26.600
it is very strange to me.
Your profession must take you a good deal

2082
02:57:26.680 --> 02:57:31.000
among all classes of people. I've
seen something of what one can call the

2083
02:57:31.280 --> 02:57:35.120
upper or attenuate the richer classes since
I came back. Do tell me something

2084
02:57:35.159 --> 02:57:39.120
about the poorer classes of the community. How do they take the new order

2085
02:57:39.120 --> 02:57:46.239
of things? Badly? Said the
young cleric. Badly in more senses than

2086
02:57:46.319 --> 02:57:50.600
one. They are helpless, and
they are bitter, bitter in the useless

2087
02:57:50.680 --> 02:57:54.239
kind of way that produces no great
resolutions. They look round for some one

2088
02:57:54.280 --> 02:57:58.440
to blame for what has happened.
They blamed politicians, They blamed the leiged

2089
02:57:58.520 --> 02:58:03.479
classes. In an indirect way,
I believe they blamed the church. Certainly,

2090
02:58:03.559 --> 02:58:09.879
their national disaster has not drawn them
towards religion in any form. One

2091
02:58:09.920 --> 02:58:13.840
thing you may be sure of.
They do not blame themselves. No true

2092
02:58:13.959 --> 02:58:18.600
landoner ever admits that the fault lies
at his door. No I never is

2093
02:58:18.600 --> 02:58:22.079
an exclamation that is on his lips
from earliest childhood, whenever he is charged

2094
02:58:22.120 --> 02:58:28.479
with anything blameworthy or punishable. That
is why's school discipline was ever a thing

2095
02:58:28.559 --> 02:58:33.680
repugnant to the school board child and
its parents. No school board scholar ever

2096
02:58:33.760 --> 02:58:39.479
deserved punishment, however obvious the fault
might seem to a disciplinarian. No,

2097
02:58:39.719 --> 02:58:45.600
I never exonerated it as something that
had not happened. Public schoolboys and private

2098
02:58:45.680 --> 02:58:48.879
schoolboys of the upper and middle class
had their fling and took their thrashings when

2099
02:58:48.920 --> 02:58:52.680
they were found out as a piece
of bad luck. But our bird and

2100
02:58:54.040 --> 02:58:58.920
our Sid were of those for whom
there is no condemnation. If they were

2101
02:58:58.000 --> 02:59:03.559
punished, it was for faults that
now they never committed. Naturally, the

2102
02:59:03.600 --> 02:59:07.120
grown up generation of Berts and Sids, the voters and householders, do not

2103
02:59:07.280 --> 02:59:11.479
realize, still less admit that it
was they who called the tune to which

2104
02:59:11.559 --> 02:59:16.639
the politicians danced. They had to
choose between the vote mongers and the so

2105
02:59:16.760 --> 02:59:22.319
called scaremongers, and their verdict was
for the vote mongers all the time.

2106
02:59:22.719 --> 02:59:26.799
Now they're bitter. They're being punished, and punishment is not a thing that

2107
02:59:26.840 --> 02:59:30.879
they have been schooled to bear.
The taxes that are falling on them are

2108
02:59:30.920 --> 02:59:35.440
a grievous source of discontent, and
the military service that will be imposed on

2109
02:59:35.520 --> 02:59:39.319
them for the first time in their
lives will be another. There is a

2110
02:59:39.440 --> 02:59:43.440
more lovable side to their character under
misfortune, though, added the young clergyman

2111
02:59:43.959 --> 02:59:48.680
deep down in their hearts, there
was a very real affection for the Old

2112
02:59:48.760 --> 02:59:54.319
Dynasty. Future historians will perhaps be
able to explain how and why the Royal

2113
02:59:54.360 --> 02:59:58.600
Family of Great Britain captured the imaginations
of its subjects in so genuine and lasting

2114
02:59:58.600 --> 03:00:03.079
of hair. Among the poorest and
most matter of fact, for whom the

2115
03:00:03.200 --> 03:00:09.479
name of no public man, politician
or philanthropist stands out with any especial significance,

2116
03:00:09.040 --> 03:00:13.079
the old Queen and the dead King, the dethroned monarch, and the

2117
03:00:13.159 --> 03:00:18.040
young prince live in a sort of
domestic pantheon, a recollection that is a

2118
03:00:18.079 --> 03:00:22.879
proud and wistful personal possession, when
so little remains to be proud of or

2119
03:00:22.959 --> 03:00:26.959
to possess. There is no favor
that I am so often asked for among

2120
03:00:28.000 --> 03:00:31.840
my poorer parishioners as the gift of
the picture of this or that member of

2121
03:00:31.840 --> 03:00:35.280
the Old Dynasty. I have got
all of them, only except Princess Mary,

2122
03:00:35.680 --> 03:00:39.079
an old woman said to me last
week, and she nearly cried with

2123
03:00:39.200 --> 03:00:43.280
pleasure when I brought her an old
bystander portrait that filled the gap in her

2124
03:00:43.280 --> 03:00:48.959
collection. And on Queen alexanter As
day, they bring out and where the

2125
03:00:48.040 --> 03:00:54.360
faded wild rose favors that they boughted
their pennies in days gone by. The

2126
03:00:54.479 --> 03:00:58.639
tragedy of the enactment that is about
to enforce military service on these people is

2127
03:00:58.719 --> 03:01:03.520
that it comes when they have no
longer a country to fight for, said

2128
03:01:03.600 --> 03:01:09.639
Yeovil, the young clergyman, gave
an exclamation of bitter impatience. That is

2129
03:01:09.680 --> 03:01:13.559
the cruel mockery of the whole thing. Every now and then, in the

2130
03:01:13.600 --> 03:01:16.120
course of my work, I have
come across lads who were rarely drifting to

2131
03:01:16.200 --> 03:01:20.559
the bed. Through the good qualities
in them, a clean combative strain in

2132
03:01:20.600 --> 03:01:24.520
their blood, and a natural turn
for adventure, made the ordinary and mnemic

2133
03:01:24.680 --> 03:01:31.239
routine of shop or warehouse or factory
almost unbearable for them. What splendid little

2134
03:01:31.280 --> 03:01:35.479
soldiers they would have made, and
how grandly the discipline of a military training

2135
03:01:35.520 --> 03:01:39.559
would have steadied them in after life
when steadiness was wanted. The only adventure

2136
03:01:39.639 --> 03:01:46.479
that their surroundings offered them had been
the adventure of practicing mildly criminal misdeeds without

2137
03:01:46.479 --> 03:01:50.520
getting landed in reformatoris in prisons.
Those of them that have not been successful

2138
03:01:50.559 --> 03:01:56.479
in keeping clear of detection are walking
round and round prison yards, experiencing the

2139
03:01:56.520 --> 03:02:01.680
operation of a discipline that breaks and
does not build. They were many hearted

2140
03:02:01.719 --> 03:02:05.760
boys once with nothing of the criminal, or ne'er do well in their natures.

2141
03:02:05.920 --> 03:02:09.879
And now, who you ever seen
the prison yard with that walk round

2142
03:02:09.920 --> 03:02:15.879
and round and round between gray walls
under a blue sky. You will nodded.

2143
03:02:16.760 --> 03:02:20.280
It's good enough for criminals and imbeciles, said the parson, But think

2144
03:02:20.280 --> 03:02:24.520
of it for those boys who might
have been marching along to the tap of

2145
03:02:24.520 --> 03:02:28.000
the drum with a laugh on their
lips instead of hell in their hearts.

2146
03:02:28.760 --> 03:02:31.360
I have had hell in my heart
sometimes when I have come in touch with

2147
03:02:31.440 --> 03:02:37.159
cases like those. I suppose you're
thinking that I'm a strange sort of parson.

2148
03:02:37.360 --> 03:02:41.479
I was justifying you in my mind, said Yoval, as a man

2149
03:02:41.520 --> 03:02:48.120
of God with an infinite tendency for
little devil's. The clergyman flushed, and

2150
03:02:48.360 --> 03:02:52.920
rather a fine epish half to have
on one's tombstone, he said, especially

2151
03:02:52.920 --> 03:02:56.959
if the tombstone were in some crowded
city graveyard. I suppose I am a

2152
03:02:58.000 --> 03:03:00.879
man of God, but I don't
think I could be called a man of

2153
03:03:00.959 --> 03:03:05.600
peace. Looking into the strong young
face with its suggestion of a fighting prior

2154
03:03:05.600 --> 03:03:11.479
of bygone days more marked than ever. Yeo will mentally agreed that he could

2155
03:03:11.479 --> 03:03:16.399
not have learnt one thing in life, continued the young man, and that

2156
03:03:16.600 --> 03:03:22.040
his piece is not for this world. Peace is what God gives us when

2157
03:03:22.079 --> 03:03:26.239
he takes us into his rest.
Beat your sword into a plowshare of you

2158
03:03:26.440 --> 03:03:31.239
like, but beat your enemy into
Smitherin's first, a long drawn cry,

2159
03:03:31.440 --> 03:03:35.840
repeated again and again, detached itself
from the throb and hoot and word of

2160
03:03:35.879 --> 03:03:43.120
the street traffic special, military serves
Special. The young clergyman sprang up from

2161
03:03:43.159 --> 03:03:48.040
his seat and went up the staircase
in a succession of bounds, causing the

2162
03:03:48.079 --> 03:03:52.280
domino players and novelette readers to look
up for a moment in mild astonishment.

2163
03:03:52.719 --> 03:03:56.600
In a few seconds he was back
again with a copy of an afternoon paper.

2164
03:03:56.399 --> 03:04:01.879
The Imperial prescript was set forth in
heavy type in parallel columns of English

2165
03:04:01.879 --> 03:04:07.000
and German. As the young man
read, a deep burning flush spread over

2166
03:04:07.040 --> 03:04:13.200
his face, then headed away into
a chalky whiteness. He read the announcement

2167
03:04:13.239 --> 03:04:16.719
to the end, and then handed
the paper to Yeovil and left without a

2168
03:04:16.760 --> 03:04:24.360
word. Beneath the courtly politeness and
benignant phraseology of the document ran a trenchant,

2169
03:04:24.479 --> 03:04:30.239
searing irony. The British born subjects
of the Germanic Crown inhabiting the islands

2170
03:04:30.239 --> 03:04:35.239
of Great Britain and Ireland had habituated
themselves as a people to the disuse of

2171
03:04:35.360 --> 03:04:41.239
arms and resolutely excluded military service and
national training from their political system and daily

2172
03:04:41.319 --> 03:04:45.879
life. Their judgment that they were
unsuited as a race to bear arms and

2173
03:04:45.959 --> 03:04:50.280
conform to military discipline was not to
be set aside. Their new overlord did

2174
03:04:50.280 --> 03:04:54.920
not propose to do violence to their
feelings and customs by requiring from them the

2175
03:04:56.040 --> 03:05:01.840
personal military sacrifices and services which were
rendered by his subjects German born. The

2176
03:05:01.920 --> 03:05:07.159
British subjects of the Crown were to
remain a people consecrated to peaceful pursuits to

2177
03:05:07.239 --> 03:05:11.879
commerce and trade and husbandry. The
defense of their coasts and shipping, and

2178
03:05:11.959 --> 03:05:16.840
the maintenance of order and general safety
would be guaranteed by a garrison of German

2179
03:05:16.879 --> 03:05:24.079
troops with the co operation of the
Imperial War Fleet. German born subjects residing

2180
03:05:24.120 --> 03:05:28.719
temporarily or permanently in the British Isles
would come under the same laws respecting compulsory

2181
03:05:28.760 --> 03:05:33.120
military service as their fellow subjects of
German blood in the other parts of the

2182
03:05:33.159 --> 03:05:39.000
Empire, and special enactments would be
drawn up to ensure that their interests did

2183
03:05:39.040 --> 03:05:45.159
not suffer from a periodical withdrawing on
training or other military calls. Necessarily,

2184
03:05:45.280 --> 03:05:50.399
a heavily differentiated scale of war taxation
would fall on British taxpayers to provide for

2185
03:05:50.440 --> 03:05:56.799
the upkeep of the garrison and to
equalize the services and sacrifices rendered by the

2186
03:05:56.840 --> 03:06:01.639
two branches of His Majesty's subjects.
As military service was not henceforth open to

2187
03:06:01.680 --> 03:06:07.840
any subject of British birth, no
further necessity for any training or exercise of

2188
03:06:07.920 --> 03:06:13.920
a military nature existed. Therefore,
all rifle clubs, drill associations, cadet

2189
03:06:13.959 --> 03:06:20.000
cause and similar bodies were henceforth declared
to be illegal. No weapons other than

2190
03:06:20.079 --> 03:06:24.440
guns for specified sporting purposes, duly
declared and registered, and open to inspection

2191
03:06:24.520 --> 03:06:30.120
when required, could be owned,
purchased, or carried. The science of

2192
03:06:30.239 --> 03:06:33.760
arms was to be eliminated altogether from
the life of a people who had shown

2193
03:06:33.840 --> 03:06:39.200
such marked repugnance to its study and
practice. The cold irony of the measure

2194
03:06:39.319 --> 03:06:45.639
struck home with the greater force because
its nature was so utterly unexpected. Public

2195
03:06:45.680 --> 03:06:50.760
anticipation had guessed at various forms of
military service, aggressively irksome or tactfully lightened,

2196
03:06:50.799 --> 03:06:54.559
as the case might be, in
any event, certain to be bitterly

2197
03:06:54.639 --> 03:07:01.040
unpopular. And now there had come
this contemptuous boon, which had removed at

2198
03:07:01.040 --> 03:07:05.159
one stroke the bogey of compulsory military
service from the troubled imaginings of the British

2199
03:07:05.159 --> 03:07:09.959
people, and fastened on them the
cruel distinction of being, in actual fact

2200
03:07:11.040 --> 03:07:15.959
what an enemy had called them in
splenetic scorn long years ago, A nation

2201
03:07:16.040 --> 03:07:20.760
of shopkeepers, ay something even below
that level, a race of shopkeepers who

2202
03:07:20.760 --> 03:07:26.319
were no longer a nation. Jovel
crumpled the paper in his hand and went

2203
03:07:26.319 --> 03:07:31.879
out into the sunlit street. A
sudden roll of drums and crash of brass

2204
03:07:31.959 --> 03:07:35.799
music filled the air. A company
of Bavarian infantry went by, in all

2205
03:07:35.840 --> 03:07:41.280
the pomp and circumstance of martial array
and the joyous swing of rapid rhythmic movement.

2206
03:07:43.159 --> 03:07:46.479
The street echoed and throbbed in the
Englishman's ears, with the exultant pulse

2207
03:07:46.559 --> 03:07:52.520
of youth and mastery set to loud
pagan music. A group of lads from

2208
03:07:52.520 --> 03:07:56.040
the tea shop clustered on the pavement
and watched the troops go by, staring

2209
03:07:56.079 --> 03:08:01.239
at a phase of life in which
they had no share. The marshal trappings,

2210
03:08:01.479 --> 03:08:05.840
the swaggering joy of life, the
comradeship of camp and barracks, the

2211
03:08:05.920 --> 03:08:11.000
hard discipline of drill yard and fatigue
duty, the long sentry watchings, the

2212
03:08:11.000 --> 03:08:16.479
trench digging, forced marches, wound
cold hunger, makeshift hospitals, and the

2213
03:08:16.520 --> 03:08:20.239
blood wet laurels. These were not
for them, such things they might only

2214
03:08:20.280 --> 03:08:24.559
guess at or see on a cinema
film. Darkly, they belonged to the

2215
03:08:24.639 --> 03:08:31.120
civilian nation. The function of afternoon
tea was still being languidly observed in the

2216
03:08:31.159 --> 03:08:37.639
Big drawing room when Yoval returned to
Berkshire Street. Cicily was playing the part

2217
03:08:37.680 --> 03:08:41.559
of hostess to a man of perhaps
forty one years of age, who looked

2218
03:08:41.559 --> 03:08:46.000
slightly older from his palpable attempts to
look very much younger. Percival Plazi was

2219
03:08:46.040 --> 03:08:52.159
a plump, pale faced, short
legged individual with puffy cheeks, over prominent

2220
03:08:52.239 --> 03:08:56.399
nose, and thin, colorless hair. His mother, with nothing more than

2221
03:08:56.479 --> 03:09:01.280
maternal prejudice to excuse her, had
discovered some twenty years ago that he was

2222
03:09:01.319 --> 03:09:05.760
a well favored young man and had
easily imbued her son with the same opinion.

2223
03:09:05.520 --> 03:09:11.040
The slipping away of years and the
natural transition of an unathletic boy into

2224
03:09:11.079 --> 03:09:16.360
the podgy, unhealthy looking man did
little to weaken the tradition. Plasi had

2225
03:09:16.360 --> 03:09:20.239
never been able to relinquish the idea
that a youthful charm and comeliness still centered

2226
03:09:20.280 --> 03:09:24.239
in his person, and labored daily
at his toilet with the devotion that a

2227
03:09:24.319 --> 03:09:31.600
hopelessly lost cause is so often able
to inspire. He babbled incessantly about himself

2228
03:09:31.639 --> 03:09:35.719
and the accessory futilities of his life, in short, neat complacent sentences,

2229
03:09:37.079 --> 03:09:41.440
and in a voice that Ronald Store
said reminded one of a fat bishop blessing

2230
03:09:41.479 --> 03:09:46.200
a butter making competition. While he
babbled, he kept his eyes fastened on

2231
03:09:46.319 --> 03:09:50.559
his listeners to observe the impression which
his important little announcements and pronouncements were making.

2232
03:09:52.319 --> 03:09:54.879
On the present occasion, he was
pattering forth a detailed description of the

2233
03:09:54.959 --> 03:10:01.840
upholstery and fittings of his new music
room, all the hangings violet deparm,

2234
03:10:01.280 --> 03:10:05.840
all the furnish of rosewood, the
only ornament in the room is a replica

2235
03:10:07.040 --> 03:10:11.879
of the Mozart statue in Vienna.
Nothing but Mozart is to be played in

2236
03:10:11.920 --> 03:10:16.200
the room. Absolutely nothing but Mozart. You will get rather tired of that,

2237
03:10:16.319 --> 03:10:20.040
won't you, said Cecily, feeling
that she was expected to comment on

2238
03:10:20.079 --> 03:10:26.799
this tremendous announcement. One gets tired
of everything, said Plasi, with a

2239
03:10:26.799 --> 03:10:31.799
fat little sigh of resignation. I
can't tell you how tired I am of

2240
03:10:31.879 --> 03:10:37.159
Rubenstein, and one day I suppose
I should be tired of Mozarts and Violet

2241
03:10:37.200 --> 03:10:41.159
de Palm and Rosewood. I never
thought it possible that I could ever tire

2242
03:10:41.200 --> 03:10:46.399
of john quills, and now I
simply won't have one in the house.

2243
03:10:46.040 --> 03:10:52.360
Oh the scene the other day because
someone brought some John quils into the house.

2244
03:10:52.239 --> 03:10:56.639
I'm afraid I was dreadfully rude,
but I rarely couldn't help it.

2245
03:10:58.600 --> 03:11:01.360
He could talk like this through a
long summer day or long winter evening.

2246
03:11:03.319 --> 03:11:07.719
Jovial belonged to a race forbidden to
bear arms. At the moment, he

2247
03:11:07.760 --> 03:11:11.159
would gladly have contented himself with the
weapons with which nature had endowed him.

2248
03:11:11.440 --> 03:11:16.920
If he might have kicked and pommeled
the abhorrent specimen of male humanity whom he

2249
03:11:16.920 --> 03:11:22.799
saw before him. Instead, he
broke into the conversation with an inspired flash

2250
03:11:22.840 --> 03:11:28.120
of malicious untruthfulness. It is wonderful, he observed, carelessly, how popular

2251
03:11:28.200 --> 03:11:33.639
that Viennese statue of Mozart has become. A friend who inspects county council art

2252
03:11:33.680 --> 03:11:37.120
schools, tell me you'll find a
copy of it in every classroom you go

2253
03:11:37.239 --> 03:11:43.479
into. It was a poor substitute
for physical violence, but it was all

2254
03:11:43.479 --> 03:11:48.360
that civilization allowed him in the way
of relieving his feelings. It had,

2255
03:11:48.440 --> 03:11:54.360
moreover, the effect of making Plaza
profoundly miserable. End of chapter eleven.

2256
03:12:05.200 --> 03:12:11.959
Chapter twelve of When William Came By
Sarkee. This is a LibriVox recording.

2257
03:12:13.479 --> 03:12:18.440
All LibriVox recordings are in the public
domain. For further information or to volunteer,

2258
03:12:18.879 --> 03:12:26.959
please go to LibriVox dot org.
Reading by and imentor When William Came

2259
03:12:28.559 --> 03:12:37.120
By Sarkee, Chapter twelve, The
Traveling Companions. The train bearing Yeovil on

2260
03:12:37.200 --> 03:12:41.520
his visit to Torywood, slid and
rattled westward through the hazy dreamland of an

2261
03:12:41.559 --> 03:12:46.280
English summer landscape seen from the train
windows. The stark, bare uglinness of

2262
03:12:46.319 --> 03:12:50.959
the metal line was forgotten, and
the eye rested only on the green solitude

2263
03:12:50.959 --> 03:12:58.239
that unfolded itself as the miles went
slipping by. Tall grasses and meadoweeds stood

2264
03:12:58.239 --> 03:13:03.840
in deep shocks field after field,
between the leafy boundaries of hedge or coppice,

2265
03:13:03.879 --> 03:13:07.200
thrusting themselves higher and higher till they
touched the low, sweeping branches of

2266
03:13:07.239 --> 03:13:13.239
the trees that here and there overshadowed
them. Broad streams, bordered with the

2267
03:13:13.319 --> 03:13:18.399
heavy fringe of reed and sedge,
went winding away into a green distance where

2268
03:13:18.399 --> 03:13:24.079
woodland and meadowland seemed indefinitely prolonged.
Narrow streamlets lost to view in the growth

2269
03:13:24.120 --> 03:13:28.520
that they fostered, disclosed their presence
merely by the water weed that showed in

2270
03:13:28.559 --> 03:13:33.040
a riband of rank verdure threading the
mellow a green of the fields. On

2271
03:13:33.120 --> 03:13:37.399
the stream banks, more hens walked
with jerky, confident steps, in the

2272
03:13:37.440 --> 03:13:41.760
easy boldness of those who had a
couple of other elements at their disposal in

2273
03:13:41.799 --> 03:13:48.360
an emergency. More timorous partridges raced
away from the apparition of the train,

2274
03:13:48.719 --> 03:13:54.239
looking all leg and neck like little
forest elves fleeing from human encounter, and

2275
03:13:54.360 --> 03:13:58.440
in the distance over the tree line. A heron or two flapped with slow

2276
03:13:58.520 --> 03:14:03.559
measured wing beats and an air of
being bent on an immeasurably longer journey than

2277
03:14:03.600 --> 03:14:09.079
the train that hurtled so frantically along
the rails. Now and then the meadow

2278
03:14:09.120 --> 03:14:13.479
land changed itself suddenly into orchard,
with close growing trees already showing the measure

2279
03:14:13.520 --> 03:14:18.879
of their coming harvest. And then
strawyard and farm buildings would slide into view.

2280
03:14:20.319 --> 03:14:24.040
Heavy dairy cattle, roan and skewballed
and dappled, stood near the gates,

2281
03:14:24.319 --> 03:14:28.920
drowsily, resentful of insect stings,
and bunched up companies of ducks,

2282
03:14:28.959 --> 03:14:35.120
halted in seeming a resolution between the
charms of the horse bond and the alluring

2283
03:14:35.159 --> 03:14:39.440
neighborhood of the farm kitchen. Away
by the banks of some rushing mill stream,

2284
03:14:39.639 --> 03:14:43.719
in a setting of copse and cornfield, a village might be guessed at

2285
03:14:45.040 --> 03:14:48.879
just a hint of red roof,
gray wreathed chimney and old church tower as

2286
03:14:48.920 --> 03:14:54.239
seen from the windows of the passing
train, and over it all brooded a

2287
03:14:54.239 --> 03:14:58.760
happy, settled calm, like the
dreaming murmur of a trout stream and the

2288
03:14:58.799 --> 03:15:03.840
far away cawing of rooks. It
was a land where it seemed as if

2289
03:15:03.840 --> 03:15:07.840
it must be always summer and generally
afternoon, a land where bees hummed among

2290
03:15:07.879 --> 03:15:13.600
the wild thyme and in the flower
beds of cottage gardens, where the harvest

2291
03:15:13.639 --> 03:15:18.280
mice rustled amid the corn and nettles, and the mill race flowed cool and

2292
03:15:18.440 --> 03:15:22.799
silent through water weeds and dark tunneled
sluices, and made soft, droning music

2293
03:15:22.920 --> 03:15:26.959
with the wooden mill wheel. And
the music carried with it the wording of

2294
03:15:28.000 --> 03:15:33.079
old, undying rhymes and sang of
the jolly, uncaring, uncared for miller,

2295
03:15:33.479 --> 03:15:37.200
of the farmer who went riding upon
his gray mare, of the mouse

2296
03:15:37.200 --> 03:15:41.399
who lived beneath the merry mill pin, of the sweet music on yonder green

2297
03:15:41.520 --> 03:15:45.479
Hill, and the dancers all in
yellow, the songs and fancies of a

2298
03:15:45.600 --> 03:15:50.520
lingering olden time when men took life
as children take a long summer day,

2299
03:15:50.079 --> 03:15:54.479
and went to bed at last,
with a simple trust in something they could

2300
03:15:54.479 --> 03:16:00.639
not have explained. Jovial watched the
passing landscape with the intent, hungry eyes

2301
03:16:00.680 --> 03:16:03.559
of a man who revisits a scene
that holds high place in his affections.

