Rudyard Kipling

“ The other men in the car were my friend Woodhouse, young Ollyett, a distant connection of his, and Pallant, the M.P. Woodhouse's business was the treatment and cure of sick journals. He knew by instinct the precise moment in a newspaper's life when the impetus of past good management is exhausted and it fetches up on the dead-centre between slow and expensive collapse and the new start which can be given by gold injections--and genius. ”

“ It did not even interest Ollyett that the verb 'to huckle' had passed into the English leader-writers' language. We were studying the interior of a soul, flash-lighted to its grimiest corners by the dread of 'losing its position.'
'And then it thanked you, didn't it, for dropping the case?' said Pallant.
'Yes, and it sent me a telegram to confirm.' Woodhouse turned to Bat. 'Now d'you think I hit too hard?' he asked.
'No-o!' said Bat. 'After all--I'm talking of every one's business now--one can't ever do anything in Art that comes up to Nature in any game in life. ”

“ He leaned forward as the house began to rock and peal full-throatedly. 'Dal fled. A sinuous and silent procession was filing into the police-court to a scarcely audible accompaniment. It was dressed--but the world and all its picture-palaces know how it was dressed. It danced and it danced, and it danced the dance which bit all humanity in the leg for half a year, and it wound up with the lockstep finale that mowed the house down in swathes, sobbing and aching. ”

“ The Society withdrew into the brake fighting, as it were, a rear-guard action of oratory up each step. The collapsed harmonium was hauled in last, and with the perfect unreason of crowds, they cheered it loudly, till the chauffeur slipped in his clutch and sped away. Then the crowd broke up, congratulating all concerned except the sexton, who was held to have disgraced his office by having sworn at ladies. We strolled across the green towards Woodhouse, who was talking to the police-sergeant near the park-gates. ”

“ He established beyond doubt that the old font at Huckley had been thrown out, on Sir Thomas's instigation, twenty years ago, to make room for a new one of Bath stone adorned with Limoges enamels; and that it had lain ever since in a corner of the sexton's shed. He proved, with learned men to support him, that there was only one other font in all England to compare with it. So Woodhouse bought it and presented it to a grateful South Kensington which said it would see the earth still flatter before it returned the treasure to purblind Huckley. ”

“ For this I take no credit--Hone being a mine any one can work--but that I rechristened that dance, after I had revised it, 'The Gubby' is my title to immortal fame. It was still to be witnessed, I wrote, 'in all its poignant purity at Huckley, that last home of significant mediaeval survivals'; and I fell so in love with my creation that I kept it back for days, enamelling and burnishing.
'You's better put it in,' said Ollyett at last. 'It's time we asserted ourselves again. The other fellows are beginning to poach. You saw that thing in the Pinnacle about Sir Thomas's Model Village? ”

“ Almost before its cross-legs had been kicked into their catches, certainly before the tourists by the lodge-gates had begun to move over, a woman sat down to it and struck up a hymn:
Hear ther truth our tongues are telling, Spread ther light from shore to shore, God hath given man a dwelling Flat and flat for evermore.
When ther Primal Dark retreated, When ther deeps were undesigned, He with rule and level meted Habitation for mankind!
I saw sick envy on Bat's face. 'Curse Nature,' he muttered. 'She gets ahead of you every time. ”

“ Oh yes, Sir Thomas was there. He came and grinned at us through his park gates. He'll grin worse to-day. There's an aniline dye that you rub through a stencil-plate that eats about a foot into any stone and wears good to the last. Bat had both the lodge-gates