2302
03:16:05.520 --> 03:16:11.399
His imagination raced even quicker than the
train, following winding roads and twisting valleys

2303
03:16:11.399 --> 03:16:16.280
into unseen distances, picturing farms and
hamlets, hills and hollows, clattering in

2304
03:16:16.399 --> 03:16:22.479
yards and sleepy woodlands. A beautiful
country, said his only fellow traveler,

2305
03:16:22.559 --> 03:16:28.319
who was also gazing at the fleeting
landscape. Surely a country worth fighting for.

2306
03:16:30.440 --> 03:16:33.440
He spoke in fairly correct English,
But he was unmistakably a foreigner.

2307
03:16:33.760 --> 03:16:37.639
One could have allotted him with some
certainty to the eastern half of Europe.

2308
03:16:39.159 --> 03:16:43.120
A beautiful country, as you say, replied Jovil. Then he added the

2309
03:16:43.200 --> 03:16:50.120
question are you German? No,
a Hungarian, said the other. And

2310
03:16:50.360 --> 03:16:56.319
you are English, he asked.
I have been much in England, but

2311
03:16:56.440 --> 03:17:01.959
I am from Russia, said Yeovil, purposely misneading his companion on the subject

2312
03:17:01.040 --> 03:17:05.319
of his nationality in order to induce
him to talk with greater freedom on a

2313
03:17:05.360 --> 03:17:11.399
delicate topic. While living among foreigners
in a foreign land, he had shrunk

2314
03:17:11.440 --> 03:17:16.239
from hearing his country's disaster discuss nor
even alluded to. Now he was anxious

2315
03:17:16.239 --> 03:17:22.000
to learn what unprejudiced foreigners thought of
the catastrophe and the causes which had led

2316
03:17:22.120 --> 03:17:26.520
up to it. It is a
strange spectacle I wonder is it not so

2317
03:17:28.280 --> 03:17:33.319
resumed the other? A great nation
such as this was one of the greatest

2318
03:17:33.399 --> 03:17:37.440
nations in modern times or of any
time, carrying its flag and its language

2319
03:17:37.440 --> 03:17:41.639
into all parts of the world.
And now, after one short campaign,

2320
03:17:41.719 --> 03:17:46.680
it is. And he shrugged his
shoulders many times and made clucking noises at

2321
03:17:46.719 --> 03:17:50.360
the roof of his voice, like
a hen calling to a brood of roving

2322
03:17:50.440 --> 03:17:56.239
chickens as they grow soft. He
resumed a great world. Commerce brings great

2323
03:17:56.319 --> 03:18:03.639
luxury, and luxury brings softness.
They had everything to warn them things happening

2324
03:18:03.680 --> 03:18:07.319
in their own time and before their
eyes, and they would not be warned.

2325
03:18:07.079 --> 03:18:11.559
They had seen in one generation the
rise of the military and naval power

2326
03:18:11.600 --> 03:18:16.280
of the Japanese, a brown skinned
race living in some island, ice fields

2327
03:18:16.280 --> 03:18:20.959
and a tropical sea, the people
once thought of in connection with paper fans

2328
03:18:22.000 --> 03:18:26.280
and flowers and pretty tea gardens,
who suddenly marched and sailed into the world's

2329
03:18:26.280 --> 03:18:31.959
gaze as a great power. They
had seen two so eyes of the Bulgards,

2330
03:18:31.200 --> 03:18:35.760
a poor herd of Zappidiere, who
ridden peasants fist, a few students

2331
03:18:35.760 --> 03:18:41.360
scattered in exile in Bucharest, Odessa, who shot up in one generation to

2332
03:18:41.399 --> 03:18:46.680
be an armed and aggressive nation with
history in its hands. The English saw

2333
03:18:46.760 --> 03:18:50.399
these things happening, arm them,
and with a war cloud growing blacker and

2334
03:18:50.600 --> 03:18:54.280
bigger and always more threatening, on
their old threshold, they sat down to

2335
03:18:54.360 --> 03:19:00.280
grow soft and peaceful. They goose, soft and accommodating in all things.

2336
03:19:00.399 --> 03:19:05.000
In religion. In religion, said
Yovil. In religion, yes, said

2337
03:19:05.040 --> 03:19:09.879
his companion emphatically. They had come
to look on the Christ as a sort

2338
03:19:09.879 --> 03:19:16.040
of amiable elder father, whose letters
from aboard were worth reading. Then when

2339
03:19:16.040 --> 03:19:20.360
they had emptied all the divine mystery
and wonder out of their faith, naturally

2340
03:19:20.440 --> 03:19:24.680
they grew tired of it. Oh, but dreadfully tired of it. I

2341
03:19:24.840 --> 03:19:28.520
know many English of the country parts, and always they tell me they go

2342
03:19:28.639 --> 03:19:31.399
to church once in each week to
set the good example to the servants.

2343
03:19:33.239 --> 03:19:35.600
They were tired of their faith,
but they were not ver high enough to

2344
03:19:35.639 --> 03:19:41.200
become real pagans. Their dancing fauns
were good young men who tripped morris dancers

2345
03:19:41.200 --> 03:19:46.200
and late helped foods, and believed
in a sort of socialism which made for

2346
03:19:46.280 --> 03:19:50.559
the greatest dullness. Of the greatest
number, you will find plenty of them.

2347
03:19:50.559 --> 03:19:54.680
Still if you go into us remains
of social London, yeovil gave a

2348
03:19:54.719 --> 03:20:01.079
grunt of acquiescence. They grew soften, their political ideas tinued. The unsparing

2349
03:20:01.120 --> 03:20:05.520
critic for the old insular beliefs that
all the foreigners were devils and rogues.

2350
03:20:05.799 --> 03:20:09.680
They substituted an ass a belief equally
guarded in insular lack of knowledge, that

2351
03:20:09.920 --> 03:20:15.159
most foreigners were amiable good fellows who
only needed to be talked to and patted

2352
03:20:15.159 --> 03:20:18.920
on the back to become your friends
and benefactors. They began to believe that

2353
03:20:18.959 --> 03:20:26.120
our foreign minister would train English long
cherished schemes of national policy and hostile expansion

2354
03:20:26.200 --> 03:20:28.879
if he came over on a holiday
and was asked out to country houses and

2355
03:20:28.959 --> 03:20:35.200
so unders tennis court and the ock
garden and the younger children decent. I

2356
03:20:35.360 --> 03:20:39.319
once heard it solemnly stated that an
after dinner debate in some listollery club that

2357
03:20:39.479 --> 03:20:45.120
a certain very prominent a German statesman
had a daughter at school in England,

2358
03:20:45.360 --> 03:20:50.280
and that future friendly relations between the
two countries were improved in prospect. If

2359
03:20:50.319 --> 03:20:54.680
not a rued by that circumstance,
you think I'm laughing, I am according

2360
03:20:54.840 --> 03:21:01.719
fact and the men present with politicians
and statesmen, as very literary didly Dante.

2361
03:21:01.879 --> 03:21:05.760
It was an insular lack of insights
the words the mischief or some of

2362
03:21:05.799 --> 03:21:09.600
the mischief we in Hungary if he
left too much cheek by jove with our

2363
03:21:09.719 --> 03:21:16.239
racial neighbors to have many illusions about
them Austrians, Romanians, Serbs, Italians,

2364
03:21:16.319 --> 03:21:18.239
checks We know of what they think
of us, and we know what

2365
03:21:18.360 --> 03:21:22.559
to think of them. We know
what we want in the world, and

2366
03:21:22.680 --> 03:21:26.520
we know what they want. That
knowledge does not send us flying at each

2367
03:21:26.520 --> 03:21:31.200
other's roads, but he does keep
us from going soft. Ah, the

2368
03:21:31.280 --> 03:21:35.920
British lion was in a hurry to
inaugurate the Millennium and to lie down gracefully

2369
03:21:35.959 --> 03:21:39.360
with the lamb. He made two
mistakes, only two, but they were

2370
03:21:39.520 --> 03:21:45.079
very bad ones. The Millennium hadn't
arrived, and it was not a lamb

2371
03:21:45.120 --> 03:21:50.159
as he was lie down with.
You do not like the English, I

2372
03:21:50.319 --> 03:21:54.879
gadda, said Yeovil, as the
Hungarian went off into a short burst of

2373
03:21:54.879 --> 03:22:00.639
satirical laughter. I have always liked
them, he answered, but now I

2374
03:22:00.680 --> 03:22:05.959
am angry with them for being soft. Here's my station, he added,

2375
03:22:05.000 --> 03:22:09.959
as the train slowed down and he
commenced to gather his belongings together. I

2376
03:22:11.000 --> 03:22:15.319
am angry with them, he continued, as a final word on the subject,

2377
03:22:16.159 --> 03:22:22.360
because I hate sir Germans. He
raised his hat punctiliously in a parting

2378
03:22:22.360 --> 03:22:26.520
salute and stepped out onto the platform. His place was taken by a large,

2379
03:22:26.600 --> 03:22:31.639
loose limbed man with a florid face
and big staring eyes, and an

2380
03:22:31.680 --> 03:22:35.479
immense array of fishing basket, rod, flycases and so forth. He was

2381
03:22:35.479 --> 03:22:41.159
of the type that one could instinctively
locate as a loud voiced, self constituted

2382
03:22:41.200 --> 03:22:45.879
authority on whatever topic might happen to
be discussed in the bars of small hotels.

2383
03:22:46.280 --> 03:22:50.399
Are you English? He asked,
after a preliminary stare at Yeovil.

2384
03:22:52.680 --> 03:22:56.319
This time Yeovil did not trouble to
disguise his nationality. He nodded curtly to

2385
03:22:56.440 --> 03:23:01.959
his questioner. Glad of that,
said the fisherman. I don't like traveling

2386
03:23:01.959 --> 03:23:07.040
with Germans. Unfortunately, said Yobil. We have to travel with them as

2387
03:23:07.120 --> 03:23:11.959
partners in the same state concern,
and not by any means a predominant partner

2388
03:23:11.079 --> 03:23:16.520
either. Oh, that will soon
write itself, said the other, with

2389
03:23:16.680 --> 03:23:22.680
loud assertiveness. That will right itself
damn soon. Nothing in politics rights itself,

2390
03:23:22.360 --> 03:23:26.440
said Yobil. Things have to be
righted, which is a different matter.

2391
03:23:28.360 --> 03:23:31.799
What do you mean, said the
fisherman, who did not like to

2392
03:23:31.840 --> 03:23:37.360
have his assertions taken up and shaken
into shape. We have given a clever

2393
03:23:37.479 --> 03:23:41.120
and domineering people a chance to plant
themselves down as masters in our land.

2394
03:23:41.760 --> 03:23:45.959
I don't imagine that they are going
to give us an easy chance to push

2395
03:23:45.959 --> 03:23:48.719
them out. To do that,
we shall have to be a little cleverer

2396
03:23:48.760 --> 03:23:52.840
than they are, a little harder, a little fiercer, and a good

2397
03:23:52.879 --> 03:23:58.360
deal more self sacrificing than we have
been in my life time, or yours

2398
03:23:58.280 --> 03:24:03.000
will be that. Right enough,
said the fisherman. We mean business this

2399
03:24:03.120 --> 03:24:05.239
time. The last war wasn't a
war. There was a snap. We

2400
03:24:05.239 --> 03:24:09.959
weren't prepared and they were. That
won't happen again, bless you. I

2401
03:24:09.040 --> 03:24:13.399
know what I'm talking about. I
go up and down the country and I

2402
03:24:13.520 --> 03:24:18.319
hear what people are saying. Yeovil
privately doubted if he ever heard anything that

2403
03:24:18.440 --> 03:24:22.680
his own opinions. It tends to
reason, continued the Fisherman did a highly

2404
03:24:22.719 --> 03:24:26.319
civilized race like ours. With the
record that we've had for leading the whole

2405
03:24:26.360 --> 03:24:30.399
world is not going to be held
under for long by a lot of dams

2406
03:24:30.479 --> 03:24:33.879
sausage eating Germans. Don't you believe
it. I know what I'm talking about

2407
03:24:35.000 --> 03:24:39.680
now. I've traveled about the world
a bit. Yeovil shrewdly suspected that the

2408
03:24:39.719 --> 03:24:43.879
world travels amounted to nothing more than
a trip to the United States and perhaps

2409
03:24:43.920 --> 03:24:48.879
the Channel Islands, with possibly a
week or a fortnight in Paris. It

2410
03:24:48.959 --> 03:24:52.879
isn't the past you've got to think
of, it's the future, said Yeovil.

2411
03:24:52.440 --> 03:24:58.280
Other maritime pars had passed to look
on Spain and Harmon, for instance.

2412
03:24:58.719 --> 03:25:01.680
The past didn't help when they let
their sea sovereignty slip from them.

2413
03:25:03.120 --> 03:25:07.559
That is a matter of history,
and not very distant history either. Now

2414
03:25:07.719 --> 03:25:11.120
that's where you make a mistake,
said the other. Our sea sovereignty hasn't

2415
03:25:11.159 --> 03:25:16.280
slipped from us and won't do neither. There's a British empire beyond the seas

2416
03:25:16.680 --> 03:25:20.959
Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
East Africa. He rolled the names round

2417
03:25:20.959 --> 03:25:26.200
his tongue with obvious relish. If
it was a list of first class battleships,

2418
03:25:26.360 --> 03:25:31.040
en armored cruisers and destroyers, and
the airships that you were reading off.

2419
03:25:31.079 --> 03:25:35.040
There would be some comfort and hope
in the situation, said Yeovil.

2420
03:25:35.719 --> 03:25:39.520
The loyalty of the colonies is a
splendid thing, but it is only pathetically

2421
03:25:39.559 --> 03:25:46.159
splendid because it can do so little
to recover for us what we last against

2422
03:25:46.200 --> 03:25:50.959
the Zeppelin air fleet, and the
dreadnought sea squadrons and the new gelber House

2423
03:25:50.040 --> 03:25:56.440
cruisers. The last word in maritime
mobility of what a vail is loyal devotion

2424
03:25:56.559 --> 03:26:01.319
class half a dozen warships one keel
to ten, scattered over one or two

2425
03:26:01.360 --> 03:26:05.559
ocean coasts. Ah. But they'll
build, said the fisherman, Confidently,

2426
03:26:05.600 --> 03:26:11.200
they'll build. They're only waiting to
enlarge their dockyard accommodation and get the right

2427
03:26:11.280 --> 03:26:16.840
class of artificers and engineers and workmen
together. The money will be forthcoming somehow,

2428
03:26:16.879 --> 03:26:22.360
and they'll start in and build.
And do you suppose, asked Yeovil,

2429
03:26:22.520 --> 03:26:26.079
in slow, bitter contempt, that
the victorious nation is going to sit

2430
03:26:26.159 --> 03:26:31.879
and watch and wait till the defeated
foe has created a new war fleet big

2431
03:26:31.000 --> 03:26:35.360
enough to drive it from the seas. Do you suppose that is going to

2432
03:26:35.399 --> 03:26:39.920
watch? Keel added to keel for
gun to gun airship to airship till its

2433
03:26:39.959 --> 03:26:45.799
preponderance has been wiped out or even
threatened. That sort of thing is done

2434
03:26:45.879 --> 03:26:50.079
once in a generation, not twice. Who is going to protect Australia on

2435
03:26:50.200 --> 03:26:56.879
New Zealand while they enlarge their dockyards
and hangers and build their dreadnoughts and their

2436
03:26:56.920 --> 03:27:01.040
airships. Here's my station, and
I'm not sorry, said the fisherman,

2437
03:27:01.280 --> 03:27:05.840
gathering his tackle together and rising to
depart. I've listened to you long enough.

2438
03:27:07.159 --> 03:27:09.000
You and me wouldn't agree, not
if we were to talk all day.

2439
03:27:09.319 --> 03:27:13.319
Fact is, I'm out and out
patriot, and you're only a half

2440
03:27:13.360 --> 03:27:18.319
hearted one. That's what you are, half hearted. And with that parting

2441
03:27:18.360 --> 03:27:22.799
shot, he left the carriage and
lounged heavily adown the platform. A patriot

2442
03:27:22.840 --> 03:27:26.360
who had never handled a rifle,
or mounted a horse or pulled a know

2443
03:27:28.000 --> 03:27:33.040
but who had never flinched from demolishing
his country's enemies with his tongue. England

2444
03:27:33.079 --> 03:27:37.639
has never had any lack of patriots
on a time, thought Yeovil, Sadly,

2445
03:27:39.680 --> 03:27:54.040
so many patriots and so little patriotism. End of chapter twelve, Chapter

2446
03:27:54.200 --> 03:28:03.559
thirteen of When William came by Sarkee. This is a LibriVox recording. All

2447
03:28:03.639 --> 03:28:09.319
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer,

2448
03:28:09.799 --> 03:28:18.639
please go to LibriVox dot org.
Reading by and imentor When William came by

2449
03:28:18.680 --> 03:28:26.280
Saki, chapter thirteen, Tory Wood, Yeovil got out of the train a

2450
03:28:26.360 --> 03:28:31.360
small clean wayside station, and rapidly
formed the conclusion that neatness, abundant leisure,

2451
03:28:31.600 --> 03:28:37.200
and a devotion to the cultivation of
wall flowers and wyandots were the prevailing

2452
03:28:37.239 --> 03:28:43.239
influences of the station master's life.
The train slid away into the hazy distance

2453
03:28:43.280 --> 03:28:46.399
of trees and meadows, and left
the traveler standing in a world that seemed

2454
03:28:46.440 --> 03:28:50.200
to be made up in equal parts
of rock garden, chicken coops, and

2455
03:28:50.239 --> 03:28:56.959
whiskey advertisements. The station master,
who appeared also to act as emergency porter,

2456
03:28:56.559 --> 03:29:01.360
took Yeoville's ticket with the gesture of
a kind arted person, brushing away

2457
03:29:01.360 --> 03:29:05.639
a troublesome wasp, and returned to
a study of the Poultry Chronicle, which

2458
03:29:05.680 --> 03:29:11.120
was giving its readers sage Council concerning
the ailments of belated July chickens. Yovil

2459
03:29:11.239 --> 03:29:16.879
called to mind the station master of
a tiny railway town in Siberia, who

2460
03:29:16.920 --> 03:29:20.840
had held him in long and rather
intelligent converse on the poetical merits and demerits

2461
03:29:20.840 --> 03:29:24.639
of Shelley, And he wondered what
the result would be if he were to

2462
03:29:24.680 --> 03:29:30.280
engage the English official in a discussion
on Lermontoff, or, for the matter

2463
03:29:30.319 --> 03:29:35.120
of that, on Shelley. The
temptation to experiment was, however, removed

2464
03:29:35.159 --> 03:29:39.079
by the arrival of a young groom
with brown eyes and a friendly smile,

2465
03:29:39.559 --> 03:29:43.760
who hurried into the station and took
Yovil once more into a world where he

2466
03:29:43.920 --> 03:29:48.879
was of fleeting importance. In the
roadway outside was a four wheeled dog cart

2467
03:29:50.000 --> 03:29:54.000
with a pair of the famous Torywood
blue roans. It was an agreeable variation

2468
03:29:54.079 --> 03:29:58.840
in modern locomotion to be met at
a station with high class horse flesh instead

2469
03:29:58.840 --> 03:30:03.079
of the ubiquitous motor, and the
landscape was not of such a nature that

2470
03:30:03.120 --> 03:30:07.200
one wished to be whirled through it
in a cloud of dust. After a

2471
03:30:07.280 --> 03:30:13.760
quick spin of some ten or fifteen
minutes through twisting hedgegirt country roads, the

2472
03:30:13.840 --> 03:30:18.799
roans turned in at a wide gateway
and went with dancing rhythmic step along the

2473
03:30:18.879 --> 03:30:24.559
park drive. The screen of oak
crowned upland suddenly fell away, and a

2474
03:30:24.639 --> 03:30:28.559
gray, sharp cornered building came into
view in a setting of low growing beaches

2475
03:30:28.559 --> 03:30:33.760
and dark pines. Tory Wood was
not a stately, reposeful looking house.

2476
03:30:35.200 --> 03:30:39.719
It lay amid the sleepy landscape like
a couched watchdog with pricked ears and wakeful

2477
03:30:39.760 --> 03:30:45.920
eyes. Built somewhere about the last
years of Dutch William's reign, it had

2478
03:30:45.920 --> 03:30:50.520
been the center ever since for the
political life of the countryside, a storm

2479
03:30:50.600 --> 03:30:54.840
center of discontent, or a rallying
ground for the well affected, as the

2480
03:30:54.879 --> 03:31:00.399
circumstances of the day might entail.
On the stone flagged terrace in front of

2481
03:31:00.399 --> 03:31:05.200
the house, with its quaint leaden
figures of Diana pursuing a hound pressed stag.

2482
03:31:05.799 --> 03:31:09.440
Successive squires and lords of Torywood had
walked to and fro with their friends,

2483
03:31:09.440 --> 03:31:13.920
watching the thunderclouds on the political horizon, or the shifting shadows on the

2484
03:31:13.959 --> 03:31:20.520
sundial of political favor, tapping the
political barometer for indications of change, working

2485
03:31:20.520 --> 03:31:26.000
out a party campaign, or arranging
for the support of some national movement.

2486
03:31:26.959 --> 03:31:31.280
To and fro they had gone,
in their respective generations, men with the

2487
03:31:31.319 --> 03:31:35.639
passion for stake craft and political combats
strong in their veins, and many oft

2488
03:31:35.719 --> 03:31:41.760
recurring names had echoed under those wakeful
looking casements, names spoken in anger or

2489
03:31:41.840 --> 03:31:48.360
exultation, or murmured in fear and
anxiety. Bolingbrook, Charles, Edward,

2490
03:31:50.040 --> 03:31:56.079
Walpole, the Farmer, King Bonaparte, Pitt Wellington, Peel, Ladstone,

2491
03:31:56.760 --> 03:32:01.959
Echo, and Time might have gravened
their names on the stone flags and gray

2492
03:32:01.000 --> 03:32:07.360
walls. And now one tired old
woman walked there with names on her lips

2493
03:32:07.399 --> 03:32:13.319
that she never uttered. A friendly
riot of fox terriers and spaniels greeted the

2494
03:32:13.360 --> 03:32:18.520
carriage, leaping and rolling and yelping
in an exuberance of sociability, as though

2495
03:32:18.600 --> 03:32:22.559
horses and coachmen and groom were comrades
who had been absent for long months.

2496
03:32:22.680 --> 03:32:28.520
Instead of half an hour, an
indiscriminately affectionate puppy lay flat and whimpering at

2497
03:32:28.600 --> 03:32:33.159
Yovil's feet, sending up little showers
of gravel with its wildly thumping tail,

2498
03:32:33.360 --> 03:32:37.319
while two of the terriers raced each
other madly across lawn and shrubbery, as

2499
03:32:37.319 --> 03:32:41.799
though to show the blue roans what
speed really was. The laughing eyed young

2500
03:32:41.840 --> 03:32:46.639
groom disentangled the puppy from between Yovil's
legs, and then he was ushered into

2501
03:32:46.639 --> 03:32:52.000
the gray silence of the entrance hall, leaving sunlight and noise and the stir

2502
03:32:52.079 --> 03:32:56.639
of life behind him. Her ladyship
will see you in her writing room,

2503
03:32:56.680 --> 03:33:01.040
he was told, and he followed
a irvant along the dark passages to the

2504
03:33:01.040 --> 03:33:07.319
well remembered room. There was something
tragic in the sudden contrast between the vigor

2505
03:33:07.399 --> 03:33:11.879
and youth and pride of life that
Yeovil had seen crystallized in those dancing,

2506
03:33:13.239 --> 03:33:18.840
high stepping horses, scampering dogs,
and alert, clean limbed young men servants,

2507
03:33:18.840 --> 03:33:22.639
and the aged, frail woman who
came forward to meet him. Eleanor

2508
03:33:24.000 --> 03:33:28.879
Dowager Lady gray Martin had for more
than half a century been the ruling spirit

2509
03:33:28.920 --> 03:33:33.360
at Torywood. The affairs of the
county had not sufficed for her untiring activities

2510
03:33:33.360 --> 03:33:39.159
of mind and body. In the
wider field of national and imperial service,

2511
03:33:39.639 --> 03:33:43.959
she had worked and schemed and fought
with an energy and a far sightedness that

2512
03:33:43.079 --> 03:33:48.600
came probably from the blend of caution
and bold restlessness in her Scottish blood.

2513
03:33:48.399 --> 03:33:52.719
For many educated minds, the arena
of politics and public life is a weariness

2514
03:33:52.760 --> 03:33:58.079
of dust and disgust. To others, it is a fascinating study to be

2515
03:33:58.120 --> 03:34:01.120
watched from the comfortable seat of a
spec data. To her, it was

2516
03:34:01.159 --> 03:34:05.200
a home in her town house,
or down at Tory Wood, with her

2517
03:34:05.200 --> 03:34:09.399
writing pad on her knee and the
telephone at her elbow, or in personal

2518
03:34:09.520 --> 03:34:15.440
counsel with some trusted colleague, or
persuasive argument with a halting, adherent or

2519
03:34:15.479 --> 03:34:18.840
half convinced opponent. She had labored
on behalf of the poor and the ill

2520
03:34:18.840 --> 03:34:24.360
equipped, had fought for her idea
of the right, and above all,

2521
03:34:24.479 --> 03:34:31.000
for the safety and sanity of her
fatherland. Spadework when necessary and leadership when

2522
03:34:31.040 --> 03:34:35.840
called for came alike within the scope
of her activities, and not least of

2523
03:34:35.879 --> 03:34:39.799
her achievements, though perhaps she hardly
realized it was the force of her example

2524
03:34:41.079 --> 03:34:46.120
alone, indomitable fighter, calling to
the half caring and the half discouraged,

2525
03:34:46.319 --> 03:34:50.799
to the laggard and the slow moving. And now she came across the room

2526
03:34:50.920 --> 03:34:56.920
with the tired step of a tired
king. And that look which the French

2527
03:34:56.040 --> 03:35:03.280
so expressively call leir de fae,
the charm which Heaven bestows on old ladies,

2528
03:35:03.440 --> 03:35:07.840
reserving its highest gift to the end, had always seemed in her case

2529
03:35:07.920 --> 03:35:11.879
to be lost sight of in the
dignity and interest of a great dame who

2530
03:35:11.920 --> 03:35:16.639
was still in the full prime of
her fighting and ruling powers. Now in

2531
03:35:16.719 --> 03:35:20.440
Ioville's eyes, she had suddenly come
to be very old, stricken with the

2532
03:35:20.479 --> 03:35:24.799
forlorn languor of one who knows that
death will be weary to wait. For

2533
03:35:26.840 --> 03:35:31.239
she had spared herself nothing in the
long labor, the ceaseless building, the

2534
03:35:31.360 --> 03:35:35.399
watch and ward, and in one
short autumn week she had seen the overthrow

2535
03:35:35.440 --> 03:35:39.200
of all that she had built,
the falling asunder of the world in which

2536
03:35:39.200 --> 03:35:43.479
she had labored. Her life's end
was like a harvest home, when blight

2537
03:35:43.559 --> 03:35:50.079
and storm have laid waste the fruit
of long toil and unsparing outlay. Victory

2538
03:35:50.120 --> 03:35:54.280
had been her goal, the death
or victory of an old heroic challenge,

2539
03:35:54.639 --> 03:35:58.399
for she had always dreamt to die
fighting to the last death or victory,

2540
03:36:00.159 --> 03:36:03.559
and the gods had given her neither, only the bitterness of a defeat that

2541
03:36:03.639 --> 03:36:07.159
could not be measured in words,
and the weariness of a life that had

2542
03:36:07.159 --> 03:36:13.920
outlived happiness or hope. Such was
Eleanor Dowager, Lady gray Martin, a

2543
03:36:13.000 --> 03:36:18.200
shadow amid the young, red blooded
life at Torywood, but a shadow that

2544
03:36:18.360 --> 03:36:22.600
was too real to die, a
shadow that was stronger than the substance that

2545
03:36:22.680 --> 03:36:28.120
surrounded it. Jeovill talked long and
hurriedly of his late travels, of the

2546
03:36:28.200 --> 03:36:33.319
vast Siberian forests and rivers, the
desolate tundras, the lakes and marshes where

2547
03:36:33.360 --> 03:36:37.040
the wild swans rear their broods,
the flower carpet of the summer fields,

2548
03:36:37.040 --> 03:36:43.040
and the winter ice mantled of Rusha's
northern sea. He talked as a man

2549
03:36:43.120 --> 03:36:46.239
talks who avoids the subject that is
uppermost in his mind and in the mind

2550
03:36:46.280 --> 03:36:50.200
of his hearer, as one who
looks away from a wound or deformity that

2551
03:36:50.360 --> 03:36:56.280
is too cruel to be taken notice
of. Tea was served in a long

2552
03:36:56.360 --> 03:37:01.879
oak paneled gallery where generations of musselfords
had romped and played as children, and

2553
03:37:01.000 --> 03:37:05.520
remained yet in effigy, in a
collection of more or less faithful portraits.

2554
03:37:07.159 --> 03:37:11.239
After Tea, Yovil was taken by
his hostess to the Aviaries, which constituted

2555
03:37:11.239 --> 03:37:16.159
the sole claim which Tory would possessed
to being considered a show place. The

2556
03:37:16.319 --> 03:37:22.200
third Earl of gray Martin had collected
rare and interesting birds. Somewhere about the

2557
03:37:22.239 --> 03:37:26.120
time when Gilbert White was penning the
last of his Deathless letters and his successors

2558
03:37:26.159 --> 03:37:31.719
in the title had perpetuated the hobby. Little lawns and ponds and shrubberies were

2559
03:37:31.760 --> 03:37:37.440
partitioned off for the various ground loving
species, and higher cages with interlacing perches

2560
03:37:37.440 --> 03:37:43.040
and rockwood shelves accommodated the birds,
whose natural expression of movement was on the

2561
03:37:43.079 --> 03:37:48.719
wing. Quails and francolins scurried about
under low growing shrubs. Peacock pheasants strutted

2562
03:37:48.719 --> 03:37:54.479
and sunned themselves. Pugnacious ruffs engaged
in perfunctory battles from force of habit.

2563
03:37:54.600 --> 03:38:00.120
Now that the rivalry of the mating
season was over, chaffs, ravens and

2564
03:38:00.120 --> 03:38:05.399
loud throated gulls occupied sections of a
vast rockery, and bright hued Chinese pond

2565
03:38:05.440 --> 03:38:09.600
herons and delicately stepping egrets waded among
the water lilies of a marble terraced tank.

2566
03:38:11.280 --> 03:38:15.159
One or two dusky shapes seen dimly
in the recesses of a large cage

2567
03:38:15.200 --> 03:38:18.440
built round a hollow tree would be
lively owls. When the evening came on.

2568
03:38:20.799 --> 03:38:24.200
In the course of his many wanderings. Jovill had himself contributed three or

2569
03:38:24.239 --> 03:38:30.000
four inhabitants to this little feathered town, and he went round the enclosures,

2570
03:38:30.079 --> 03:38:37.000
renewing old acquaintances and examining new editions. The falcon cage is empty, said

2571
03:38:37.079 --> 03:38:41.559
Lady gray Martin, pointing to a
large wid dome that towered high above the

2572
03:38:41.600 --> 03:38:46.959
other enclosures. I let the lana
fly free one day. The other birds

2573
03:38:48.000 --> 03:38:52.159
may be reconciled to their comfortable quarters
and abundant food and absence of dangers.

2574
03:38:52.879 --> 03:38:56.319
But I don't think all those things
could make up to a falcon for the

2575
03:38:56.399 --> 03:39:01.239
wild range of cliff and desert.
When one has lost one's own liberty,

2576
03:39:01.399 --> 03:39:07.520
one feels a quicker sympathy for other
caged things. I suppose there was silence

2577
03:39:07.559 --> 03:39:11.840
for a moment, and then the
dowager went on in a wistful, passionate

2578
03:39:11.959 --> 03:39:16.760
voice. I am an old woman, now, Mary, I must die

2579
03:39:16.760 --> 03:39:22.879
in my cage. I haven't the
strength to fight. Age is a very

2580
03:39:22.959 --> 03:39:26.600
real and cruel thing, though we
may shut our eyes to it and pretend

2581
03:39:26.639 --> 03:39:30.799
it is not there. I thought
at one time that I should never really

2582
03:39:30.879 --> 03:39:33.959
know what it meant, what it
brought to one I thought of it as

2583
03:39:33.959 --> 03:39:37.840
a messenger that one could keep waiting
out in the yard till the very last

2584
03:39:37.920 --> 03:39:43.920
moment. I know now what it
means. But you will marry. You

2585
03:39:43.959 --> 03:39:48.159
are young, you can fight.
Are you going to be a fighter or

2586
03:39:48.200 --> 03:39:52.719
the very humble servant of the Peter
Compli? I shall never be the servant

2587
03:39:52.760 --> 03:39:58.000
of the faith a Compli, said
Yovil. I loathe it. As to

2588
03:39:58.120 --> 03:40:03.399
fighting, one must first find out
what weapon to use and how to use

2589
03:40:03.440 --> 03:40:09.200
it effectively. One must watch and
wait. One must not wait too long,

2590
03:40:09.840 --> 03:40:13.639
said the old woman. Time is
on their side, not ours.

2591
03:40:13.280 --> 03:40:16.639
It is the young people we must
fight for now. If they are ever

2592
03:40:16.719 --> 03:40:22.040
to fight for us, a new
generation will spring up, a weaker memory

2593
03:40:22.079 --> 03:40:28.600
of old glories will survive the eCloud. The ruling race will capture young imaginations.

2594
03:40:30.040 --> 03:40:33.360
If I had your youth, Malley, and your sex, I would

2595
03:40:33.360 --> 03:40:41.120
become a commercial traveler. A commercial
traveler, exclaimed Jovil, Yes, one

2596
03:40:41.120 --> 03:40:45.840
whose business took him up and down
the country into contact with all classes,

2597
03:40:46.200 --> 03:40:50.040
into homes and shops and inns and
railway carriages. And as I traveled,

2598
03:40:50.079 --> 03:40:54.840
I would work work on the minds
of every boy and girl. I came

2599
03:40:54.879 --> 03:41:00.319
across every young father and young mother
too, every young couple that were going

2600
03:41:00.319 --> 03:41:03.639
to be man and wife. I
would awaken or keep alive in their memory

2601
03:41:03.680 --> 03:41:07.840
the things that we have been,
the grand, brave things that some of

2602
03:41:07.840 --> 03:41:13.319
our race have done, and I
would stir up a longing, a determination

2603
03:41:13.440 --> 03:41:16.920
for the future that we must win
back. I would be a counter agent

2604
03:41:18.000 --> 03:41:22.000
to the agents of the Beata Compli. In course of time, the government

2605
03:41:22.040 --> 03:41:24.559
would find out what I was doing, and I should be sent out of

2606
03:41:24.600 --> 03:41:28.479
the country. But I should have
accomplished something, and others would carry on

2607
03:41:28.559 --> 03:41:33.079
the work. That is what I
would do, Murray, even if it

2608
03:41:33.239 --> 03:41:37.280
is to be a losing battle,
fight it, Fight it. Yovill knew

2609
03:41:37.360 --> 03:41:43.559
that the old lady was fighting her
last battle, rallying the discouraged and spurring

2610
03:41:43.600 --> 03:41:48.040
on the backward. A footman came
to announce that the carriage waited to take

2611
03:41:48.079 --> 03:41:52.760
him back to the station. His
hostess walked with him through the hall and

2612
03:41:52.920 --> 03:41:58.440
came out on to the stone flag
terrace, the terrace from which a former

2613
03:41:58.520 --> 03:42:05.920
lady gray Martin had watched the twinkling
bonfires that told of Waterloo. Yovil said

2614
03:42:05.959 --> 03:42:09.479
goodbye to her as she stood there. A Wan, shrunken shadow, yet

2615
03:42:09.479 --> 03:42:15.559
with the greater strength and reality in
her flickering life than those parrot men and

2616
03:42:15.639 --> 03:42:22.479
women that fluttered and chattered through London
drawing rooms and theater foyers. As the

2617
03:42:22.559 --> 03:42:26.959
carriage swung round a bend in the
drive, Yovil looked back at Torywood,

2618
03:42:26.399 --> 03:42:31.440
a lone gray building in the midst
of the sleeping landscape. An old,

2619
03:42:31.600 --> 03:42:39.079
pleading voice was still ringing in his
ears. Imperious and yet forlorn, came

2620
03:42:39.159 --> 03:42:43.559
through the silence of the trees,
the echoes of a golden horn calling to

2621
03:42:43.760 --> 03:42:48.760
distances. Somehow, Yovil knew that
he would never hear that voice again,

2622
03:42:50.479 --> 03:42:54.399
and he knew too that he would
hear it always with its message be a

2623
03:42:54.600 --> 03:43:01.280
fighter. And he knew, now, with a shameful consciousness that sprang suddenly

2624
03:43:01.360 --> 03:43:07.200
into existence, that the summons would
sound for him in vain. The weary

2625
03:43:07.280 --> 03:43:13.120
brain, torturing months of fever had
left their trail behind, a lassitude of

2626
03:43:13.159 --> 03:43:18.159
spirit and a sluggishness of blood,
the quenching of the desire to roam and

2627
03:43:18.280 --> 03:43:22.200
court, adventure and hardship. In
the hours of waking and depression between the

2628
03:43:22.280 --> 03:43:28.399
raging intervals of delirium. He had
speculated with a sort of detached, listless

2629
03:43:28.399 --> 03:43:31.719
indifference on the chances of his getting
back to life and strength and energy.

2630
03:43:33.600 --> 03:43:39.319
The prospect of filling a corner of
some lonely Siberian graveyard or Finnish cemetry had

2631
03:43:39.360 --> 03:43:43.159
seemed near realization at times, and
for a man who was already half dead,

2632
03:43:43.399 --> 03:43:48.120
the other half did not particularly matter. But when he had allowed himself

2633
03:43:48.120 --> 03:43:52.000
to dwell on the more hopeful side
of the case, it had always been

2634
03:43:52.040 --> 03:43:56.200
a complete recovery that awaited him.
The same yovil as of Yore, a

2635
03:43:56.239 --> 03:44:01.239
little thinner and more lined about the
eyes, perhaps, would go through life

2636
03:44:01.239 --> 03:44:05.120
in the same way, alert,
resolute, enterprising, ready to start off

2637
03:44:05.159 --> 03:44:09.479
at short notice for some desert or
upland where the eagles were circling and the

2638
03:44:09.520 --> 03:44:16.000
wild fowl were calling. He had
not reckoned that death evaded and held off

2639
03:44:16.040 --> 03:44:20.239
by the doctor's skill might exact a
compromise, and that only part of the

2640
03:44:20.280 --> 03:44:26.399
man would go free to the west. And now he began to realize how

2641
03:44:26.479 --> 03:44:31.600
little of mental and physical energy he
could count on. His own country had

2642
03:44:31.680 --> 03:44:35.239
never seemed in his eyes so comfort
yielding and to be desired as it did

2643
03:44:35.319 --> 03:44:39.680
now. When it had passed into
alien keeping and become a prison land as

2644
03:44:39.760 --> 03:44:45.559
much as a homeland. London,
with its thin mockery of a season and

2645
03:44:45.639 --> 03:44:50.600
its chattering horde of empty hearted self
seekers, held no attraction for him.

2646
03:44:50.200 --> 03:44:54.639
But the spell of English country life
was weaving itself round him, now that

2647
03:44:54.680 --> 03:45:00.440
the charm of the desert was receding
into a mist of memories, the waning

2648
03:45:00.479 --> 03:45:05.079
of pleasant autumn days in an English
woodland, the whir of game birds in

2649
03:45:05.120 --> 03:45:09.120
the clean harvested fields, the gray, moist mornings in the saddle with the

2650
03:45:09.159 --> 03:45:15.840
magical cry of hounds coming up from
some misty hollow, and then the delicious

2651
03:45:15.879 --> 03:45:20.959
abandon of physical weariness in bathroom and
bedroom after a long run, and the

2652
03:45:20.040 --> 03:45:26.719
heavenly snatched hour of luxurious sleep before
stirring back to life and hunger, the

2653
03:45:26.840 --> 03:45:31.079
coming of the dinner hour, and
the jollity of a well chosen house party.

2654
03:45:31.600 --> 03:45:35.319
That was the call which was competing
with that other trumpet call, and

2655
03:45:35.520 --> 03:45:43.760
the oval knew on which side his
choice would incline end of chapter thirteen,

2656
03:45:52.559 --> 03:46:01.479
Chapter fourteen of When William Came by
Sake. This is a LibriVox recording.

2657
03:46:01.000 --> 03:46:07.959
All LibriVox recordings are in the public
domain. For further information or to volunteer,

2658
03:46:07.440 --> 03:46:16.159
please go to LibriVox dot org.
Reading by and Imenta, When William

2659
03:46:16.239 --> 03:46:24.120
came by Sarkee, Chapter fourteen,
A perfectly glorious afternoon. It was one

2660
03:46:24.159 --> 03:46:28.879
of the last days of July.
Cooled and freshened by a touch of rain,

2661
03:46:28.040 --> 03:46:33.680
and dropping back again to a languorous
warmth, London looked at its summer

2662
03:46:33.760 --> 03:46:37.399
best, rainwashed and sunlit, with
the maximum of coming and going in its

2663
03:46:37.399 --> 03:46:43.879
more fashionable streets. Cicily Yoville sat
in a screened alcove of the Anchorage Restaurant,

2664
03:46:45.200 --> 03:46:50.600
a feeding ground which had lately sprung
into favor. Opposite her sat Ronnie,

2665
03:46:50.639 --> 03:46:54.319
confronting the ruins of what had been
a dish of prawns in aspec Cool

2666
03:46:54.440 --> 03:46:58.959
and clean and fresh colored, he
was good to look on in the eyes

2667
03:46:58.000 --> 03:47:03.440
of his companion. And yet perhaps
there was a ruffle in her soul that

2668
03:47:03.559 --> 03:47:07.280
called for some answering disturbance on the
part of that superbly, tranquil young man,

2669
03:47:07.680 --> 03:47:13.520
and certainly called in vain Cecily had
set up for herself a fetish of

2670
03:47:13.600 --> 03:47:18.520
onyx, with eyes of jade,
and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable

2671
03:47:18.639 --> 03:47:22.360
but perfectly natural hunger for something of
flesh and blood. It was the religion

2672
03:47:22.399 --> 03:47:26.879
of her life to know exactly what
she wanted and to see that she got

2673
03:47:26.920 --> 03:47:31.280
it. But there was no possible
guarantee against her occasionally experiencing a desire for

2674
03:47:31.360 --> 03:47:35.920
something else. It is the golden
rule of all religions that no one should

2675
03:47:37.000 --> 03:47:41.000
really live up to their precepts.
When a man observes the principle of his

2676
03:47:41.079 --> 03:47:45.360
religion too exactly, he is in
immediate danger of founding a new sect.

2677
03:47:46.600 --> 03:47:50.120
To day is going to be your
day of triumph, said Cecily to the

2678
03:47:50.200 --> 03:47:52.799
young man, who was wondering at
the moment whether he would care to embark

2679
03:47:52.879 --> 03:47:58.040
on an artitoke. I believe I'm
more nervous than you are, she added,

2680
03:47:58.239 --> 03:48:01.760
And yet I rather hate the idea
of your scoring a great success,

2681
03:48:01.479 --> 03:48:07.520
Why, asked Ronnie, diverting his
mind for a moment from the attitude question

2682
03:48:07.639 --> 03:48:13.319
and its ramifications of source on on
days or Venegre. I like you as

2683
03:48:13.319 --> 03:48:16.360
you are, said Cecily, just
a nice looking boy to flatter and spoil

2684
03:48:16.399 --> 03:48:20.920
and pretend to be fond of.
You've got a charming young body, and

2685
03:48:20.959 --> 03:48:24.399
you've no soul, and that such
a fascinating combination. If you had a

2686
03:48:24.440 --> 03:48:28.200
soul, you would either dislike or
worship me. And I'd much rather have

2687
03:48:28.319 --> 03:48:33.159
things as they are. And now
you're going to go step beyond that,

2688
03:48:33.399 --> 03:48:37.680
and other people will applaud you and
say that you're wonderful and invite you to

2689
03:48:37.719 --> 03:48:41.520
eat with them, and motor with
them and yacht with them. Soon as

2690
03:48:41.559 --> 03:48:43.319
that begins to happen, Ronnie,
a lot of other things will come to

2691
03:48:43.360 --> 03:48:46.799
an end. Of course, I've
always known that you don't really care for

2692
03:48:48.000 --> 03:48:52.440
me, But as soon as the
world knows it, you're irrevocably damaged as

2693
03:48:52.440 --> 03:48:56.399
a plaything. That is the great
secret that binds us together, the knowledge

2694
03:48:56.399 --> 03:49:01.440
that we have no real affection for
one another. And this afternoon every one

2695
03:49:01.440 --> 03:49:05.479
will know that you're a great artist, and no great artist was ever a

2696
03:49:05.520 --> 03:49:09.600
great lover. I shall be difficult
to replace. Anyway, said Ronnie,

2697
03:49:09.799 --> 03:49:15.360
with what he imagined was a becoming
modesty. There are lots of boys standing

2698
03:49:15.440 --> 03:49:18.079
round, ready to be fed and
flattered and put on an imaginary pedestal,

2699
03:49:18.719 --> 03:49:22.360
most of them more or less good
looking and well turned out, and amusing

2700
03:49:22.399 --> 03:49:26.479
to talk to. Oh, I
daresay I could find a success of your

2701
03:49:26.559 --> 03:49:31.079
vacated niche said Cecily. Lightly.
One thing I'm determined on. Though he

2702
03:49:31.120 --> 03:49:37.200
shan't be a musician. It's so
unsatisfactory to have to share a grand passion

2703
03:49:37.239 --> 03:49:41.840
with the grand piano. He shall
be a delightful young barbarian who would think

2704
03:49:41.879 --> 03:49:46.639
saurs Oles was a Derby winner or
a claret. Don't be in too much

2705
03:49:46.680 --> 03:49:50.280
of a hurry to replace me,
said Ronnie, who did not care to

2706
03:49:50.319 --> 03:49:54.559
have his successor too seriously discussed.
I may not score the success you expect.

2707
03:49:54.600 --> 03:50:00.159
This afternoon, my dear boy,
a minor crowned head from across the

2708
03:50:00.239 --> 03:50:03.719
sea is coming to hear you play, and that alone will count as a

2709
03:50:03.799 --> 03:50:07.639
success with most of your listeners.
Also, I have secured a real duchess

2710
03:50:07.719 --> 03:50:13.680
for you, which is rather an
achievement in the London of to day an

2711
03:50:13.719 --> 03:50:18.840
English duchess, asked Ronnie, who
early in life learnt to apply the Merchandise

2712
03:50:18.959 --> 03:50:22.520
Marks Act to ducal titles English.
Oh, certainly, as far as the

2713
03:50:22.520 --> 03:50:26.840
title goes, she was born under
the constellation of the star spangled banner.

2714
03:50:28.159 --> 03:50:31.239
Who I don't suppose the Duke approves
of her being here, lending her countenance

2715
03:50:31.239 --> 03:50:35.040
to the fate. A compli.
But when you've got Republican blood in your

2716
03:50:35.120 --> 03:50:39.159
veins, a kaiser is quite as
a tract of a load star as a

2717
03:50:39.280 --> 03:50:45.920
king rather more so. And Canon
mousepace is coming, continued Cecily, referring

2718
03:50:45.959 --> 03:50:50.719
to a closely written list of guests. The excellent von Torb has been attending

2719
03:50:50.760 --> 03:50:54.639
his church lately, and the Cannon
is longing to meet her. She is

2720
03:50:54.680 --> 03:50:58.959
just the sort of person he adores. I fancy he sincerely realizes how difficu

2721
03:51:00.239 --> 03:51:03.200
it will be for the rich to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and he

2722
03:51:03.239 --> 03:51:05.360
tries to make up for it by
being as nice as possible to them in

2723
03:51:05.399 --> 03:51:11.319
this world. Ronnie held out his
hand for the list. I think you

2724
03:51:11.440 --> 03:51:18.200
know most of the others, said
Cecily, passing it to him. Lieutenant

2725
03:51:18.319 --> 03:51:22.920
von Gabel wrote, read out,
Ronnie, who is he in one of

2726
03:51:22.920 --> 03:51:28.799
the whose are regiments quartered here?
A friend of the Gryffins, Ugly but

2727
03:51:28.879 --> 03:51:33.200
amiable, and I'm told good cross
country rider. I suppose Mary will be

2728
03:51:33.239 --> 03:51:37.280
disgusted at meeting the utlard and visible
sign under his roof, but these encounters

2729
03:51:37.280 --> 03:51:43.040
are inevitable as long as he is
in London. I didn't know Murray was

2730
03:51:43.120 --> 03:51:46.280
coming, said Ronnie. I believe
he's going to look in on us,

2731
03:51:46.719 --> 03:51:50.040
said Cecily. It's just as well, you know, otherwise we should have

2732
03:51:50.159 --> 03:51:54.760
Joan asking in her loudest voice when
he was going to be back in England

2733
03:51:54.799 --> 03:51:58.239
again. I haven't asked her,
but she overheard the Gryffin arranging to come

2734
03:51:58.280 --> 03:52:03.239
and hear you play. And I
fancy that will be quite enough. Now,

2735
03:52:03.280 --> 03:52:07.440
how about some Turkish coffee, said
Ronnie, who had decided against the

2736
03:52:07.520 --> 03:52:13.479
art joke. Turkish coffee, certainly, and a cigarette and a moment's peast

2737
03:52:13.559 --> 03:52:18.520
before the serious business of the afternoon
claims us talking about peace. Do you

2738
03:52:18.559 --> 03:52:20.479
know, Ronnie, it has just
occurred to me that we have left out

2739
03:52:20.520 --> 03:52:24.200
one of the most important things in
our affair. We have never had a

2740
03:52:24.280 --> 03:52:31.840
quarrel. I hate quarrels, said
Ronnie. They're so domesticated. That's the

2741
03:52:31.920 --> 03:52:37.120
first time I've ever heard you talk
about your home, said Cecily. I

2742
03:52:37.159 --> 03:52:41.479
fancy it would apply to most homes, said Ronnie. The last boyfriend I

2743
03:52:41.559 --> 03:52:46.559
had used to quarrel furious with me
at least once a week, said Cecily

2744
03:52:46.680 --> 03:52:50.959
reflectively. But then he had dark, slumberous eyes that lit up magnificently when

2745
03:52:50.959 --> 03:52:54.520
he was angry, So it would
have been a sure waste of God's good

2746
03:52:54.559 --> 03:52:58.159
gifts not to have sent him into
a passion. Now and then, with

2747
03:52:58.319 --> 03:53:03.760
your excur into the past and future, you're making me feel dreadfully like an

2748
03:53:03.799 --> 03:53:09.559
installment of a serial novel, protested
Ronnie. We have now got to synopsis

2749
03:53:09.600 --> 03:53:15.520
of earlier chapters. It shan't be
teased, said Cecide. We will live

2750
03:53:15.559 --> 03:53:18.200
in the present and go no further
into the future than to make arrangements for

2751
03:53:18.280 --> 03:53:22.559
Tuesday's dinner party. I have asked
the Duchess. She would never have forgiven

2752
03:53:22.559 --> 03:53:26.479
me if she'd found out that I
had a crowned head dining with me and

2753
03:53:26.520 --> 03:53:31.319
hadn't asked her to meet him.
A sudden hush descended on the company gathered

2754
03:53:31.319 --> 03:53:35.159
in the Great Drawing Room at Berkshire
Street as Ronnie took his seat at the

2755
03:53:35.200 --> 03:53:39.959
piano. The voice of Cannon Mousepace
outlasted the others for a moment or so,

2756
03:53:41.639 --> 03:53:46.719
and then subsided into a regretful but
gracious silence. For the next nine

2757
03:53:46.799 --> 03:53:50.840
or ten minutes, Ronnie held possession
of the crowded room, a tense,

2758
03:53:50.920 --> 03:53:56.040
slender figure with cold green eyes aflame
in a sudden fire and smooth, burnished

2759
03:53:56.040 --> 03:54:01.440
head bent low over the keyboard that
yielded a disciplined out of melody under his

2760
03:54:01.520 --> 03:54:07.360
strong, deft fingers. The world
weary Landgraf forgot for the moment the regrettable

2761
03:54:07.399 --> 03:54:13.799
trend of his subjects towards parliamentary socialism. The excellent Kaifn von tob forgot all

2762
03:54:13.840 --> 03:54:16.479
that the Cannon had been saying to
her for the last ten minutes, forgot

2763
03:54:16.520 --> 03:54:20.520
the depressing certainty that he would have
a great deal more that he wanted to

2764
03:54:20.559 --> 03:54:24.399
say in the immediate future, over
and above the thirty five minutes or so

2765
03:54:24.600 --> 03:54:31.000
of discourse that she would contract to
listen to next Sunday, And Cecily listened

2766
03:54:31.000 --> 03:54:33.799
with the wistful, equivocal triumph of
one whose goose has turned out to be

2767
03:54:33.840 --> 03:54:39.760
a swan, and who realizes with
secret concern that she has only planned the

2768
03:54:39.840 --> 03:54:45.639
role of goose girl for herself.
The last chords died away, the fire

2769
03:54:45.799 --> 03:54:50.200
faded out of the jade colored eyes, and Ronnie became once more a well

2770
03:54:50.239 --> 03:54:54.680
groomed youth in a drawing room full
of well dressed people. But around him

2771
03:54:54.799 --> 03:55:00.520
rose an explosive clamor of applause and
congratulation, the sincere tribute of a siation,

2772
03:55:00.719 --> 03:55:05.159
and the equally hearty expression of imitative
homage. It's a great gift,

2773
03:55:05.280 --> 03:55:11.280
A great gift, chanted cannon Mousepace. You must put it to a great

2774
03:55:11.440 --> 03:55:16.239
use. A talent is vouchsafed to
us for a purpose. You must fulfill

2775
03:55:16.319 --> 03:55:20.399
the purpose. Talent such as yours
is a responsibility. You must meet that

2776
03:55:20.559 --> 03:55:28.079
responsibility. The dictionary of the English
language was an inexhaustible quarry from which the

2777
03:55:28.159 --> 03:55:33.079
cannon her hewn and fashion for himself
a great reputation. Your must common Clavid

2778
03:55:33.200 --> 03:55:39.159
me Aus Scharsenburg said the kindly face
to Landgraft, whom the world adored,

2779
03:55:39.239 --> 03:55:43.040
and thought it in about equal proportions. Eh Christmas, yea, this will

2780
03:55:43.079 --> 03:55:48.520
be a good time. Vie still
keeps the Christ's fist at Schlassenburg. Order,

2781
03:55:48.639 --> 03:55:52.399
Sawsie, keep telling our school children
that it is only your Christ meath

2782
03:55:52.360 --> 03:55:56.280
never mind. I will have as
a wise president of our land atout to

2783
03:55:56.399 --> 03:56:01.639
listen to you. He is a
soutsie. We are good friends. Outsides

2784
03:56:01.680 --> 03:56:05.879
of Parliament House. You shall blate
to him my good friend, and convince

2785
03:56:05.959 --> 03:56:09.520
him that that right have got in
heaven, you will come. Yes,

2786
03:56:09.719 --> 03:56:15.719
its beautiful, said the Greffin,
Simply it's made me cry. Go back

2787
03:56:15.719 --> 03:56:20.840
to the piano again, place at
once. Perhaps the near neighborhood of the

2788
03:56:20.879 --> 03:56:26.280
cannon inspired this command, but the
Gryffin had been genuinely charmed. She adored

2789
03:56:26.319 --> 03:56:31.120
good music, and she was unaffectedly
fond of good looking boys. Ronnie went

2790
03:56:31.159 --> 03:56:35.000
back to the piano and tasted the
matured pleasure of her repeated success. Any

2791
03:56:35.040 --> 03:56:39.079
measure of nervousness that he may have
felt at first had completely passed away.

2792
03:56:39.719 --> 03:56:43.879
He was sure of his audience,
and he played as though they did not

2793
03:56:43.079 --> 03:56:48.760
exist. A renewed clamor of excited
approval attended the conclusion of his performance.

2794
03:56:50.040 --> 03:56:56.000
It's a triumph, A perfectly glorious
triumph, exclaimed the Duchess of Draycia,

2795
03:56:56.200 --> 03:57:00.959
turning to Yeovil, who sat silent
among his wife's guests. Isn't it just

2796
03:57:01.360 --> 03:57:07.760
glorious? She demanded, with heavy
insistent intonation of the word. Is it,

2797
03:57:07.799 --> 03:57:13.159
said Yovil, Well, isn't it, she cried with a rising inflection.

2798
03:57:13.520 --> 03:57:20.920
Isn't it just perfectly glorious? I
don't know, confessed Yovil, your

2799
03:57:22.000 --> 03:57:26.079
see, glory hasn't come very much
my way lately. Then, before he

2800
03:57:26.159 --> 03:57:31.920
exactly realized what he was doing,
he raised his voice and quoted loudly for

2801
03:57:31.959 --> 03:57:37.319
the benefit of half the room.
Other romans shall arise, heedless of a

2802
03:57:37.399 --> 03:57:43.040
soldier's name, sounds, not deeds, shall win the prize, harmony,

2803
03:57:43.200 --> 03:57:48.600
the path to aim. There was
a sort of shiver of surprised silence at

2804
03:57:48.639 --> 03:57:54.159
Yovil's end of the room. Hell, the word rang out in a strong,

2805
03:57:54.280 --> 03:57:58.280
young voice. Hell, and it's
true. That's the worst of it.

2806
03:57:58.280 --> 03:58:03.600
It is damned true. Yovil turned
with some dozen others to see who

2807
03:58:03.639 --> 03:58:09.799
was responsible for this vigorously expressed statement. Tony Luton confronted him, an angry

2808
03:58:09.879 --> 03:58:13.079
scowl on his face, ablaze in
his heavy, lidid eyes. The boy

2809
03:58:13.200 --> 03:58:18.840
was without a conscience, almost without
a soul, as priests and parsons reconcoles,

2810
03:58:18.319 --> 03:58:22.799
But there was a slumbering devil god
within him, and Jovil's taunting words

2811
03:58:22.840 --> 03:58:28.399
had broken the slumber. Life had
been for Tony a hard school in which

2812
03:58:28.479 --> 03:58:33.040
right and wrong, high endeavor,
and good resolve were untaught subjects. But

2813
03:58:33.200 --> 03:58:37.959
there was a sterling something in him, just that something that helped poor street

2814
03:58:37.000 --> 03:58:43.280
scavenged men to die brave fronted deaths
in the trenches of Salamanca, that fired

2815
03:58:43.280 --> 03:58:48.040
a handful of apprentice boys to shut
the gates of dairy and stare unflinchingly at

2816
03:58:48.079 --> 03:58:52.639
grim leguer and starvation. It was
just that nameless something that was lacking in

2817
03:58:52.680 --> 03:58:56.239
the young musician, who stood at
the further end of the room, bathed

2818
03:58:56.280 --> 03:59:03.040
in a flood of compliment and congratulation. Enjoying the honey drops of his triumph,

2819
03:59:03.399 --> 03:59:05.959
Luton pushed his way through the crowd
and left the room, without traveling

2820
03:59:07.000 --> 03:59:11.239
to take leave of his hostess.
What a strange young man, exclaimed the

2821
03:59:11.319 --> 03:59:15.840
Duchess. Now, do take me
into the next room, She went on,

2822
03:59:15.920 --> 03:59:18.440
almost in the same breath. I'm
just dying for some iced coffee.

2823
03:59:20.520 --> 03:59:24.440
Yovil escorted her through the throng of
Ronnie worshippers to the desired haven of refreshment.

2824
03:59:26.520 --> 03:59:33.079
Marvelous missus Menteith Mendelssohn was exclaiming,
in ringing trumpet tones. Of course

2825
03:59:33.159 --> 03:59:37.639
I always knew he could play,
But this is not mere piano playing.

2826
03:59:37.920 --> 03:59:43.159
It is tone mastery. It is
sound magic. Missus Yeovil has introduced us

2827
03:59:43.159 --> 03:59:48.399
to a new star in the musical
firmament. Do you know I feel this

2828
03:59:48.479 --> 03:59:56.959
afternoon just like Cortez in the poem
gazing at the newly discovered sea, silent

2829
03:59:56.079 --> 04:00:01.760
upon a peak? In Darien quoted
a penetrate voice that could only belong to

2830
04:00:01.840 --> 04:00:05.680
Joan Mardle. I say, can
anyone picture missus menteith Mendelsohn, silent on

2831
04:00:05.760 --> 04:00:11.440
any peak, or under any circumstances, If anyone had that measure of imagination,

2832
04:00:11.680 --> 04:00:18.319
no one acknowledged the fact a great
gift and a great responsibility. Canon

2833
04:00:18.399 --> 04:00:24.600
Mousepace was assuring the Grayfin, the
power of evoking sublime melody is akin to

2834
04:00:24.680 --> 04:00:30.479
the power of awakening thoughts. A
musician can appeal to dormant consciousness as a

2835
04:00:30.559 --> 04:00:35.319
preacher can appeal to dormant conscience.
It is a responsibility, an instrument for

2836
04:00:35.399 --> 04:00:39.719
good or evil. Our young friend
here, we may be sure, will

2837
04:00:39.840 --> 04:00:43.760
use it as an instrument for good. He has, I feel certain a

2838
04:00:43.879 --> 04:00:50.840
sense of his responsibility. Here's a
nice boy, said the gryfin, simply

2839
04:00:50.000 --> 04:00:56.120
he has such pretty hair. In
one of the window recesses Rhapsody, Pantril

2840
04:00:56.280 --> 04:01:01.520
was talking vaguely but beautifully to a
small audience on the subject of chromatic chords.

2841
04:01:01.520 --> 04:01:05.040
She had the advantage of knowing what
she was talking about, an advantage

2842
04:01:05.079 --> 04:01:09.280
that her listeners did not, in
the least chair, all through his playing

2843
04:01:09.319 --> 04:01:15.280
there ran a tone note of malachite
green, she declared, recklessly, feeling

2844
04:01:15.319 --> 04:01:20.239
safe from immediate contradiction. Malachite green
my color, the color of striving.

2845
04:01:22.079 --> 04:01:26.959
Having satisfied the ruling passion that demanded
gentle and dexterous self advertisement, she realized

2846
04:01:28.000 --> 04:01:31.360
that the Augustus Smith in her craved
refreshment, and moved with one of her

2847
04:01:31.440 --> 04:01:37.079
overorder admirers towards the haven, where
peaches and iced coffee might be considered a

2848
04:01:37.120 --> 04:01:41.280
certainty. The refreshment alcove, which
was really a good sized room, a

2849
04:01:41.319 --> 04:01:46.399
sort of chapel of ease to the
larger drawing room, was already packed with

2850
04:01:46.440 --> 04:01:50.920
a crowd who felt that they could
best discuss Ronie's triumph between mouthfuls of fruit

2851
04:01:50.000 --> 04:01:54.879
salad and iced drafts of hot cup. So brief is human glory that two

2852
04:01:54.959 --> 04:01:58.799
or three independent souls had even now
drifted from the theme of the moment on

2853
04:02:00.120 --> 04:02:05.319
other more personally interesting topics. Iced
mulberry salad, my dear it's a speciality

2854
04:02:05.399 --> 04:02:09.479
de la maisan, so to speak. They say the riving husband brought the

2855
04:02:09.520 --> 04:02:16.120
recipe from Astrakhan or Seville or some
such outlandish place. Now, I wish

2856
04:02:16.159 --> 04:02:20.120
my husband would roam about a bit
and bring back strange pellet of dishes.

2857
04:02:20.719 --> 04:02:24.159
No such luck. She's got asthma
and has to keep on a gravel soil

2858
04:02:24.200 --> 04:02:28.639
with a south aspect, and all
sorts of other restrictions. I don't think

2859
04:02:28.680 --> 04:02:31.079
you ought to be pitied in the
least. The husband with asthma is like

2860
04:02:31.120 --> 04:02:35.239
a captive golf ball who could always
put your hand on him when you want

2861
04:02:35.319 --> 04:02:43.239
him. All the hangings violet the
palm, or in the furniture rosewood.

2862
04:02:43.799 --> 04:02:48.799
Nothing is to be played in it
except Mozart. Mozart only. Some of

2863
04:02:48.840 --> 04:02:52.319
my friends wanted me to have a
replica of the Mozart statue at Vienna put

2864
04:02:52.399 --> 04:02:56.120
up in a corner of the room, with flowers always around it. But

2865
04:02:56.360 --> 04:03:01.000
I really couldn't. I couldn't.
One is so tired of it, one

2866
04:03:01.040 --> 04:03:05.040
sees it everywhere. I couldn't do
it. I'm like that, you know.

2867
04:03:05.639 --> 04:03:09.719
Yes, I've secured the hero of
the hour Ronnie's Store. Oh yes,

2868
04:03:09.840 --> 04:03:13.600
Rather, he's going to join our
yachting trip third week of August.

2869
04:03:13.840 --> 04:03:18.000
We're going as far afield as fuel
men in the Adriatic. Nor is it

2870
04:03:18.040 --> 04:03:22.879
the Aegean? Won't it beat jolly? Oh no, we're not asking missus.

2871
04:03:22.959 --> 04:03:24.959
Yeovil is quite a small lot,
you know, at least it's a

2872
04:03:26.000 --> 04:03:31.959
small party. The excellent Fontalbe took
her departure, bearing off with her the

2873
04:03:31.079 --> 04:03:35.680
Landglarf, who had already settled the
date and duration of Ronnie's Christmas visit.

2874
04:03:37.959 --> 04:03:41.559
It will be done, you know, he warned the prospective guest. Our

2875
04:03:41.680 --> 04:03:45.680
landtag will not be sitting. And
what is a bear garden without the bears?

2876
04:03:46.280 --> 04:03:48.879
However, we have some valad shrine
in our woods. We consure you're

2877
04:03:48.920 --> 04:03:54.520
some sport in that way. Ronnie
instantly saw himself in a well fitting shooting

2878
04:03:54.559 --> 04:03:58.840
costume with a terrelle's hat placed at
a very careful angle on his head,

2879
04:04:00.399 --> 04:04:03.159
but he confessed that the other details
of bore hunting were rather beyond him.

2880
04:04:05.120 --> 04:04:09.920
With the departure of the von Toal
party, cannon mousepace gravitated decently but persistently

2881
04:04:11.239 --> 04:04:15.600
towards a corner where the Duchess,
still at concert pitch, was alternatively praising

2882
04:04:15.719 --> 04:04:20.360
Ronnie's performance and the mulberry salad.
Joan Mardle, who formed one of the

2883
04:04:20.399 --> 04:04:24.040
group, was not openly praising any
one, but she was paying a silent

2884
04:04:24.120 --> 04:04:28.920
tribute to the salad. We were
just talking about ronnie Stores music, Cannon

2885
04:04:28.319 --> 04:04:33.760
said the Duchess. I consider it
just perfectly glorious. It's a great talent,

2886
04:04:33.920 --> 04:04:37.319
isn't it, Cannon put in Joan
briskly. And of course it's a

2887
04:04:37.360 --> 04:04:41.600
responsibility as well. Don't you think
music can be such an influence, just

2888
04:04:41.719 --> 04:04:46.479
as eloquence can. Don't you agree
with me? The quarry of the English

2889
04:04:46.559 --> 04:04:50.520
language was, of course a public
property, but it was disconcerting to have

2890
04:04:50.600 --> 04:04:56.600
one's own particular barrel load of sentence
building material carried off before one's eyes.

2891
04:04:56.280 --> 04:05:01.639
The Cannon's impressive homily on Ronnie's gift, its possibilities had to be hastily whittled

2892
04:05:01.680 --> 04:05:07.840
down to a weakly acquiescent Quite so, Quite so if you tasted this ice

2893
04:05:07.959 --> 04:05:13.559
mowberry salad, Cannon asked the Duchess, it's perfectly luscious. Just hurry along

2894
04:05:13.600 --> 04:05:18.920
and get some before it's all gone. And her grace hurried along in an

2895
04:05:18.959 --> 04:05:24.280
opposite direction to thank Cicily for past
favors, and to express lively gratitude for

2896
04:05:24.280 --> 04:05:30.319
the Tuesday to come. The guests
departed with a rather irritating slowness, for

2897
04:05:30.399 --> 04:05:35.040
which perhaps the excellence of Cicily's buffet
arrangements was partly responsible. The great drawing

2898
04:05:35.079 --> 04:05:39.760
room seemed to grow larger and more
oppressive as the human wave receded, and

2899
04:05:39.879 --> 04:05:43.879
the hostess fled at last with some
relief to the narrower limits of her writing

2900
04:05:43.959 --> 04:05:48.840
room and the sedative influences of a
cigarette. She was inclined to be sorry

2901
04:05:48.879 --> 04:05:54.040
for herself. The triumph of the
afternoon had turned out much as she had

2902
04:05:54.040 --> 04:05:58.440
predicted. At lunch time. Her
idol of Onyx had not been swept from

2903
04:05:58.440 --> 04:06:01.360
its pedestal, but the atoll itself
had an air of being packed up,

2904
04:06:01.479 --> 04:06:07.479
ready for transport to some other temple. Ronnie would be flattered and spoiled by

2905
04:06:07.520 --> 04:06:11.959
half a hundred people just because he
could conjure sounds out of a keyboard,

2906
04:06:11.680 --> 04:06:16.079
and Cicily felt no great incentive to
go on flattering and spoiling him herself.

2907
04:06:16.559 --> 04:06:20.760
And Ronnie would acquiesce in his dismissal
with the good grace born of indifference.

2908
04:06:22.159 --> 04:06:26.879
The surest guaranteur of perfect manners.
Already he had social engagements for the coming

2909
04:06:26.920 --> 04:06:31.079
months in which she had no share. The drifting apart would be mutual.

2910
04:06:31.719 --> 04:06:37.120
He had been an intelligent and amusing
companion, and he had played the game

2911
04:06:37.159 --> 04:06:39.799
as she had wished it to be
played, without the fatigue of keeping up

2912
04:06:39.799 --> 04:06:45.479
pretenses which neither of them could have
believed in. Let us have a wonderfully

2913
04:06:45.479 --> 04:06:50.760
good time together had been the single
stipulation in their unwritten treaty of comradeship,

2914
04:06:50.200 --> 04:06:56.239
and they had had the good time. Their wholehearted pursuit of material happiness would

2915
04:06:56.239 --> 04:07:00.200
go on as keenly as before,
but they would hunt in different company.

2916
04:07:00.360 --> 04:07:05.840
That was all, Yes, that
was all. Cecily found the effect of

2917
04:07:05.879 --> 04:07:11.879
her cigarette less seditative than she was
disposed to exact. It might be necessary

2918
04:07:11.879 --> 04:07:16.520
to change the brand. Some ten
or eleven days later, Yeoville read an

2919
04:07:16.520 --> 04:07:20.559
announcement in the papers that, in
spite of handsome offers who increased salary,

2920
04:07:20.040 --> 04:07:26.319
mister Tony Luton, the original singer
of the popular ditty Eccleston Square, had

2921
04:07:26.440 --> 04:07:31.920
terminated his engagement with Messrs Isaac Grovenor
and Leon Harp, Heart of the Caravansary

2922
04:07:31.040 --> 04:07:37.760
Theater, and signed on as a
deck hand in the Canadian Marine. Perhaps,

2923
04:07:37.799 --> 04:07:41.920
after all there had been some shred
of glory amid the trumpet triumph of

2924
04:07:41.959 --> 04:07:58.840
that July afternoon. End of chapter
fourteen. Chapter fifteen of When William Came

2925
04:08:00.399 --> 04:08:05.840
By Sarkee. This is a LibriVox
recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the

2926
04:08:05.879 --> 04:08:13.920
public domain. For further information or
to volunteer, please go to LibriVox dot

2927
04:08:13.079 --> 04:08:22.760
org. Reading by and imentor When
William Came By Sarkee, Chapter fifteen,

2928
04:08:24.479 --> 04:08:30.920
The Intelligent Anticipator of wants. Two
of Yeoville's London clubs, the two that

2929
04:08:31.000 --> 04:08:35.239
he had been accustomed to frequent had
closed their doors after the catastrophe. One

2930
04:08:35.280 --> 04:08:39.879
of them had perished from off the
face of the earth. Its fittings had

2931
04:08:39.920 --> 04:08:43.760
been sold, and its papers lay
stored in some solicitor's office, a titbit

2932
04:08:43.799 --> 04:08:50.360
of material for the pain of some
future historian. The other had transplanted itself

2933
04:08:50.440 --> 04:08:54.319
to Delhi, whither it had removed
its early Georgian furniture and its traditions,

2934
04:08:54.600 --> 04:09:00.600
and sought to reproduce its Saint James's
Street atmosphere as nearly as the conditions of

2935
04:09:00.639 --> 04:09:05.360
a tropic Asiatic city would permit.
There remained the cart Wheel, a considerably

2936
04:09:05.399 --> 04:09:11.120
newer institution which had sprung into existence
somewhere about the time of Yovil's last sojourn

2937
04:09:11.239 --> 04:09:16.520
in England. He had joined it
on the solicitation of a friend who was

2938
04:09:16.559 --> 04:09:20.200
interested in the venture, and his
bankers had paid his subscription during his absence.

2939
04:09:20.959 --> 04:09:24.879
As he had never been inside its
doors, there could be no depressing

2940
04:09:24.920 --> 04:09:31.079
comparisons to make between its present state
and a four time Glories, and Yovil

2941
04:09:31.200 --> 04:09:35.159
turned into its portals one afternoon with
the adventurous detachment of a man who breaks

2942
04:09:35.200 --> 04:09:41.360
new ground and challenges new experiences.
He entered with a diffident sense of intrusion,

2943
04:09:41.840 --> 04:09:46.840
conscious that his standing as a member
might not be recognized by the keepers

2944
04:09:46.840 --> 04:09:50.799
of the doors. In a moment, however, he realized that a rajah's

2945
04:09:50.920 --> 04:09:56.120
escort of elephants might almost have marched
through the entrance hall and vestibule without challenge.

2946
04:09:56.479 --> 04:10:00.479
The general atmosphere of the scene suggested
a blend of the railway a station

2947
04:10:00.520 --> 04:10:05.639
at Cologne, the hotel Bristol in
any European capital, and the second act

2948
04:10:05.719 --> 04:10:11.799
in most musical comedies, a score
of brilliant and brilliantine pages decorated the foreground,

2949
04:10:11.399 --> 04:10:18.079
while Hebraic looking gentlemen wearing tartan waistcoats
of the clans of their adoption flitted

2950
04:10:18.120 --> 04:10:22.920
restlessly between the tape machines and telephone
boxes. The army of occupation had obviously

2951
04:10:24.040 --> 04:10:30.559
established a firm footing in the hospitable
premises. A kaleidoscopic pattern of uniforms sky

2952
04:10:30.639 --> 04:10:35.920
blue, indico and bottle green relieved
the civilian attire of the groups that clustered

2953
04:10:35.959 --> 04:10:41.280
in lounge and card rooms and corridors. Yeoville rapidly came to the conclusion that

2954
04:10:41.319 --> 04:10:45.760
the joys of membership were not for
him. He had turned to go after

2955
04:10:45.799 --> 04:10:50.200
a very cursory inspection of the premises
and their human occupants, when he was

2956
04:10:50.239 --> 04:10:54.399
hailed by a young man dressed with
strenuous neatness, whom he remembered having met

2957
04:10:54.440 --> 04:11:00.959
in past days at the houses of
one or two common friends. Hubert Hurlton's

2958
04:11:01.000 --> 04:11:05.040
parents had brought him into the world, and some twenty one years later had

2959
04:11:05.040 --> 04:11:09.920
put him into a motor business.
Having taken these pardonable liberties, they had

2960
04:11:09.959 --> 04:11:15.040
completely exhausted their ideas of what to
do with him, and Hubert seemed unlikely

2961
04:11:15.079 --> 04:11:18.920
to develop any ideas of his own
on the subject. The motor business elected

2962
04:11:18.920 --> 04:11:24.959
to conduct itself without his connivance.
Journalism, the stage, tomato culture without

2963
04:11:24.959 --> 04:11:30.920
capital, and other professions that could
be entered on at short notice were submitted

2964
04:11:30.959 --> 04:11:35.760
to his consideration by nimble minded relations
and friends. He listened to their suggestions

2965
04:11:35.799 --> 04:11:41.600
with polite indifference, being rude only
to a cousin who demonstrated how he might

2966
04:11:41.639 --> 04:11:45.920
achieve a settled income of from two
hundred to a thousand pounds a year by

2967
04:11:45.920 --> 04:11:50.319
the propagation of mushrooms in a London
basement. While his walk in life was

2968
04:11:50.360 --> 04:11:56.920
still an undetermined promenade, his parents
died, leaving him with a carefully invested

2969
04:11:56.959 --> 04:12:01.440
income of thirty seven pounds a year
at that point of his career. Yovil's

2970
04:12:01.440 --> 04:12:05.959
knowledge of him stopped short. The
journey to Siberia had taken him beyond the

2971
04:12:07.079 --> 04:12:11.879
range of Hurlton's domestic vicissitude. The
young man greeted him in a decidedly friendly

2972
04:12:11.920 --> 04:12:18.559
manner. I didn't know you were
a member here, he exclaimed. It's

2973
04:12:18.559 --> 04:12:22.600
the first time I've ever been in
the club, said Yovil, and I

2974
04:12:22.639 --> 04:12:26.840
fancy it will be the last.
There's rather too much of the fighting machine

2975
04:12:26.879 --> 04:12:31.479
in evidence here. One doesn't want
a perpetual reminder of what has happened staring

2976
04:12:31.559 --> 04:12:35.399
one in the face. We tried
at first to keep the alien element out,

2977
04:12:35.879 --> 04:12:39.760
said Hurlton apologetically. But we couldn't
have carried on the club if we'd

2978
04:12:39.760 --> 04:12:43.319
stuck to that line. You see, we'd lost more than two thirds of

2979
04:12:43.319 --> 04:12:48.120
our old members, so we couldn't
afford to be exclusive. As a matter

2980
04:12:48.120 --> 04:12:50.879
of fact, the whole thing was
decided over our heads. A new syndicate

2981
04:12:50.920 --> 04:12:54.280
took over the concern, and a
new committee was installed, with a good

2982
04:12:54.319 --> 04:12:58.719
many foreigners on it. And it's
horrid having these uniforms flaunting all over the

2983
04:12:58.719 --> 04:13:03.360
place. But what is one to
do? Yovil said nothing, with the

2984
04:13:03.399 --> 04:13:07.360
air of a man who could have
said a great deal. I suppose you

2985
04:13:07.440 --> 04:13:13.760
wonder why remain a member under those
conditions, continued Hurlton. Well, as

2986
04:13:13.799 --> 04:13:16.000
far as I'm concerned, a place
like this is a necessity for me.

2987
04:13:16.360 --> 04:13:20.399
In fact, it's my profession,
my source of income. I as good

2988
04:13:20.399 --> 04:13:26.840
at bridge as all that asked Yeovil. I'm a fairly successful player myself,

2989
04:13:26.959 --> 04:13:30.399
But I should be sorry to have
to live on my winnings year in year

2990
04:13:30.520 --> 04:13:35.159
out. I don't play cards,
said Hurlton, at least not for serious

2991
04:13:35.239 --> 04:13:39.000
stakes. My winnings all loosings wouldn't
come to a tenor in an average year.

2992
04:13:39.719 --> 04:13:43.920
No. I live by commissions by
introducing likely buyers to would be sellers.

2993
04:13:46.040 --> 04:13:52.040
Sell out of what asked yobil anything
everything, horses, yachts, old

2994
04:13:52.079 --> 04:13:56.239
masters, play, shooting, poetry, farms, weekend cottages, motor cars,

2995
04:13:56.719 --> 04:14:00.680
almost anything you can think of.
Look, and he produced from his

2996
04:14:00.719 --> 04:14:07.799
breast pocket a bulky notebook illusually inscribed
engagements. Here, he explained, tapping

2997
04:14:07.840 --> 04:14:11.760
the book, I've got a double
entry of every likely client that I know,

2998
04:14:13.399 --> 04:14:16.040
with a note of the things he
may have to sell and the things

2999
04:14:16.079 --> 04:14:18.559
he may want to buy when it's
something that he has for sale, or

3000
04:14:18.600 --> 04:14:24.399
a cross references to likely purchases of
that particular line of article. I don't

3001
04:14:24.479 --> 04:14:26.760
limit myself to things that I actually
know people to be in want of.

3002
04:14:28.280 --> 04:14:33.079
I go further than that and have
theories, carefully indexed theories as to the

3003
04:14:33.079 --> 04:14:37.040
things that people might want to buy
at the right moment if I can get

3004
04:14:37.079 --> 04:14:39.639
the opportunity I mentioned the article that's
in my mind's eye, and the possible

3005
04:14:39.760 --> 04:14:45.719
purchaser who has also been in my
mind's eye, and I frequently bring off

3006
04:14:45.719 --> 04:14:48.719
a sale. I started a chance
acquaintance on a career of print buying the

3007
04:14:48.760 --> 04:14:52.559
other day merely by telling him of
a couple of good prints I know of

3008
04:14:52.719 --> 04:14:56.120
that were to be had at a
quite reasonable price. He's a man with

3009
04:14:56.239 --> 04:15:00.200
more money than he knows what to
do with, and he has laid out

3010
04:15:00.000 --> 04:15:03.360
a lot on Old Prince since his
first purchase. Most of his collection he's

3011
04:15:03.360 --> 04:15:07.040
got through me, And of course
I net a commission on each transaction.

3012
04:15:07.600 --> 04:15:11.840
So you see, old man,
how useful, not to say necessary,

3013
04:15:11.000 --> 04:15:15.639
a club with a large membership is. To me, the more mixed and

3014
04:15:15.719 --> 04:15:20.879
socially chaotic it is, the more
serviceable it is, of course, said

3015
04:15:20.959 --> 04:15:24.799
Yeovil. And I suppose, as
a matter of fact, a good many

3016
04:15:24.799 --> 04:15:30.000
of your clients belong to the conquering
race. Well you see there the people

3017
04:15:30.000 --> 04:15:33.399
who have got the money, said
Hurlton. I don't mean to say that

3018
04:15:33.479 --> 04:15:37.760
the invading Germans are usually people of
wealth, but while they live over here

3019
04:15:37.799 --> 04:15:41.920
they escape the crushing taxation that falls
on the British worn subject. They serve

3020
04:15:43.000 --> 04:15:46.840
their country as soldiers, and we
have to serve it in garrison money,

3021
04:15:46.879 --> 04:15:50.920
ship money and so forth. Besides
the ordinary taxes of the state. The

3022
04:15:50.040 --> 04:15:54.920
German shoulders the rifle. The Englishman
has to shoulder everything else. That's what

3023
04:15:56.040 --> 04:16:00.680
will help more than anything towards the
gradual Germanizing of our big town. The

3024
04:16:00.799 --> 04:16:06.399
comparatively lightly tax German workmen over here
will have a much bigger spending power and

3025
04:16:06.479 --> 04:16:11.440
purchasing power than his heavily taxed English
neighbor. The public houses, bars,

3026
04:16:11.479 --> 04:16:15.760
eating houses, places of amusements and
so forth will come to cater more and

3027
04:16:15.879 --> 04:16:21.399
more for many yielding German patronage.
The stream of British emigration will swell rather

3028
04:16:21.440 --> 04:16:26.760
than diminish, and the stream of
Teuton immigration will be equally persistent and progressive.

3029
04:16:26.680 --> 04:16:30.680
Yes, the military service ordinance was
a cunning stroke on the part of

3030
04:16:30.680 --> 04:16:36.440
that old fox von Karal. As
a civilian statesman, he's far and away

3031
04:16:36.440 --> 04:16:41.319
cleverer than Bismarck was. He smothers
with a feather bed where Bismarck would have

3032
04:16:41.360 --> 04:16:45.680
tried to smash with a snedge hammer. Have you got me down on your

3033
04:16:45.719 --> 04:16:51.719
list of noteworthy people? Asked Jobil, turning the drift of the conversation back

3034
04:16:51.760 --> 04:16:56.399
to the personal topic. Certainly I
have, said Hurlton, turning the pages

3035
04:16:56.399 --> 04:17:00.399
of his pocket directory to the letter. Why as soon as I knew you

3036
04:17:00.440 --> 04:17:04.440
were back in England, I made
several entries concerning you. In the first

3037
04:17:04.440 --> 04:17:08.200
place, it was possible that you
might have a volume on Siberian travel and

3038
04:17:08.319 --> 04:17:12.479
natural history notes to publish, And
I've cross referenced you to a publisher I

3039
04:17:12.559 --> 04:17:18.159
know who rather wants books of that
sort on his list. I may tell

3040
04:17:18.239 --> 04:17:22.159
you at once, and I've no
intentions in that direction, said Yeovil in

3041
04:17:22.200 --> 04:17:27.840
some amusement. Just as well,
said Hurlton, cheerfully scribbling a hieroglyphic in

3042
04:17:27.920 --> 04:17:32.719
his book, that branch of business
is rather outside my line, too little

3043
04:17:32.760 --> 04:17:36.079
in it, and the gratitude of
author and publisher for being introduced to one

3044
04:17:36.079 --> 04:17:40.879
another as usually short lived. A
most serious entry was the item that if

3045
04:17:40.920 --> 04:17:44.120
you were wintering in England you would
be looking out for a hunter or two

3046
04:17:44.639 --> 04:17:48.200
you used to hunt with the East
Wessex. I remember, I've got just

3047
04:17:48.239 --> 04:17:52.200
a very animal that will suit that
country ready waiting for you, a beautiful

3048
04:17:52.319 --> 04:17:56.840
clean jumper. I put it over
a fence or two myself and you and

3049
04:17:56.920 --> 04:18:00.920
I ride much the same way.
A stiffish price is being asked for it.

3050
04:18:00.280 --> 04:18:04.920
But I've got the letters d O
after your name in Heaven's Name,

3051
04:18:06.239 --> 04:18:11.360
said Yovil, now openly grinning before
I die of curiosity. Tell me what

3052
04:18:11.600 --> 04:18:15.639
d O stands for. It means
someone who doesn't object to pay a good

3053
04:18:15.639 --> 04:18:19.120
price for anything that really suits him. There are some people, of course,

3054
04:18:19.120 --> 04:18:22.280
who won't consider a thing unless they
can get it for about a third

3055
04:18:22.280 --> 04:18:26.920
of what they imagine to be its
market value. I've got another suggestion down

3056
04:18:26.959 --> 04:18:30.719
against you in my book. You
may not be staying in the country at

3057
04:18:30.760 --> 04:18:34.159
all. You may be clearing out
in disgust at existing conditions. In that

3058
04:18:34.280 --> 04:18:37.479
case, you would be selling a
lot of things that you wouldn't want to

3059
04:18:37.520 --> 04:18:41.280
cart away with you. That involves
another set of entries and a whole lot

3060
04:18:41.319 --> 04:18:47.520
of cross references. I'm afraid I've
given you a lot of trouble, said

3061
04:18:47.600 --> 04:18:52.000
Yovill dryly. Not at all,
said Hurlton. But it would simplify matters

3062
04:18:52.000 --> 04:18:56.079
if we take it for granted that
you're going to stay here for this winter

3063
04:18:56.159 --> 04:18:59.840
anyhow, and are looking out for
hunters. Can you lunch with me?

3064
04:18:59.879 --> 04:19:03.520
Here on Wednesday and come and look
at the animal afterwards. It's only thirty

3065
04:19:03.520 --> 04:19:07.399
five minutes by train. It will
take us longer if we motor. There

3066
04:19:07.479 --> 04:19:11.920
is a two fifty three from charing
Cross that we could catch comfortably. If

3067
04:19:11.920 --> 04:19:15.600
you're going to persuade me to hunt
in the East Wessex country this season,

3068
04:19:15.239 --> 04:19:21.000
said Yovil, you must find me
a convenient hunting box somewhere down there.

3069
04:19:21.799 --> 04:19:26.959
I have found it, cried Hurlton, whipping out a styleograph and hastily scribbling

3070
04:19:26.959 --> 04:19:30.760
an order to view on a card. Central as possible for all the meats,

3071
04:19:30.879 --> 04:19:34.760
grand stabling, accommodation, excellent water
supply, big bathroom, game larder,

3072
04:19:34.959 --> 04:19:38.079
celler ridge, a bake house if
you want to bake your own bread.

3073
04:19:38.600 --> 04:19:42.440
Any land with it not enough to
be a nuisance. An acre or

3074
04:19:42.479 --> 04:19:47.040
two of padderk, and about the
same of garden. You're fond of wild

3075
04:19:47.120 --> 04:19:49.479
things. The wood comes down to
the edge of the garden, a wood

3076
04:19:49.479 --> 04:19:55.719
that harbors owls and buzzards and kestrels. Have you got all those details in

3077
04:19:55.799 --> 04:20:02.680
your book, asked Yovil. Wood
adjoining property b K. I keep those

3078
04:20:02.719 --> 04:20:07.680
details in my head, said Hurlton. But they're quite reliable. I shall

3079
04:20:07.719 --> 04:20:11.479
insist on something substantial off the rent
if there are no buzzards, said Yovil.

3080
04:20:12.040 --> 04:20:17.159
Now that you mention them, they
seem an indispensable accessory to any decent

3081
04:20:17.239 --> 04:20:22.799
hunting box. Look, he exclaimed, catching sight of a plump, middle

3082
04:20:22.840 --> 04:20:27.280
aged individual crossing the vestibule with an
air of restrained importance. There goes a

3083
04:20:27.399 --> 04:20:33.120
delectable piphebe. Does he come on
your books at all? I should say,

3084
04:20:33.559 --> 04:20:40.600
exclaimed Hurlton fervently. The delectable p
nourishes expectations of a barony or viscounty.

3085
04:20:40.600 --> 04:20:44.360
At an early date, most of
his life has been spent in streets

3086
04:20:44.360 --> 04:20:48.680
and squares, with occasional migrations to
the esplanades of fashionable watering places or the

3087
04:20:48.680 --> 04:20:53.120
graveled walks of country house gardens.
Now that no bless is about to impose

3088
04:20:53.120 --> 04:20:56.719
its obligations on him, quite a
new catalog of wants as sprang into his

3089
04:20:56.799 --> 04:21:02.840
mind. There are things that the
plainest choir may leave undone without causing scandalized

3090
04:21:02.879 --> 04:21:07.520
remark. But a fiercer light beats
on a baron trigger pulling is one of

3091
04:21:07.520 --> 04:21:11.520
the obligations up to the present.
Pithoby's never hit a partridge in anger.

3092
04:21:11.920 --> 04:21:15.319
But this year he's commissioned me to
rent him a deer forest, some pedigree

3093
04:21:15.360 --> 04:21:19.120
hair efforts for his home farm.
Was another commission, and a dozen and

3094
04:21:19.159 --> 04:21:23.360
a half swans for a swanery.
Swanery, I may say was my idea.

3095
04:21:23.639 --> 04:21:26.719
I said once in his hearing,
that it gave a baronial air to

3096
04:21:26.799 --> 04:21:30.719
an estate. You see, I
knew a man who'd got a lot of

3097
04:21:30.760 --> 04:21:34.399
surplus swan stock for sale. Now
Pithoby wants a heronry as well. I've

3098
04:21:34.440 --> 04:21:38.440
put him in communication with a client
of mine who suffers from superfluous herons.

3099
04:21:38.920 --> 04:21:42.559
But of course I can't guarantee that
the bird's nesting arrangements will fall in with

3100
04:21:42.639 --> 04:21:48.959
his territorial requirement. I'm getting him
some carp too, of quite respectable age.

3101
04:21:48.000 --> 04:21:52.399
For a carp pond. I thought
it would look so well for his

3102
04:21:52.520 --> 04:21:56.879
lady wife to be discovered by interviewers
feeing the carp with her own fair hands.

3103
04:21:56.239 --> 04:22:00.639
And I put the same idea into
bith Ofby's mind. I had no

3104
04:22:00.840 --> 04:22:06.879
idea that so many things were necessary
to endorse a pattern of nobility, said

3105
04:22:06.959 --> 04:22:11.399
Yovil. If there should be any
miscarriage in the bestow of the honor at

3106
04:22:11.479 --> 04:22:17.200
least bitherby will who absolved himself from
any charge of contributory negligence. Shall we

3107
04:22:17.280 --> 04:22:21.280
say Wednesday here one o'clock, lunch
first, and go down and look at

3108
04:22:21.280 --> 04:22:26.600
the horse afterwards, said Hurlton,
returning to the matter in mind. Yovil

3109
04:22:26.680 --> 04:22:32.559
hesitated. Then he nodded his head. There's no harm in going to look

3110
04:22:32.600 --> 04:22:49.120
at the animal, he said.
End of chapter fifteen. Chapter sixteen of

3111
04:22:49.920 --> 04:22:57.559
When William Came By Saki. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings

3112
04:22:57.600 --> 04:23:03.920
are in the public domain. For
further information or to volunteer, please go

3113
04:23:03.319 --> 04:23:12.000
to librevox dot org. Reading by
and imentor When William Came By Sarkee,

3114
04:23:14.120 --> 04:23:22.040
Chapter sixteen Sunrise. Missus Kerrick sat
at a little teakwood table in the verandah

3115
04:23:22.040 --> 04:23:25.799
of a low pitched teak built house
that stood on the steep slope of a

3116
04:23:25.879 --> 04:23:30.399
brown hillside. Her youngest child,
with the grave natural dignity of nine year

3117
04:23:30.440 --> 04:23:37.959
old girlhood, maintained a correct but
observant silence, looking carefully yet unobtrusively after

3118
04:23:37.000 --> 04:23:41.159
the wants of the one guest,
and checking from time to time the incursions

3119
04:23:41.200 --> 04:23:47.479
of ubiquitous ants that were obstinately disposed
to treat the tablecloth as a foraging ground.

3120
04:23:48.639 --> 04:23:52.440
The wayfaring visitor, who was experiencing
a British blend of Eastern hospitality,

3121
04:23:52.760 --> 04:23:57.680
was a French naturalist, traveling thus
far Afield in quest of feathered specimens to

3122
04:23:57.840 --> 04:24:03.479
enrich the aviaries of a bird collecting
Balkan king. On the previous evening,

3123
04:24:03.799 --> 04:24:08.239
while shrugging his shoulders and unloosing his
vocabulary over the meager accommodation afforded by the

3124
04:24:08.319 --> 04:24:14.239
native rest house, he had been
enchanted by receiving an invitation to transfer his

3125
04:24:14.360 --> 04:24:17.920
quarters to the house on the hillside, where he found not only a pleasant

3126
04:24:18.000 --> 04:24:22.200
voice hostess and some drinkable wine,
but three brown skinned English youngsters who were

3127
04:24:22.200 --> 04:24:26.079
able to give him a mass of
intelligent, first hand information about the bird

3128
04:24:26.120 --> 04:24:30.319
life of the region. And now, at the early morning breakfast ere the

3129
04:24:30.360 --> 04:24:34.319
sun was showing over the rim of
the brown baked hills, he was learning

3130
04:24:34.360 --> 04:24:40.159
something of the life of the little
community he had chanced on. It was

3131
04:24:40.200 --> 04:24:45.040
in these parts many years ago,
explained the hostess, When my husband was

3132
04:24:45.079 --> 04:24:48.559
alive and had an appointment out here. It is a healthy hill district and

3133
04:24:48.600 --> 04:24:53.200
I had pleasant memories of the place. So when it became necessary, well

3134
04:24:53.399 --> 04:24:57.120
desirable, let us say, to
leave our English home and find a new

3135
04:24:57.120 --> 04:25:00.639
one, it occurred to me to
bring my boys and my little girl here.

3136
04:25:02.319 --> 04:25:06.360
My eldest girl is at school in
Paris. Labor is cheap here,

3137
04:25:06.440 --> 04:25:10.040
and I try my hand at farming. In a small way. Of course,

3138
04:25:10.079 --> 04:25:14.520
it is very different work to just
superintending the dairy and poultry yard arrangements

3139
04:25:14.559 --> 04:25:18.360
of an English country estate. There
are so many things insect ravages, bird

3140
04:25:18.440 --> 04:25:23.280
depredations and so on that one only
knows on a small scale in England that

3141
04:25:23.360 --> 04:25:29.280
happen here in wholesale fashion, not
to mention droughts and torrential rains and other

3142
04:25:29.319 --> 04:25:34.399
tropical visitations. And then the domestic
animals are so disconcertingly different from the ones

3143
04:25:34.440 --> 04:25:38.159
one has been used to. Humped
cattle never seem to behave in the way

3144
04:25:38.239 --> 04:25:42.760
that straight backed cattle would, and
goats and geese and chickens are not a

3145
04:25:42.760 --> 04:25:47.159
bit the same here that they are
in Europe. And of course the farm's

3146
04:25:47.159 --> 04:25:51.600
servants are utterly unlike the same class
in England. One has to unlearn a

3147
04:25:51.600 --> 04:25:55.840
great deal of what one thought one
knew about stock keeping and agriculture, and

3148
04:25:55.959 --> 04:26:00.520
take notes of the native ways of
doing things. They're primitive and surprising,

3149
04:26:00.559 --> 04:26:03.959
of course, but they have an
accumulated store of experience behind them, and

3150
04:26:04.120 --> 04:26:11.159
one has to tread warily in initiating
improvements. The Frenchman looked round at the

3151
04:26:11.200 --> 04:26:15.280
brown sun scorched hills, with the
dusty empty road showing here and there in

3152
04:26:15.280 --> 04:26:21.200
the middle distance, and other brown
sun scorched hills rounding off the scene.

3153
04:26:21.799 --> 04:26:25.639
He looked at the lizards on the
veranda walls, at the jars for keeping

3154
04:26:25.639 --> 04:26:30.120
the water cool, at the numberless
little insect board holes in the furniture,

3155
04:26:30.600 --> 04:26:37.120
at the heat drawn lines on his
hostess's comely face. Notwithstanding his present wanderings,

3156
04:26:37.159 --> 04:26:41.600
he had a Frenchman's strong homing instinct, and he marveled to hear this

3157
04:26:41.760 --> 04:26:45.719
lady, who should have been a
lively and popular figure in the social circle

3158
04:26:45.760 --> 04:26:49.239
of some English country town, talking
serenely of the ways of humped cattle and

3159
04:26:49.399 --> 04:26:55.959
native servants. And your children,
how do they like the change? He

3160
04:26:56.040 --> 04:27:00.879
asked? Is healthy up here among
the hills? Said the mother, also

3161
04:27:00.959 --> 04:27:06.239
looking round at the landscape and thinking
doubtless of a very different scene they have

3162
04:27:06.280 --> 04:27:08.799
an outdoor life and plenty of liberty. They have their ponies to ride,

3163
04:27:08.799 --> 04:27:11.600
and there is a lake up above
us that's a fine place for them to

3164
04:27:11.639 --> 04:27:15.799
bathe and boat in. The three
boys are there now having their morning swim.

3165
04:27:17.680 --> 04:27:19.799
The eldest is sixteen, and he's
allowed to have a gun, and

3166
04:27:19.879 --> 04:27:23.520
there's some good wildfowl shooting to be
had in the reed beds at the further

3167
04:27:23.600 --> 04:27:27.360
end of the lake. I think
that part of the joy of his shooting

3168
04:27:27.399 --> 04:27:32.000
expeditions lies in the fact that many
of the duck and plover that he comes

3169
04:27:32.040 --> 04:27:37.159
across belonged to the same species that
frequent our English moors and rivers. It

3170
04:27:37.280 --> 04:27:40.559
was the first hint that she had
given of a wistful sense of exile,

3171
04:27:41.040 --> 04:27:45.360
the yearning for other skies, the
message that a dead bird's plumage could bring

3172
04:27:45.440 --> 04:27:51.959
across rolling seas and scorching plains,
and the education of your boys. How

3173
04:27:52.000 --> 04:27:56.079
do you manage for that, asked
the visitor. There's a young tutor living

3174
04:27:56.079 --> 04:28:00.479
out in these wilds, said missus
Kerrick. He was assistant master at a

3175
04:28:00.479 --> 04:28:04.079
private school in Scotland, but it
had to be given up when ah,

3176
04:28:04.680 --> 04:28:10.159
when things changed, so many of
the boys left the country. He came

3177
04:28:10.159 --> 04:28:14.159
out to an uncle who has a
small estate eight miles from here, and

3178
04:28:14.280 --> 04:28:17.600
three days in the week he rides
over to teach my boys, and three

3179
04:28:17.680 --> 04:28:21.840
days he goes to another family living
in the opposite direction. Today he is

3180
04:28:21.879 --> 04:28:25.600
due to come here. It's a
great boom to have such an opportunity for

3181
04:28:25.639 --> 04:28:29.280
getting the boys educated, and of
course it helps him to earn a living

3182
04:28:30.239 --> 04:28:34.440
and the society of the place,
asked the Frenchman. His hostess laughed,

3183
04:28:34.719 --> 04:28:37.760
I must admit that it has to
be looked for with a strong pair of

3184
04:28:37.840 --> 04:28:42.600
field glasses. She said. It's
almost as difficult to get a good bridge

3185
04:28:42.600 --> 04:28:45.680
four together as it would have been
to get up a tennis tournament or a

3186
04:28:45.719 --> 04:28:51.840
subscription dance. In our particular corner
of England. One has to ignore distances

3187
04:28:51.840 --> 04:28:55.920
and forget fatigue if one wants to
be gregarious, even on a limited scale.

3188
04:28:56.520 --> 04:29:00.399
There are one or two officials who
are our chief social mainstays. But

3189
04:29:00.440 --> 04:29:03.280
the difficulty is to muster the few
available souls under the same roof at the

3190
04:29:03.319 --> 04:29:08.079
same moment. A road will be
impassable in one quarter, a pony will

3191
04:29:08.120 --> 04:29:11.920
be lame in another, a stress
of work will prevent someone else from a

3192
04:29:12.000 --> 04:29:17.280
coming, and another may be down
with a touch of fever. When my

3193
04:29:17.399 --> 04:29:21.520
little girl gave a birthday party here, her only little girl guest had to

3194
04:29:21.520 --> 04:29:25.719
come twelve miles to attend it.
The forest officer happened to drop in on

3195
04:29:25.799 --> 04:29:30.520
us that evening, so we felt
quite festive. The Frenchman's eyes grew round

3196
04:29:30.600 --> 04:29:33.639
in wonder. He had once thought
that the capital city of a Balkan kingdom

3197
04:29:33.719 --> 04:29:40.399
was the uttermost limit of social desolation
viewed from a Parisian standpoint, and there,

3198
04:29:40.440 --> 04:29:44.520
at any rate one could get cafe
chantins, tennis, picnic parties,

3199
04:29:44.520 --> 04:29:48.520
and occasional theater performance by a foreign
troop, now and then a traveling circus,

3200
04:29:48.559 --> 04:29:52.719
not to speak of court and diplomatic
functions of a more or less sociable

3201
04:29:52.799 --> 04:29:56.479
character. Here, it seems,
one went on a day's journey to reach

3202
04:29:56.520 --> 04:30:00.840
an evening's entertainment, and the chance
arrival of a tard official took on the

3203
04:30:00.920 --> 04:30:07.000
nature of a festivity. He looked
round again at the rolling stretches of brown

3204
04:30:07.120 --> 04:30:11.840
hills. Before he had regarded them
merely as the background to this little,

3205
04:30:11.879 --> 04:30:15.079
shut away world. Now he saw
that they were the foreground as well.

3206
04:30:15.600 --> 04:30:21.520
They were everything. There was nothing
else. And again his glance traveled to

3207
04:30:21.559 --> 04:30:25.360
the face of his hostess, with
its bright, pleasant eyes and smiling mouth.

3208
04:30:26.479 --> 04:30:30.040
An you live here with your children, he said. In here,

3209
04:30:30.159 --> 04:30:34.440
in this wilderness, you'll leave England. You'll leave everything for this. His

3210
04:30:34.559 --> 04:30:38.319
hostess rose and took him over to
the far side of the verandah. The

3211
04:30:38.399 --> 04:30:42.239
beginnings of a garden were spread out
before them, with young fruit trees and

3212
04:30:42.319 --> 04:30:48.959
flowering shrubs, and bushes of pale, pink roses. Exuberant tropical growths were

3213
04:30:48.000 --> 04:30:52.840
interspersed with carefully tended vestiges of plants
that had evidently been brought in from a

3214
04:30:52.879 --> 04:30:59.159
more temperate climate and had not borne
the transition. Well bushes and trees and

3215
04:30:59.200 --> 04:31:03.799
shrubs away for some distance, to
where the ground rose in a small hillock,

3216
04:31:03.120 --> 04:31:08.360
and then fell abruptly into bare hillside. In all this garden that you

3217
04:31:08.559 --> 04:31:14.639
see, said the englishwoman, there
is one tree that is sacred. A

3218
04:31:14.799 --> 04:31:18.760
tree, said the Frenchman, a
tree that we could not grow in England.

3219
04:31:19.520 --> 04:31:23.520
The Frenchman followed the direction of her
eyes and saw a tall, bare

3220
04:31:23.680 --> 04:31:27.600
pole at the summit of the hillock. At the same moment, the sun

3221
04:31:27.639 --> 04:31:32.840
came over the hilltops in a deep
orange glow, and a new light stole

3222
04:31:32.959 --> 04:31:37.479
like magic over the brown landscape,
and as if they had timed their arrival

3223
04:31:37.520 --> 04:31:41.600
to the exact moment of sunburst,
three brown faced boys appeared under the straight

3224
04:31:41.719 --> 04:31:47.840
bare pole. A cord shivered and
flapped, and something ran swiftly up into

3225
04:31:47.840 --> 04:31:52.079
the air and swung out in the
breeze that blew across the hills, a

3226
04:31:52.159 --> 04:31:56.559
blue flag with red and white crosses. The three boys bared their heads,

3227
04:31:57.079 --> 04:32:03.520
and the small girl on the veranda
steps stood rigidly to attention. Far away

3228
04:32:03.559 --> 04:32:07.440
down the hill, a young man
cantering into view round the corner of a

3229
04:32:07.520 --> 04:32:14.440
dusty road, removed his hat in
loyal salutation. That is why we live

3230
04:32:14.479 --> 04:32:30.600
out here, said the englishwoman quietly. End of chapter sixteen. Chapter seventeen

3231
04:32:30.040 --> 04:32:37.920
of When William Came By Sake.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

3232
04:32:37.959 --> 04:32:44.760
recordings are in the public domain.
For further information or to volunteer, please

3233
04:32:44.840 --> 04:32:52.280
go to LibriVox dot org. Reading
by and Iminta, When William Came By

3234
04:32:52.360 --> 04:33:02.399
Sarkee, Chapter seventeen, The event
of the season in the first swelter room

3235
04:33:02.520 --> 04:33:07.520
of the new Osmanly Baths in cork
Street. Four or five recumbent individuals,

3236
04:33:07.639 --> 04:33:12.000
in a state of moist nudity and
self respecting inertia, were smoking cigarettes or

3237
04:33:12.080 --> 04:33:18.720
making occasional pretense of reading damp newspapers. A glass wall with a glass door

3238
04:33:18.880 --> 04:33:22.959
shut them off from the yet more
torrid regions of the further swelter chambers.

3239
04:33:22.279 --> 04:33:27.279
Another glass partition disclosed the dimly lit
vault, where other patrons of the establishment

3240
04:33:27.319 --> 04:33:33.040
had arrived at the stage of being
pounded and kneaded and sluiced by oriental looking

3241
04:33:33.080 --> 04:33:37.919
attendants. The splashing and trickling of
taps, the flip flap of wet slippers

3242
04:33:37.919 --> 04:33:42.959
on a wet floor, and the
low murmur of conversation filtered through glass doors

3243
04:33:44.000 --> 04:33:48.840
made an appropriately drowsy accompaniment to the
scene. A newcomer fluttered into the room,

3244
04:33:49.240 --> 04:33:52.680
beamed at one of the occupants,
and settled himself with an air of

3245
04:33:52.720 --> 04:33:59.119
elaborate languor in a long canvas chair. Cornelian Valpy was a fair young man,

3246
04:33:59.279 --> 04:34:03.799
with perpetual or surprise impinged on his
countenance and a chin that seemed to

3247
04:34:03.840 --> 04:34:07.720
have retired from competition with the rest
of his features. The beam of recognition

3248
04:34:07.799 --> 04:34:11.959
that he had given to his friend
or acquaintance, subsided into a subdued but

3249
04:34:12.119 --> 04:34:18.759
lingering simper. What's the matter,
drawled his neighbor, lazily dropping the end

3250
04:34:18.799 --> 04:34:23.080
of a cigarette into a small bowl
of water and helping himself from a silver

3251
04:34:23.159 --> 04:34:29.759
case on the table at his side. Matter, said Cornelian, opening wide

3252
04:34:29.799 --> 04:34:33.759
a pair of eyes in which unhealthy
intelligence seemed to struggle in undetermined battle with

3253
04:34:33.840 --> 04:34:40.720
utter vacuity. Why should you suppose
that anything is the matter when you wear

3254
04:34:40.840 --> 04:34:45.200
a look of idiotic complaisance in a
Turkish bath, said the other. It

3255
04:34:45.400 --> 04:34:51.479
is the more noticeable from the fact
that you're wearing nothing else. Were you

3256
04:34:51.560 --> 04:34:56.599
at the Shalem House danced last night, asked Cornelian, by way of explaining

3257
04:34:56.639 --> 04:35:02.560
his air of complaisant retrospection. No, said the other, But I feel

3258
04:35:02.599 --> 04:35:07.200
as if I had been. I've
been reading columns about it in the Dawn,

3259
04:35:07.639 --> 04:35:11.560
the last event of the season,
said Cornelian, and quite one of

3260
04:35:11.599 --> 04:35:17.799
the most amusing and lively functions that
there have been so the Dawn said.

3261
04:35:18.119 --> 04:35:23.000
But then, as Shalem practically owns
and controls that paper, its favorable opinion

3262
04:35:23.200 --> 04:35:29.080
might be taken for granted. The
whole idea of The revel was quite original,

3263
04:35:29.599 --> 04:35:33.400
said Cornelian, who was not going
to have his personal narrative of the

3264
04:35:33.439 --> 04:35:37.759
event forestalled by anything that a newspaper
reporter might have given to the public.

3265
04:35:37.319 --> 04:35:41.639
A certain number of guests went as
famous personages in the world's history, and

3266
04:35:41.840 --> 04:35:48.479
each one was accompanied by another guest
typifying the prevailing characteristic of that personage.

3267
04:35:48.000 --> 04:35:52.240
One man went as Julius Caesar,
for instance, and had a girl typifying

3268
04:35:52.279 --> 04:35:59.119
ambition as his shadow. Another went
as Louis the Eleventh and his companion personified

3269
04:35:59.159 --> 04:36:03.159
superstition. Your shadow had to be
some one of the opposite sex, you

3270
04:36:03.240 --> 04:36:07.720
see, and every alternate danced throughout
the evening. You dance with your shadow

3271
04:36:07.759 --> 04:36:12.479
partner. Quite a clever IDEA young
Goth von Schneidelstein is supposed to have invented

3272
04:36:12.520 --> 04:36:18.360
it. New York will be deeply
beholden to him, said the other shadow

3273
04:36:18.479 --> 04:36:22.639
dances with all manner of eccentric variations. Will be the rage there for the

3274
04:36:22.639 --> 04:36:30.400
next eighteen months. Some of the
costumes were really sumptuous, continued Cornelian.

3275
04:36:30.840 --> 04:36:36.159
The Duchess of Draysia was magnificent as
Ahaliba. You never saw so many jewels

3276
04:36:36.159 --> 04:36:38.759
on one person. Only of course
she didn't look dark enough for the character.

3277
04:36:40.279 --> 04:36:45.240
She had Billy concept for her shadow, representing unspeakable depravity on earth.

3278
04:36:45.279 --> 04:36:49.959
Did he manage that? Oh?
A blend of Beardsley and Baxed as far

3279
04:36:51.000 --> 04:36:53.680
as get up and costume, and
of course his own personality counted for a

3280
04:36:53.680 --> 04:36:59.279
good deal quite One of the successes
of the evening was Lieutenant von Gable,

3281
04:36:59.319 --> 04:37:04.319
wrought as George Washington, with Joan
Mardle as his shadow, typifying inconvenient candor.

3282
04:37:04.919 --> 04:37:08.360
He put her down officially his truthfulness, but everyone had heard the other

3283
04:37:08.479 --> 04:37:15.639
version. Oh good forgave alert.
Though he does belong to the invading Horde.

3284
04:37:15.240 --> 04:37:22.000
It's not often that aim one scores
off Joan. Another blaze of magnificence

3285
04:37:22.080 --> 04:37:26.159
was the loud voice Bessimer woman as
the Goddess Juno, with peacock tails and

3286
04:37:26.200 --> 04:37:30.360
opals all over her. She had
Ronnie's Store to represent green eyed jealousy.

3287
04:37:32.360 --> 04:37:37.479
Talking of ronnie Store and of jealousy, you will naturally wonder who missus Yeovil

3288
04:37:37.599 --> 04:37:41.080
went with. Now I forget what
her costume was, but she'd got that

3289
04:37:41.279 --> 04:37:45.319
dark headed youth with her that she's
been trotting round everywhere with the last few

3290
04:37:45.400 --> 04:37:51.919
days, Cornelian's neighbor kicked him furtively
on the shin and frowned in the direction

3291
04:37:52.000 --> 04:37:56.880
of a dark haired youth reclining in
an adjacent chair. The youth in question

3292
04:37:56.040 --> 04:38:02.400
rose from his seat and stalked into
the further swelter. So clever of him

3293
04:38:02.439 --> 04:38:06.520
to go into the furnace room,
said the unabashed Cornelian. Now if he

3294
04:38:06.599 --> 04:38:10.360
turns scarlet all over, we shall
never know how much is embarrassment and how

3295
04:38:10.439 --> 04:38:15.080
much is due to the process of
being boiled. Laoville hasn't done badly by

3296
04:38:15.119 --> 04:38:19.159
the exchange. He's better looking than
Ronnie. I see that Pitherby went as

3297
04:38:19.200 --> 04:38:25.439
Frederick the Great, said Cornelian's neighbor, fingering a sheet of the dawn.

3298
04:38:26.360 --> 04:38:30.919
Isn't that exactly what one would have
expected Pitherby to do, said Cornelian.

3299
04:38:30.159 --> 04:38:33.919
He's so desperately anxious to announce to
all whom it may concern that he has

3300
04:38:33.919 --> 04:38:38.360
written a life of that hero.
He had none inspiring looking woman with him

3301
04:38:38.479 --> 04:38:45.240
supposed to represent military genius. The
spirit of advertisement would have been more appropriate,

3302
04:38:45.880 --> 04:38:49.240
said the other. The opening scene
of the revel was rather effective,

3303
04:38:49.599 --> 04:38:55.240
continued Cornelian. All the shadow people
reclined in the dimly lit center of the

3304
04:38:55.279 --> 04:39:00.959
ballroom in an indistinguishable mass, and
the human characters marched round the illuminated sides

3305
04:39:00.000 --> 04:39:04.200
of the room to solemn processional music. Every now and then a shadow would

3306
04:39:04.240 --> 04:39:08.639
detach itself from the mass, hail
its partner by name, and glide out

3307
04:39:08.680 --> 04:39:12.560
to join him or her into procession. Then, when the last shadows had

3308
04:39:12.560 --> 04:39:17.680
found their mates and everyone was partnered, the lights were turned up into blaze.

3309
04:39:17.720 --> 04:39:21.759
The orchestra crashed out a whirl of
nondescript dance music, and people just

3310
04:39:21.919 --> 04:39:26.119
let themselves go. It was pandemonium. Afterwards, everyone strutted about for half

3311
04:39:26.119 --> 04:39:30.919
an hour or so, showing themselves
off. Then the legitimate program of dances

3312
04:39:30.959 --> 04:39:36.439
began. There were some rather amusing
incidents throughout the evening. One set of

3313
04:39:36.520 --> 04:39:41.880
lancers was danced entirely by the seven
Deadly Sins and their human exemplars. Of

3314
04:39:41.919 --> 04:39:45.040
course, seven couples were not sufficient
to make up the set, so they

3315
04:39:45.040 --> 04:39:48.240
had to bring in an eighth sin. I forget what it was. The

3316
04:39:48.400 --> 04:39:53.360
Sins of patriotism would have been rather
appropriate considering who were giving the dance,

3317
04:39:53.759 --> 04:40:00.200
said the other. Hush exclaimed Cornelian
nervously. You don't know who may will

3318
04:40:00.240 --> 04:40:03.720
hear you in a place like this, You'll get yourself into trouble. Wasn't

3319
04:40:03.759 --> 04:40:10.360
there some rather daring new dance of
the bunny hug variety, asked the indiscreet

3320
04:40:10.400 --> 04:40:15.520
one the cubby cuddle, said Cornelian. Three or four adventurous couples danced it

3321
04:40:15.560 --> 04:40:21.040
towards the end of the evening.
The Dawn says that without being strikingly new,

3322
04:40:21.159 --> 04:40:25.599
it was strikingly modern. The best
description I can give of it,

3323
04:40:25.639 --> 04:40:29.520
said Cornelian, is summed up in
the comment of the griefin von Toll when

3324
04:40:29.520 --> 04:40:33.200
she saw it being danced. If
they really love each other, I suppose

3325
04:40:33.240 --> 04:40:38.439
it does not matter. By the
way, he added, with apparent indifference,

3326
04:40:40.000 --> 04:40:44.400
is there any detailed account of my
costume in the Dawn? His companion

3327
04:40:44.520 --> 04:40:48.200
laughed cynically, as if you hadn't
read everything that the Dawn and the other

3328
04:40:48.319 --> 04:40:53.560
morning papers have to say about the
ball hours ago. The naked truth should

3329
04:40:53.560 --> 04:40:59.639
be avoided in a Turkish bath,
said Cornelian, kindly assumed that I've only

3330
04:40:59.680 --> 04:41:03.400
had I'm to glance at the weather
forecast and the news from China. Oh

3331
04:41:03.520 --> 04:41:08.720
very well, said the other Your
costume isn't described you, Simptin Cameramene,

3332
04:41:08.759 --> 04:41:15.759
a host of others as mister Cornelian
Vaalby resplendent as the Emperor Nero with him

3333
04:41:15.840 --> 04:41:22.680
miss kate lera typifying insensate vanity.
Many hard things have been said of Nero,

3334
04:41:22.919 --> 04:41:27.560
but his unkindest critics have never accused
him of resembling you in feature until

3335
04:41:27.680 --> 04:41:33.560
some very clear evidence is produced national
shoes to believe it. Cornelian was proof

3336
04:41:33.560 --> 04:41:38.319
against these shafts. Leaning back gracefully
in his chair, he launched forth into

3337
04:41:38.360 --> 04:41:44.520
that detailed description of his last night's
attire which the dawn had so unaccountably failed

3338
04:41:44.560 --> 04:41:48.680
to supply. I wore a tunic
of white Nappalese silk, with a collar

3339
04:41:48.720 --> 04:41:52.919
of pearls, real pearls. Round
my waist. I had a girdle of

3340
04:41:52.959 --> 04:41:59.439
twisted serpents in beaten gold, studied
all over with amethysts. My sandals were

3341
04:41:59.479 --> 04:42:03.959
of gold laced with scarlet thread,
and I had seven bracelets of gold on

3342
04:42:03.000 --> 04:42:07.599
each arm. Round my head,
I had a wreath of gold and laurel

3343
04:42:07.680 --> 04:42:11.560
leaves set with scarlet berries, and
hanging over my left shoulder as a silk

3344
04:42:11.639 --> 04:42:18.040
robe of mulberry purple broidered with the
signs of the zodiac in golden scarlet.

3345
04:42:18.520 --> 04:42:22.799
I had it made specially for the
occasion. At my side, I had

3346
04:42:22.799 --> 04:42:27.200
an ivory sheathed dagger with a green
jade handle, hung in a green cord

3347
04:42:27.240 --> 04:42:33.479
dover leather. At this point in
the recital, his companion rose softly,

3348
04:42:33.840 --> 04:42:37.119
flung his cigarette end into the little
water bowl, and passed into the further

3349
04:42:37.240 --> 04:42:44.599
swelter room. Cornelian Valpy was left
still clothed in a look of ineffable complacency,

3350
04:42:45.040 --> 04:42:49.000
still engaged in all probability in reclothing
himself in the finery of the previous

3351
04:42:49.119 --> 04:43:07.959
evening. End of chapter seventeen.
Chapter eighteen of When William Came By Sarkee.

3352
04:43:10.279 --> 04:43:15.240
This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

3353
04:43:15.799 --> 04:43:21.840
For further information or to volunteer,
please go to LibriVox dot org.

3354
04:43:22.759 --> 04:43:32.080
Reading by and imentor When William Came
By Sarkee, Chapter eighteen, The dead

3355
04:43:32.639 --> 04:43:40.599
who do not understand The pale light
of a November afternoon faded rapidly into the

3356
04:43:40.680 --> 04:43:45.720
dusk of a November evening. Far
over the countryside, housewives put up their

3357
04:43:45.759 --> 04:43:49.599
cottage shutters, lit their lamps and
made the customary a remark that the days

3358
04:43:49.639 --> 04:43:55.919
were drawing in. In barnyards and
poultry runs, the greediest bullets made a

3359
04:43:55.959 --> 04:44:00.720
final tour of inspection, picking up
the stray remaining morsels of the evening meal,

3360
04:44:00.279 --> 04:44:04.159
and then, with much scrambling and
squawking, sought the places on the

3361
04:44:04.240 --> 04:44:10.279
roosting pole that they thought should belong
to them. Laborers working in yard and

3362
04:44:10.400 --> 04:44:15.040
field began to turn their thoughts homeward
or tavernwood, as the case might be,

3363
04:44:15.919 --> 04:44:18.759
And through the cold, squelching slush
of a water logged meadow, a

3364
04:44:18.840 --> 04:44:26.119
weary, bedraggled but unbeaten fox stiffly
picked his way, climbed a high bramble

3365
04:44:26.200 --> 04:44:30.759
grown bank, and flung himself into
the sheltering labyrinth of a stretching tangle of

3366
04:44:30.799 --> 04:44:34.520
woods. The pack of fierce mouthed
things that had rattled him from copse and

3367
04:44:34.639 --> 04:44:40.560
gorse cover along fallow and plow hedgerow
and wooded lane for nigh on an hour,

3368
04:44:40.959 --> 04:44:44.799
and had pressed hard on his life
for the last few minutes, receded

3369
04:44:44.799 --> 04:44:49.240
suddenly into the background of his experiences, the cold, wet meadow, the

3370
04:44:49.360 --> 04:44:53.720
thick mask of woods, and the
oncoming dusk had stayed the chase, and

3371
04:44:53.840 --> 04:44:59.080
the fox had outstayed it. In
a short time, he would fall mechanically

3372
04:44:59.119 --> 04:45:03.200
to licking off some of the mud
that caked on his weary pads. In

3373
04:45:03.240 --> 04:45:07.560
a shorter time, horseman and hounds
would have drawn off kennelward and homeward.

3374
04:45:07.479 --> 04:45:12.279
Yeoville rode through the deepening twilight,
relying chiefly on his horse to find its

3375
04:45:12.319 --> 04:45:17.880
way in the network of hedge bordered
lanes that presumably led to a high road

3376
04:45:18.080 --> 04:45:22.040
or to some human habitation. He
was desperately tired after his day's hunting,

3377
04:45:22.439 --> 04:45:27.040
a legacy of weakness that the fever
had bequeathed to him. But even though

3378
04:45:27.080 --> 04:45:32.720
he could scarcely sit upright in his
saddle, his mind dwelt complacently on the

3379
04:45:32.799 --> 04:45:37.639
day's sport and looked forward to the
snug, cheery comfort that awaited him at

3380
04:45:37.680 --> 04:45:41.360
his hunting box. There was a
charm, too, even for a tired

3381
04:45:41.400 --> 04:45:45.479
man, in the eerie stillness of
the lone twilight land through which he was

3382
04:45:45.560 --> 04:45:49.119
passing, a gray, shadow hung
land which seemed to have been emptied of

3383
04:45:49.159 --> 04:45:53.799
all things that belonged to the daytime, and filled with a lurking, moving

3384
04:45:53.880 --> 04:45:59.360
life of which one knew nothing beyond
the sense that it was there, there

3385
04:45:59.680 --> 04:46:03.360
and very near. If there had
been wood gods and wicked eyed forms in

3386
04:46:03.439 --> 04:46:08.840
the sunlit groves and hillsides of old
hellas, surely there were watchful living things

3387
04:46:08.880 --> 04:46:14.479
of kindred mold in this dusk hidden
wilderness of fields and hedge and coppice.

3388
04:46:15.520 --> 04:46:18.840
It was Yeovil's third or fourth day
with the hounds, without taking into account

3389
04:46:18.840 --> 04:46:23.000
a couple of mornings cub hunting.
Already he felt that he had been doing

3390
04:46:23.040 --> 04:46:27.959
nothing different from this all his life. His foreign travels, his illness,

3391
04:46:27.959 --> 04:46:33.240
his recent weeks in London. They
were part of a tapestried background that had

3392
04:46:33.360 --> 04:46:37.720
very slight and distant connection with his
present existence. Of the future, he

3393
04:46:37.840 --> 04:46:42.759
tried to think with greater energy and
determination. For this winter, at any

3394
04:46:42.840 --> 04:46:47.680
rate, he would hunt and do
a little shooting, entertain a few of

3395
04:46:47.720 --> 04:46:52.159
his neighbors, and make friends with
any congenial fellow sportsman who might be within

3396
04:46:52.240 --> 04:46:56.080
reach. Next year, things would
be different. He would have had time

3397
04:46:56.080 --> 04:47:00.680
to look around him to regain something
of his a four time vigor of mind

3398
04:47:00.759 --> 04:47:06.040
and body. Next year, when
the hunting season was over, he would

3399
04:47:06.040 --> 04:47:08.720
set about finding out whether there was
any nobler game for him to take a

3400
04:47:08.759 --> 04:47:14.279
hand in. He would enter into
correspondence with old friends who had gone out

3401
04:47:14.319 --> 04:47:18.279
into the tropics and the backwoods.
He would do something, so, he

3402
04:47:18.400 --> 04:47:22.759
told himself. But he knew thoroughly
well that he had found his level.

3403
04:47:23.479 --> 04:47:29.360
He had ceased to struggle against the
fascination of his present surroundings. The slow,

3404
04:47:29.520 --> 04:47:33.400
quiet comfort and interest of country life
appealed with innovating force to the man

3405
04:47:33.520 --> 04:47:38.520
whom death had half conquered. The
pleasures of the chase, well provided for

3406
04:47:38.720 --> 04:47:44.159
in every detail, and dovetailed in
with the assured luxury of a well ordered,

3407
04:47:44.240 --> 04:47:48.880
Welsh staffed establishment, were exactly what
he wanted and exactly what his life

3408
04:47:48.919 --> 04:47:53.520
down here afforded him. He was
experiencing, too, that passionate, recurring

3409
04:47:53.560 --> 04:47:57.439
devotion to an old, loved scene
that comes at times to men who have

3410
04:47:57.520 --> 04:48:03.240
traveled far and willingly up and down
the world. He was very much at

3411
04:48:03.279 --> 04:48:08.959
home. The alien standard floating over
Buckingham Palace, the Crown of Charlene on

3412
04:48:10.040 --> 04:48:15.520
public buildings and official documents, the
gray ships of war riding in Plymouth Bay

3413
04:48:15.560 --> 04:48:19.799
and Southampton Water with a flag at
their stern, that older generations of Britons

3414
04:48:19.799 --> 04:48:25.560
had never looked on. These things
seemed far away, and inconsequent amid the

3415
04:48:25.599 --> 04:48:32.080
hedgerows and woods and fallows of the
East Wessex country, horse and poundcraft,

3416
04:48:32.240 --> 04:48:36.400
harvest, game broods, the planting
and felling of timber, the rearing and

3417
04:48:36.479 --> 04:48:41.119
selling of stock, the letting of
grasslands, the care of fisheries, the

3418
04:48:41.319 --> 04:48:45.319
upkeep of markets and fairs. They
were the things that immediately mattered, And

3419
04:48:45.479 --> 04:48:52.200
Yeoville saw himself, in moments of
disgust and self accusation, settling down into

3420
04:48:52.240 --> 04:48:56.080
this life of rustic littleness, concerned
over the late nesting of a partridge or

3421
04:48:56.119 --> 04:49:02.119
the defective draining of a loose box, hued busy over affairs that a gardener's

3422
04:49:02.159 --> 04:49:07.319
boy might grapple with, ignoring the
struggle cry that went up, low and

3423
04:49:07.520 --> 04:49:14.159
bitter and wistful from a dethroned,
dispossessed race in whose glories he had gloried,

3424
04:49:14.599 --> 04:49:18.279
in whose struggle he leant no hand. In what way, he asked

3425
04:49:18.400 --> 04:49:22.279
himself in such moments, would his
life be better than the life of that

3426
04:49:22.439 --> 04:49:27.599
parody of manhood who upholsted his rooms
with art hangings and rosewood furniture, and

3427
04:49:27.720 --> 04:49:34.279
babbled over the effect. The lanes
seemed interminable and without a more object except

3428
04:49:34.319 --> 04:49:38.479
to bisect one another. Gates and
gaps disclosed nothing in the way of a

3429
04:49:38.599 --> 04:49:44.319
landmark, and the night began to
draw down in increasing shades of darkness.

3430
04:49:45.319 --> 04:49:48.959
Presently, however, the tirred horse
quickened its pace, swung round a sharp

3431
04:49:49.040 --> 04:49:53.799
corner into a broader roadway, and
stopped with an air of thankful expectancy,

3432
04:49:53.919 --> 04:49:59.720
at the low doorway of a wayside
inn. A cheerful glow of light streamed

3433
04:49:59.720 --> 04:50:03.720
from windows and door, and a
brighter glare came from the other side of

3434
04:50:03.720 --> 04:50:07.639
the road, where a large motor
car was being got ready for an immediate

3435
04:50:07.680 --> 04:50:11.799
start. Yovil tumbled stiffly out of
his saddle, and in answer to the

3436
04:50:11.840 --> 04:50:17.119
loud rattle of his hunting crop on
the open door, the innkeeper and two

3437
04:50:17.240 --> 04:50:19.959
or three hangers on hurried out to
attend to the wants of man and beast,

3438
04:50:21.799 --> 04:50:25.599
flower and water for the horse,
and something hot for himself or Yovil's

3439
04:50:25.599 --> 04:50:30.919
first concern. And then he began
to clamor for geographical information. He was

3440
04:50:30.000 --> 04:50:34.599
rather dismayed to find that the cumulative
opinions of those whom he consulted, and

3441
04:50:34.639 --> 04:50:40.840
of several others who joined unbidden in
the discussion, placed his destination at nothing

3442
04:50:40.880 --> 04:50:45.479
nearer than nine miles. Nine miles
of dark and hilly country road for a

3443
04:50:45.479 --> 04:50:52.520
tired man on a tired horse assumed
enormous far stretching proportions, and although he

3444
04:50:52.560 --> 04:50:56.479
dimly remembered that he had asked a
guest to dinner for that evening, he

3445
04:50:56.560 --> 04:51:00.599
began to wonder whether the Wayside Inn
possessed anything endurable in the way of a

3446
04:51:00.680 --> 04:51:07.000
bedroom. The landlord interrupted his desperate
speculations with a really brilliant effort of suggestion.

3447
04:51:07.560 --> 04:51:10.680
There was a gentleman in the bar, he said, who was going

3448
04:51:10.720 --> 04:51:14.439
in a motor car in the direction
for which Yovil was bound, and who

3449
04:51:14.439 --> 04:51:18.680
would no doubt be willing to drop
him at his destination. The gentleman had

3450
04:51:18.680 --> 04:51:22.799
also been out with the hounds.
Yovill's horse could be stabled at the inn

3451
04:51:22.959 --> 04:51:26.439
and fetched home by groom. Next
morning. A hurried embassy to the bar

3452
04:51:26.479 --> 04:51:30.639
parlor resulted in the news that the
motorist would be delighted to be of assistance

3453
04:51:30.799 --> 04:51:37.639
to a fellow sportsman. Yeovil gratefully
accepted the chance that had so obligingly come

3454
04:51:37.680 --> 04:51:41.119
his way and hastened to superintend the
housing of his horse in its night's quarters.

3455
04:51:41.759 --> 04:51:45.680
When he had duly seen to the
tired animal's comfort and foddering, he

3456
04:51:45.720 --> 04:51:49.439
returned to the roadway, where a
young man in hunting garb and a leveried

3457
04:51:49.560 --> 04:51:55.400
chauffeur was standing by the side of
the waiting car. I am suppleased to

3458
04:51:55.439 --> 04:51:57.919
be of some use to you,
mister Yorville, said the car owner with

3459
04:51:59.000 --> 04:52:03.240
a polite bow. And Yovil recognized
the young Lieutenant von gabel Route, who

3460
04:52:03.240 --> 04:52:07.680
had been present at the musical afternoon
at Berkshire Street. He had doubtless seen

3461
04:52:07.759 --> 04:52:11.200
him at the meet that morning,
but in his hunting kit he had escaped

3462
04:52:11.200 --> 04:52:17.040
his observation. I too have been
out of Sir Hans, the young man

3463
04:52:17.080 --> 04:52:21.200
continued, I have left my horse
at the crow and sipter in Dolfood.

3464
04:52:21.720 --> 04:52:25.560
You are living at Black Dean,
are you not? I can tissue right

3465
04:52:25.639 --> 04:52:29.840
past your door. It is all
on my way. Yovil hung back for

3466
04:52:29.880 --> 04:52:33.520
a moment, overwhelmed with vexation and
embarrassment, but it was too late to

3467
04:52:33.560 --> 04:52:38.200
cancel the arrangement that he had unwittingly
entered into, and he was constrained to

3468
04:52:38.240 --> 04:52:42.319
put himself under obligation to the young
officer with the best grace he could muster.

3469
04:52:42.959 --> 04:52:47.479
After all, he reflected, he
had met him under his own roof

3470
04:52:47.520 --> 04:52:51.759
as his wife's guest. He paid
his reckoning to mine host, tipped the

3471
04:52:51.799 --> 04:52:55.759
stable lad who had helped him with
his horse, and took his place beside

3472
04:52:55.840 --> 04:53:00.560
von gabel Rot in the car.
As they glided along the dark roadway,

3473
04:53:00.639 --> 04:53:03.400
and the young German reeled off a
string of comments on the incidents of the

3474
04:53:03.520 --> 04:53:08.959
day's sport, Yeovil lay back amid
his comfortable wraps and weighed the measure of

3475
04:53:10.040 --> 04:53:15.319
his humiliation. It was Secily's gospel
that one should know what one wanted in

3476
04:53:15.360 --> 04:53:18.639
life and take good care that one
got what one wanted. Could he apply

3477
04:53:18.759 --> 04:53:23.400
that test of achievement to his own
life? Was this what he really wanted

3478
04:53:23.400 --> 04:53:29.720
to be doing, pursuing his uneventful
way as a country's squire, sharing even

3479
04:53:29.799 --> 04:53:33.439
his sports and pastimes with men of
the nation that had conquered and enslaved his

3480
04:53:33.520 --> 04:53:40.119
fatherland. The car slackened its pace
somewhat as they went through a small hamlet,

3481
04:53:40.479 --> 04:53:44.759
past a schoolhouse, past a rural
police station. With the new monogram

3482
04:53:44.799 --> 04:53:48.319
over its notice board, past a
church with a little tree grown graveyard.

3483
04:53:49.360 --> 04:53:55.799
There in a corner, among wild
rose bushes and tall ewes lay some of

3484
04:53:55.880 --> 04:54:00.880
Yovill's own kinsfolk, who had lived
in these parts and hunted and life pleasant

3485
04:54:00.959 --> 04:54:04.279
in the days that were not so
very long ago. Whenever he went past

3486
04:54:04.319 --> 04:54:08.599
that quiet little gathering place of the
dead, Yovil was wont to raise his

3487
04:54:08.639 --> 04:54:14.639
hat in mute affectionate salutation to those
who were now only memories in his family.

3488
04:54:15.759 --> 04:54:19.119
To night, he somehow omitted the
salute and turned his head the other

3489
04:54:19.159 --> 04:54:23.439
way. It was as though the
dead of his race sow and wondered.

3490
04:54:25.400 --> 04:54:27.319
Three or four months ago, the
thing he was doing would have seemed an

3491
04:54:27.360 --> 04:54:33.240
impossibility. Now it was actually happening. He was listening to the gay,

3492
04:54:33.360 --> 04:54:37.840
courteous, tactful shadow of his young
companion, laughing now and then at some

3493
04:54:37.959 --> 04:54:42.000
joking remark, answering some question of
interest, learning something of hunting ways and

3494
04:54:42.119 --> 04:54:47.759
traditions in von gabel Orte's own country. And when the car turned in at

3495
04:54:47.759 --> 04:54:51.319
the gate of the hunting lodge and
drew up at the steps, the laws

3496
04:54:51.360 --> 04:54:55.919
of hospitality demanded that Yovil should ask
his benefactor of the road to come in

3497
04:54:55.959 --> 04:54:59.840
for a few minutes and drink something
a little better than the wayside in had

3498
04:54:59.840 --> 04:55:03.840
been been able to supply. The
young officer spent the best part of a

3499
04:55:03.919 --> 04:55:07.959
half hour in Yovill's snuggery, examining
and discussing that the trophies of rifle and

3500
04:55:08.040 --> 04:55:12.159
collecting gun that covered the walls.
He had a good knowledge of woodcraft,

3501
04:55:12.319 --> 04:55:18.240
and the beasts and birds of Siberian
forests and North African deserts were to him

3502
04:55:18.360 --> 04:55:22.919
new pages in a familiar book.
Yovil found himself discoursing eagerly with his chance

3503
04:55:23.000 --> 04:55:27.759
guest on the European distribution and local
variation of such and such a species,

3504
04:55:29.000 --> 04:55:33.560
recounting peculiarities in its habits and incidents
of its pursuit and capture. If the

3505
04:55:33.639 --> 04:55:38.400
cold observant eyes of Lady Shalam could
have rested on the scene, she would

3506
04:55:38.400 --> 04:55:42.400
have hailed it as another root fiber
thrown out by the Fete a compli.

3507
04:55:44.479 --> 04:55:48.319
Yovill closed the hall door on his
departing visitor and closed his mind on the

3508
04:55:48.319 --> 04:55:53.919
crowd of angry and accusing thoughts that
were waiting to intrude themselves. His valet

3509
04:55:53.959 --> 04:55:57.880
had already got his bath in readiness, and in a few minutes the tired

3510
04:55:57.959 --> 04:56:03.720
huntsman was forgetting weariness and the consciousness
of outside things. In the languorous abandonment

3511
04:56:03.919 --> 04:56:10.599
that steam and hot water induce,
brain and limbs seemed to lay themselves down

3512
04:56:10.639 --> 04:56:15.279
in a contented, waking sleep.
The world that was beyond the bathroom walls

3513
04:56:15.360 --> 04:56:21.479
dropped away into a far unreal distance. Only somewhere through the steam clouds pierced

3514
04:56:21.479 --> 04:56:26.840
a hasty consciousness that a dinner well
chosen was being cooked and would presently be

3515
04:56:26.919 --> 04:56:32.479
well served and right well appreciated.
That was a lure to drag the bather

3516
04:56:32.599 --> 04:56:37.000
away from the nirvana land of warmth
and steam. The stimulating after effect of

3517
04:56:37.000 --> 04:56:41.080
the bath took its due effect,
and Jovill felt that he was now much

3518
04:56:41.159 --> 04:56:47.319
less tired and enormously hungry. A
cheery fire burned in his dressing room,

3519
04:56:47.479 --> 04:56:51.759
and a lively black kitten helped him
to dress, and incidentally helped him to

3520
04:56:51.799 --> 04:56:56.439
require a new tassel to the cord
of his dressing gown. As he finished

3521
04:56:56.479 --> 04:57:00.680
his toilet and the kitten finished its
sixth and most notable attack on the tassel,

3522
04:57:00.000 --> 04:57:03.560
a ring was heard at the front
door, and a moment later a

3523
04:57:03.680 --> 04:57:08.720
loud, hearty and unmistakably hungry voice
resounded in the hall. It belonged to

3524
04:57:08.759 --> 04:57:12.799
the local doctor, who had also
taken part in the day's run and had

3525
04:57:12.840 --> 04:57:18.799
been bidden to enliven the evening meal
with the entertainment of his inexhaustible store of

3526
04:57:18.840 --> 04:57:23.479
sporting and social reminiscences. He knew
the countryside and the country folk inside out,

3527
04:57:23.799 --> 04:57:27.279
and he was a living, unwritten
chronicle of the East Wessex hunt.

3528
04:57:29.240 --> 04:57:33.799
His conversation seemed exactly the right accompaniment
to the meal. His stories brought glimpses

3529
04:57:33.799 --> 04:57:40.000
of wet hedgerows, stiff plowlands,
leafy spines and muddy brooks in among the

3530
04:57:40.080 --> 04:57:44.279
rich old Worcester and George, and
silver at the dinner service, the glow

3531
04:57:44.319 --> 04:57:48.880
and crattle of the wood fire,
the pleasant succession of well cooked dishes and

3532
04:57:48.000 --> 04:57:55.119
mellow wines. The world narrowed itself
down again to a warm, drowsy scented

3533
04:57:55.159 --> 04:58:00.080
dining room, with the productive hinterland
of kitchen and cellar beyond it, and

3534
04:58:00.159 --> 04:58:04.000
beyond that an important outer world of
loose box and harness room and stable yard.

3535
04:58:04.680 --> 04:58:10.959
Further again, a dark, hush
region where pheasants roosted and owls flitted,

3536
04:58:11.159 --> 04:58:17.639
and foxes prowled, Yeovil sat and
listened to story after story of the

3537
04:58:17.680 --> 04:58:22.000
men and women and horses of the
neighborhood. Even the foxes seemed to have

3538
04:58:22.080 --> 04:58:26.560
a personality, some of them,
and a personal history. It was a

3539
04:58:26.560 --> 04:58:30.200
little like Hans Andersen, he decided, and a little like the reminiscences of

3540
04:58:30.200 --> 04:58:34.279
an Irish r m, and perhaps
just a little like some of the more

3541
04:58:34.319 --> 04:58:41.159
probable adventures of Baron Munchhausen. The
newer stories were evidently true to the smallest

3542
04:58:41.200 --> 04:58:45.959
detail. The earlier ones had altered
somewhat in repetition. As plants and animals

3543
04:58:47.080 --> 04:58:52.200
vary under domestication, and all the
time, there was one topic that was

3544
04:58:52.279 --> 04:58:56.799
never touched on. Of half the
families mentioned, it was necessary to add

3545
04:58:56.840 --> 04:59:00.639
the qualifying information that they used to
live at such and such a place.

3546
04:59:02.319 --> 04:59:07.959
The countryside knew them no longer their
properties were for sale or had already passed

3547
04:59:07.000 --> 04:59:11.479
into the hands of strangers. But
neither man cared to allude to the grinning

3548
04:59:11.520 --> 04:59:15.720
shadow that sat at the feast and
sent an icy chill now and again through

3549
04:59:15.799 --> 04:59:21.959
the cheeriest jest and most jovial story. The brisk run with the hounds that

3550
04:59:22.159 --> 04:59:26.159
day had stirred and warmed their pulses. It was an evening for comfortable forgetting.

3551
04:59:27.279 --> 04:59:32.360
Later that night, in the stillness
of his bedroom, with the dwindling

3552
04:59:32.400 --> 04:59:37.040
noises of a retiring household dropping off
one by one into ordered silence, a

3553
04:59:37.159 --> 04:59:42.200
door shutting here, a fire being
raked out there, the thoughts that had

3554
04:59:42.240 --> 04:59:48.400
been held away came crowding in.
The body was tired, but the brain

3555
04:59:48.520 --> 04:59:53.319
was not, and Yeovil lay awake
with his thoughts for company. The world

3556
04:59:53.360 --> 04:59:59.560
grew suddenly wide again, filled with
the significance of things that mattered, held

3557
04:59:59.599 --> 05:00:03.520
by the actions of men that mattered. Hunting box and stable and gun room

3558
05:00:03.599 --> 05:00:08.159
dwindled to a mere pinpoint in the
universe. There were other, larger,

3559
05:00:08.279 --> 05:00:12.680
more absorbing things on which the mine
dwelt. There was the gray, cold

3560
05:00:12.799 --> 05:00:18.840
sea outside Dover and Portsmouth and Cork, where the great gray ships of war

3561
05:00:18.119 --> 05:00:23.319
rocked and swung with the tides,
where the sailors sang in doggerel English,

3562
05:00:23.439 --> 05:00:30.439
that bitter sounding adaptation Germania rules to
waves, where the flag of a world

3563
05:00:30.520 --> 05:00:36.400
power floated for the world to see, And in oven like cities of India.

3564
05:00:36.520 --> 05:00:38.680
There were men who looked out at
the white sun glare, the heat

3565
05:00:38.720 --> 05:00:45.159
baked dust, the welter of crowded
streets, who listened to the unceasing chorus

3566
05:00:45.200 --> 05:00:49.360
of harsh throated crows, the strident
creaking of cart wheels, the buzz and

3567
05:00:49.479 --> 05:00:55.040
drone of insect swarms, and the
rattle call of the tree lizards. Men

3568
05:00:55.200 --> 05:00:59.880
whose thoughts went hungrily to the cool, gray skies and wet turf and moist

3569
05:01:00.040 --> 05:01:04.680
lowlands of an English hunting country.
Men whose memories listened yearningly to the music

3570
05:01:04.759 --> 05:01:08.360
of a deep throated hound and the
call of a game bird in the stubble.

3571
05:01:10.680 --> 05:01:14.919
Yovil had secured for himself the enjoyment
of the things for which these men

3572
05:01:15.040 --> 05:01:19.319
hungered. He had known what he
wanted in life slowly and with hesitation,

3573
05:01:19.560 --> 05:01:26.000
yet nevertheless, surely he had arrived
at the achievement of his unconfessed desires.

3574
05:01:26.799 --> 05:01:30.240
Here, installed under his own roof
tree, with as good horse flesh in

3575
05:01:30.360 --> 05:01:34.919
his stable as man could desire,
with sport lying almost at his door,

3576
05:01:36.439 --> 05:01:40.959
with his wife ready to come down
and help him entertain his neighbors, mari

3577
05:01:41.119 --> 05:01:45.560
Jovil had found the life that he
wanted and was accursed in his own eyes.

3578
05:01:47.880 --> 05:01:52.159
He argued with himself, and palliated
and explained, but he knew why

3579
05:01:52.240 --> 05:01:56.840
he had turned his eyes away that
evening from the little graveyard under the trees.

3580
05:01:59.000 --> 05:02:11.639
One cannot plain things to the dead
end of chapter eighteen. Chapter nineteen

3581
05:02:11.080 --> 05:02:18.959
of When William Came by Sake.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox

3582
05:02:19.040 --> 05:02:25.799
recordings are in the public domain.
For further information or to volunteer, please

3583
05:02:25.880 --> 05:02:33.319
go to LibriVox dot org. Reading
by and Iminta, When William Came by

3584
05:02:33.400 --> 05:02:42.720
Saki, Chapter nineteen, The little
Foxes take us the foxes, the little

3585
05:02:42.759 --> 05:02:49.560
foxes that spoil the vines. On
a warm and sunny May afternoon, some

3586
05:02:49.759 --> 05:02:56.639
ten months since Yeoville's return from his
Siberian wanderings and sickness, Cicily sat at

3587
05:02:56.639 --> 05:03:00.799
a small table in the open air
restaurant in Hyde Park, finishing her after

3588
05:03:00.880 --> 05:03:06.919
luncheon coffee and listening to the meritorious
performance of the orchestra. Opposite her sat

3589
05:03:07.040 --> 05:03:11.799
Larry meadow Field, absorbed for the
moment in the slow enjoyment of a cigarette,

3590
05:03:11.200 --> 05:03:15.439
which also was not without its short
lived merits. Larry was a well

3591
05:03:15.560 --> 05:03:19.639
dressed youngster who was, in Secily's
opinion, distinctly good to look on,

3592
05:03:21.119 --> 05:03:25.880
an opinion which the boy himself obviously
shared. He had the healthy, well

3593
05:03:25.919 --> 05:03:30.639
cared appearance of a country dweller who
has turned into a town dandy without suffering

3594
05:03:30.639 --> 05:03:33.959
in the process. His blue black
hair, growing very low down on a

3595
05:03:34.040 --> 05:03:38.880
broad forehead, was brushed back in
the smoothness that gave his head the appearance

3596
05:03:38.880 --> 05:03:44.759
of a rain polished sloe. His
eyebrows were two dark smudges, and his

3597
05:03:44.919 --> 05:03:48.599
large, violet gray eyes expressed the
RESTful, good temper of an animal whose

3598
05:03:48.639 --> 05:03:53.959
immediate requirements have been satisfied. The
lunch had been an excellent one, and

3599
05:03:55.040 --> 05:03:57.959
it was jolly to feed out of
doors in the warm spring air, the

3600
05:03:59.040 --> 05:04:03.720
only drawback to the arrangement being the
absence of mirrors. However, if he

3601
05:04:03.759 --> 05:04:07.119
could not look at himself, a
great many people could look at him.

3602
05:04:07.639 --> 05:04:12.639
Cicily listened to the orchestra as it
jerked and strutted through a fantastic dance measure,

3603
05:04:14.119 --> 05:04:17.479
and as she listened, she looked
appreciatively at the boy on the other

3604
05:04:17.479 --> 05:04:19.959
side of the table, whose soul
for the moment seemed to be in his

3605
05:04:21.040 --> 05:04:25.720
cigarette. Her scheme of life,
knowing just what you wanted and taking good

3606
05:04:25.799 --> 05:04:30.639
care that you got it was justifying
itself by results. Ronnie, grown tarsome

3607
05:04:30.680 --> 05:04:34.759
with success, had not been difficult
to replace, and no one in her

3608
05:04:34.799 --> 05:04:40.919
world had the satisfaction of being able
to condole with her on the undesirable experience

3609
05:04:40.959 --> 05:04:47.400
of a long interregnum to feminine acquaintances
with fewer advantages of purse and brains and

3610
05:04:47.520 --> 05:04:52.840
looks. She might figure as that
Yeoville woman, but never had she given

3611
05:04:52.880 --> 05:04:59.200
them the justification to allude to her
as poor Sicily Yeoville. And Murray dear

3612
05:04:59.240 --> 05:05:03.119
old soul had cooled down, as
she had hoped and wished, from his

3613
05:05:03.200 --> 05:05:07.159
white heat of disgust at the things
that she had preferred herself to accept philosophically,

3614
05:05:08.040 --> 05:05:11.759
a new chapter of their married life, and man and woman friendship had

3615
05:05:11.799 --> 05:05:17.360
opened. Many a rare gallop they
had had together that winter, many a

3616
05:05:17.439 --> 05:05:22.400
cheery dinner gathering and long bridge evening
in the cozy hunting lodge. Though he

3617
05:05:22.479 --> 05:05:26.680
still hated the new London and held
himself aloof from most of her town set,

3618
05:05:26.319 --> 05:05:32.200
yet he had not shown himself rigidly
intolerant of the sprinkling of Teuton sportsmen

3619
05:05:32.279 --> 05:05:37.040
who hunted and shot down in his
part of the country. The orchestra finished

3620
05:05:37.040 --> 05:05:42.159
its clicking and caracoling, and was
accorded a short clatter of applause. The

3621
05:05:42.240 --> 05:05:48.319
dance macabre, said Cecily to her
companion. One of Saint Saanz's best known

3622
05:05:48.360 --> 05:05:52.799
pieces is it, said Larry indifferently. Now take your word for it.

3623
05:05:52.919 --> 05:05:56.799
Fraid I don't know much about music, you dear boy. That's just what

3624
05:05:56.919 --> 05:06:02.560
I like in you, said Cecily. You're such a delicious young barbarian,

3625
05:06:03.479 --> 05:06:07.759
am I said Larry? I dare
say? I suppose you know? Larry's

3626
05:06:07.840 --> 05:06:12.119
father had been a brilliantly clever man
who had married a brilliantly handsome woman.

3627
05:06:12.680 --> 05:06:17.799
The fates had not the least intention
that Larry should take after both parents.

3628
05:06:18.119 --> 05:06:22.759
The fashion of having one Blanche in
the open air has quite caught on this

3629
05:06:22.799 --> 05:06:27.319
season, said Cecily. One sees
everybody here on a fine day. There's

3630
05:06:27.400 --> 05:06:32.119
Lady Bailquist over there. She used
to be Lady Shalam, you know,

3631
05:06:32.279 --> 05:06:36.400
before her husband got the earldom.
To be more correct, before she got

3632
05:06:36.439 --> 05:06:38.880
it for him. I suppose she's
all god to see the great review.

3633
05:06:41.159 --> 05:06:45.919
It was, in fact precisely the
absorbing topic of the Fourthoming Boy Scout March

3634
05:06:45.000 --> 05:06:51.959
past that was engaging the Countess of
Bailquist's earnest attention at the moment. It's

3635
05:06:52.000 --> 05:06:56.599
going to be an historical occasion,
she was saying to Sir Leonard Pitherby,

3636
05:06:56.880 --> 05:07:00.759
whose services to literature had up to
the present received a half measure of recognition.

3637
05:07:02.319 --> 05:07:06.240
If it miscarries, it will be
a serious setback for the fitter compli.

3638
05:07:07.000 --> 05:07:10.959
If it is a success, it
will be the biggest step forward in

3639
05:07:11.000 --> 05:07:15.799
the path of reconciliation between the two
races that has yet been taken. It

3640
05:07:15.919 --> 05:07:19.200
will mean that the younger generation is
on our side, not all, of

3641
05:07:19.240 --> 05:07:22.880
course, but some. That is
all we can expect at present, and

3642
05:07:23.040 --> 05:07:29.080
that will be enough to work on. Supposing the Scouts hang back and don't

3643
05:07:29.119 --> 05:07:33.240
turn up in the numbers, said
Sir Leonard anxiously, That, of course

3644
05:07:33.360 --> 05:07:40.080
is the danger, said Lady Belfist
quietly. Probably two thirds of the available

3645
05:07:40.080 --> 05:07:44.400
strength will hold back, but a
third or even a sixth would be enough.

3646
05:07:44.959 --> 05:07:48.000
It would redeem the parade from the
calamity of fiasco, and it would

3647
05:07:48.040 --> 05:07:52.000
be a nucleus to work on for
the future. That is what we want

3648
05:07:52.000 --> 05:07:56.799
a good start, a preliminary rally. It is the first step that counts.

3649
05:07:57.080 --> 05:08:02.680
That is why today's event is of
much importance. Of course, of

3650
05:08:02.720 --> 05:08:07.599
course, the first step on the
road, assented Sir Leonard, I can

3651
05:08:07.680 --> 05:08:12.040
assure you, continued Lady Belgfist,
that nothing has been left undone to rally

3652
05:08:12.080 --> 05:08:18.000
the Scouts to the new order of
things. Special privileges have been showered on

3653
05:08:18.080 --> 05:08:22.080
them alone among all the Cannet corps. They have been allowed to retain their

3654
05:08:22.200 --> 05:08:27.040
organization. A decoration of merit has
been instituted for them. A large hostelry

3655
05:08:27.040 --> 05:08:33.439
and gymnasium has been provided for them
in Westminster. His Majesty's youngest son is

3656
05:08:33.479 --> 05:08:37.520
to be their Scout Master in chief. A great athletic meeting is to be

3657
05:08:37.599 --> 05:08:42.360
held for them each year, with
valuable prizes. Three or four hundred of

3658
05:08:42.439 --> 05:08:47.119
them are to be taken every summer
free of charge, for a holiday in

3659
05:08:47.159 --> 05:08:52.880
the Bavarian Highlands and the Baltic seaboard. Besides this, the parent of every

3660
05:08:52.919 --> 05:08:56.319
Scout who obtains the Medal for Efficiency
is to be exempted from part of the

3661
05:08:56.400 --> 05:09:03.119
new war taxation that the people are
finding so burdensome. The one certainly cannot

3662
05:09:03.159 --> 05:09:07.720
say that they have not had attractions
held out to them, said sir Leonard.

3663
05:09:07.639 --> 05:09:11.720
It is a special effort, said
Lady Belfist. It is worth making

3664
05:09:11.759 --> 05:09:15.880
an effort. Four. They are
going to be the janisseries of the Empire,

3665
05:09:17.479 --> 05:09:22.400
the younger generation, knocking at the
doors of progress and thrusting the bars

3666
05:09:22.400 --> 05:09:26.040
and bolts of old racial prejudices.
I tell you, Sir Leonard, it

3667
05:09:26.119 --> 05:09:32.240
will be an historic moment when the
first core of those little CARKI glad boys

3668
05:09:32.360 --> 05:09:37.599
swings through the gates of the park. When do they come, asked the

3669
05:09:37.599 --> 05:09:42.479
baronet, catching something of his companion's
zeal. The first detachment is due to

3670
05:09:42.599 --> 05:09:48.599
arrive at three, said Lady Belchfist, referring to a small timetable of the

3671
05:09:48.680 --> 05:09:55.439
afternoon's proceedings three punctually, and the
others will follow in rapid succession. The

3672
05:09:55.560 --> 05:09:59.880
Emperor and Suite will arrive at two
fifty and take up their positions at the

3673
05:10:00.040 --> 05:10:04.159
saluting base over there, where the
big flagstaff has been set up. The

3674
05:10:04.240 --> 05:10:08.840
boys will come in by Hyde Park
Corner, Marble Arch and the Albert Gate

3675
05:10:08.919 --> 05:10:14.520
according to their districts, and form
in one big column over there where the

3676
05:10:14.560 --> 05:10:18.040
little flags are pegged out, then
the young Prince will inspect them and lead

3677
05:10:18.119 --> 05:10:23.840
them past His majesty. Who will
be with the imperial party, asked Sir

3678
05:10:23.919 --> 05:10:29.599
Leonard. Oh, it is to
be an important occasion. Everything will be

3679
05:10:29.680 --> 05:10:34.680
done to emphasize the significance of the
occasion, said Lady belcrist again, consulting

3680
05:10:34.720 --> 05:10:41.040
her program. The King of Wurtemburg
and two of the Bavarian royal princes,

3681
05:10:41.599 --> 05:10:45.759
an Abyssinian envoy who is over here. He will lend a touch of picturesque

3682
05:10:45.799 --> 05:10:52.040
barbarism to the scene. The General
commanding the London District, and a whole

3683
05:10:52.080 --> 05:10:56.880
lot of other military big wigs,
and the Austrian, Italian and Romanian military

3684
05:10:56.880 --> 05:11:02.319
attaches. She reeled off the posing
list of notables with an air of quiet

3685
05:11:02.360 --> 05:11:07.400
satisfaction. Sir Leonard made mental notes
of personages to whom he might send presentation

3686
05:11:07.560 --> 05:11:15.119
copies of his new work, Frederick
William the Great Elector a popular biography as

3687
05:11:15.159 --> 05:11:19.880
a souvenir of today's or suspicious event. It's nearlier quarter to three now,

3688
05:11:21.479 --> 05:11:25.520
he said, let us get a
good position before the crowd gets thicker.

3689
05:11:26.560 --> 05:11:30.400
Come along to my car. It
is just opposite to the saluting base,

3690
05:11:30.840 --> 05:11:33.279
said her ladyship. I have a
police passed that will let us through.

3691
05:11:33.639 --> 05:11:40.119
We'll ask missus Yeovil and her young
friend to join us. Larry excused himself

3692
05:11:40.200 --> 05:11:45.279
from joining the party. He had
a barbarian's reluctance to assisting at an imperial

3693
05:11:45.319 --> 05:11:49.000
triumph. I think I'll push off
to the swimming bath, he said to

3694
05:11:49.080 --> 05:11:55.880
Cecily. See you again about tea
time. Cecily walked with Lady beaulkfast and

3695
05:11:55.919 --> 05:12:00.080
a literary baronet towards the crowd of
spectators, which will steadily growing in dimensions.

3696
05:12:00.599 --> 05:12:04.520
The newsboy ran in front of them, displaying a poster with the intelligence

3697
05:12:06.159 --> 05:12:11.279
Essex's wickets fall rapidly. A semblance
of county crickets still survived under the new

3698
05:12:11.400 --> 05:12:15.119
order of things. Near the saluting
base, some thirty or forty motor cars

3699
05:12:15.119 --> 05:12:19.919
were drawn up in line, and
Cecily and her companions exchanged greetings with many

3700
05:12:19.919 --> 05:12:25.680
of the occupants. A lovely deaf
or review, isn't it, said the

3701
05:12:25.720 --> 05:12:30.599
Gryfin von Tolb, breaking off her
conversation with the hair Rybinoc, the little

3702
05:12:30.639 --> 05:12:34.680
Pomeranium banker, who was sitting by
her side. They haven't you brought mister

3703
05:12:34.759 --> 05:12:38.560
Meadowfield, such a nice by.
I wanted him to come and sit in

3704
05:12:38.680 --> 05:12:42.560
my carriage and talk to me.
He doesn't talk, you know, said

3705
05:12:42.599 --> 05:12:47.560
Cecily. He's only brilliant to look
at. Well, I could have looked

3706
05:12:47.599 --> 05:12:52.560
at him, said the Gryfinn.
There'll be thousands of other boys to look

3707
05:12:52.560 --> 05:12:56.560
at presently, said Cecily, laughing
at the old woman's frankness. Oh do

3708
05:12:56.680 --> 05:13:00.319
you think so, it'd be thousands, asked the Greffin, with an anxious

3709
05:13:00.360 --> 05:13:06.159
lowering of the voice. Really,
thousands, hundreds perhaps, though it's some

3710
05:13:06.360 --> 05:13:14.200
uncertainty. Everyone is not saving hundreds
anyway, said Sicily. The Gryffin turned

3711
05:13:14.240 --> 05:13:18.439
to the little banker and spoke to
him rapidly and earnestly in German. It

3712
05:13:18.639 --> 05:13:23.560
is most important that we should consolidate
our position in this country. We must

3713
05:13:23.599 --> 05:13:30.040
coax the younger generation over by degrees. We must disarm their hostility. We

3714
05:13:30.240 --> 05:13:33.959
cannot afford to be always on the
watch in this quarter. It is our

3715
05:13:33.000 --> 05:13:37.840
sort of weakness, and we cannot
afford to be weak. This slave upheaval

3716
05:13:37.919 --> 05:13:44.759
in southeastern Europe is to becoming a
serious menace. Have you seen today's telegrams

3717
05:13:44.799 --> 05:13:48.240
from my gram they are bad reading. There is no computing the extent of

3718
05:13:48.279 --> 05:13:55.240
this movement. It is directed against
us, said the banker. Agreed,

3719
05:13:55.599 --> 05:13:59.080
said the gryffin. It is in
the nature of things that it must be

3720
05:13:59.159 --> 05:14:03.000
against us. Let us have no
illusions. Within the next ten years sooner,

3721
05:14:03.000 --> 05:14:07.520
perhaps we shall be faced with a
crisis which will be only a beginning.

3722
05:14:07.919 --> 05:14:11.360
We shall need all our strength.
That is why we cannot afford to

3723
05:14:11.400 --> 05:14:15.880
be weak over here. To day
is an important day, I confess I

3724
05:14:15.919 --> 05:14:21.720
am anxious. Hark the kettle drums, exclaimed the commanding voice of Lady Bailcrist.

3725
05:14:22.080 --> 05:14:26.119
His Majesty is coming, quick,
bundle into the car. The crowd

3726
05:14:26.159 --> 05:14:33.319
behind the police kept lines surged expectantly
into closer formation. Spectators hurried up from

3727
05:14:33.319 --> 05:14:37.840
sidewalks and stood craning their necks above
the shoulders of earlier arrivals. Through the

3728
05:14:38.000 --> 05:14:42.959
archway at Hyde Park Corner came a
resplendid cavalcade with a swirl of color and

3729
05:14:44.080 --> 05:14:48.639
rhythmic movement, and a crash of
exultant music. Lifeguards with gleaming helmets,

3730
05:14:48.919 --> 05:14:53.759
a detachment of Wurtemburg lancers with a
flutter of black and yellow pennons, a

3731
05:14:53.959 --> 05:15:00.400
rich medley of staff uniforms, a
prancing array of princely horsemen, the perial

3732
05:15:00.520 --> 05:15:03.599
standard, and the King of Prussia, Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of

3733
05:15:03.680 --> 05:15:08.759
the West. It was the most
imposing display that Londoners had seen since the

3734
05:15:08.840 --> 05:15:15.759
catastrophe. Slowly, grandly, with
thunder of music and beat of hoofs,

3735
05:15:15.080 --> 05:15:21.560
the procession passed through the crowd across
the sward towards the saluting base. Slowly

3736
05:15:21.799 --> 05:15:26.040
the eagle standard, charged with the
leopards, lion and harp of the conquered

3737
05:15:26.119 --> 05:15:30.520
kingdoms rose, massed high on the
flagstaff and fluttered in the breeze. Slowly

3738
05:15:30.599 --> 05:15:34.880
and with military precision, the troops
and suite took up their position round the

3739
05:15:34.919 --> 05:15:41.639
central figure of the great pageant.
Trumpets and kettle drums suddenly ceased their music,

3740
05:15:41.080 --> 05:15:45.200
and in a moment there rose in
their stead an eager buzz of comment

3741
05:15:45.319 --> 05:15:51.799
from the nearest spectators. How well
the young prince looks in his scout uniform.

3742
05:15:52.040 --> 05:15:55.200
The King of Wuchnemburg is much younger
man than I thought he was.

3743
05:15:55.599 --> 05:15:57.880
Is that a Prussian or Bavarian uniform? There on the right, the man

3744
05:15:57.959 --> 05:16:03.240
on the back horse neither it's Austrian, the Austrian military attache. It is

3745
05:16:03.319 --> 05:16:07.680
one stop or talking to his majesty. He organized the boy scouts in Germany.

3746
05:16:07.759 --> 05:16:11.279
You know his Majesty's looking very pleased. He has reason to be pleased.

3747
05:16:11.279 --> 05:16:15.439
This is a great event in the
history of the two countries. It

3748
05:16:15.639 --> 05:16:19.279
marks a new epoch. Oh do
you see the Abyssinian envoy. What a

3749
05:16:19.319 --> 05:16:23.919
picturesque figure he makes, How well
he sits his horse. That is the

3750
05:16:23.959 --> 05:16:30.040
Grand Duke of Bardon's nephew talking to
the King of Wurtemburg. Now on the

3751
05:16:30.080 --> 05:16:33.919
bosom, chatter of the spectators fell. Suddenly three sound strokes, distant,

3752
05:16:34.240 --> 05:16:41.439
measured sinister, the clang of a
clock striking three three o'clock. And not

3753
05:16:41.520 --> 05:16:45.959
a boy scout within sight or hearing, exclaimed the loud ringing voice of Joan

3754
05:16:45.040 --> 05:16:49.080
Mardle. One can usually hear their
drums and trumpets a couple of miles away.

3755
05:16:51.439 --> 05:16:55.720
There's the traffic to get through,
said Sir Leonard Pitherby in an equally

3756
05:16:55.799 --> 05:17:00.000
high pitched voice. And of course, he added vaguely, it takes some

3757
05:17:00.200 --> 05:17:04.479
time to get the various units together. One must give them a few minutes.

3758
05:17:04.560 --> 05:17:11.200
Grease, Lady Belfist, said nothing
but her RESTful, watchful eyes were

3759
05:17:11.240 --> 05:17:15.479
turned first to Hyde Park Corner,
and then in the direction of the marble

3760
05:17:15.560 --> 05:17:19.479
larch, back again to Hyde Park
Corner. Only the dark lines of the

3761
05:17:19.520 --> 05:17:25.439
waiting crowd met her view, with
the yellow newspaper placards fitting in and out,

3762
05:17:25.880 --> 05:17:30.759
announcing to an indifferent public the fate
of Essex's wickets. As far as

3763
05:17:30.759 --> 05:17:34.400
her searching eyes could travel, the
green stretch of tree and sward remained unbroken

3764
05:17:34.599 --> 05:17:41.799
save by casual loiterers. No small
brown columns appeared, No drum beat came

3765
05:17:41.840 --> 05:17:45.680
throbbing up from the distance. The
little flags pegged out to mark the positions

3766
05:17:45.680 --> 05:17:51.799
of the awaited scout cause fluttered in
meaningless isolation on the empty parade ground.

3767
05:17:52.200 --> 05:17:57.200
His Majesty was talking unconcernedly with one
of his officers. The foreign attaches looked

3768
05:17:57.240 --> 05:18:03.040
steadily between their charges, as though
nothing in particular was hanging in the balance.

3769
05:18:03.639 --> 05:18:08.639
The Abyssinian envoy displayed an untroubled serenity, which was probably genuine. Elsewhere

3770
05:18:08.639 --> 05:18:14.159
among the suite was a perceptible fidget, the more obvious because it was elaborately

3771
05:18:14.200 --> 05:18:18.360
cloaked. Among the privileged onlookers drawn
up near the saluting point, the fidgeting

3772
05:18:18.439 --> 05:18:23.439
was more unrestrained. Six minutes passed
three and not a sign of them,

3773
05:18:23.799 --> 05:18:30.040
exclaimed Joan Mardle, with the explosive
articulation of one who cannot any longer hold

3774
05:18:30.040 --> 05:18:34.240
back a truth hark, said some
one. I hear trumpets. There was

3775
05:18:34.279 --> 05:18:40.080
an instant concentration of listening, a
straining of eyes. It was only the

3776
05:18:40.119 --> 05:18:44.360
tute of a passing motor car.
Even Sir Leonard Pitherby, with the eye

3777
05:18:44.439 --> 05:18:47.400
of faith, could not locate so
as much as a cloud of dust on

3778
05:18:47.439 --> 05:18:52.479
the park horizon. And now another
sound was heard, a sound difficult to

3779
05:18:52.520 --> 05:18:57.279
define without beginning without dimension, the
growing murmur of a crowd waking to a

3780
05:18:57.360 --> 05:19:03.040
slowly dawning sensation. Ever is the
bend would strike up an air, said

3781
05:19:03.040 --> 05:19:10.400
the Griffin von Tol fretfully. It
is stupid waiting here in silence. Joan

3782
05:19:10.560 --> 05:19:15.240
fingered her watch, but she made
no further remark. She realized that no

3783
05:19:15.360 --> 05:19:18.680
amount of malicious comment could be so
dramatically effective. Now, as the slow

3784
05:19:18.840 --> 05:19:26.680
slipping away of the intolerable seconds,
the murmur from the crowd grew in volume.

3785
05:19:26.159 --> 05:19:32.119
Some satirical wits started whistling in imitation
of an advancing fife and drum band.

3786
05:19:32.799 --> 05:19:36.400
Others took it up. When the
air resounded with the shrill music of

3787
05:19:36.439 --> 05:19:41.200
a phantom army on the march,
the mock throbbing of drum and squealing of

3788
05:19:41.279 --> 05:19:45.759
fife rose and fell above the packed
masses of spectators, But no answering echo

3789
05:19:45.919 --> 05:19:51.360
came from beyond the distant trees.
Like mushrooms in the night, A muster

3790
05:19:51.439 --> 05:19:56.680
of uniform police and plainclothes detectives sprang
into evidence on all sides. Whatever happened,

3791
05:19:56.680 --> 05:20:03.240
there must be no disloyal demonstration.
The whistlers and mockers were pointedly invited

3792
05:20:03.279 --> 05:20:07.599
to keep silence, and one or
two addresses were taken under the trees.

3793
05:20:07.880 --> 05:20:11.119
Well at the back of the crowd, a young man stood watching the long

3794
05:20:11.159 --> 05:20:17.080
stretch of road along which the scouts
should come. Something had drawn him there

3795
05:20:17.279 --> 05:20:21.919
against his will, to witness the
imperial triumph, to watch the writing of

3796
05:20:22.000 --> 05:20:26.439
yet another chapter in the history of
his country's submission to an accepted fact.

3797
05:20:26.400 --> 05:20:30.639
And now a dull flush crept into
his gray face, a look that was

3798
05:20:30.720 --> 05:20:37.599
partly new born hope and resurrected pride, partly remorse and shame burned in his

3799
05:20:37.680 --> 05:20:42.520
eyes shame, the choking, searing
shame of self reproach that cannot be reasoned

3800
05:20:42.520 --> 05:20:48.360
away, was dominant in his heart. He had laid down his arms.

3801
05:20:48.080 --> 05:20:52.639
There were others who had never hoisted
the flag of surrender. He had given

3802
05:20:52.720 --> 05:20:59.000
up the fight and joined the ranks
of the hopelessly subservient in thousands of English

3803
05:20:59.000 --> 05:21:03.680
homes throughout the lad And there were
young hearts that had not forgotten, and

3804
05:21:03.840 --> 05:21:08.759
knock compounded, would not yield.
The younger generation had barred the door,

3805
05:21:11.200 --> 05:21:15.880
and in the pleasant May sunshine,
the eagle standard floated and flapped, The

3806
05:21:15.959 --> 05:21:22.200
black and yellow pennons shifted restlessly.
Emperor and princes, generals and guards sat

3807
05:21:22.279 --> 05:21:33.799
stiffly in their saddles, and waited
and waited. End of Chapter nineteen and

3808
05:21:34.080 --> 05:21:40.799
of when William came by, sake
red by and imentor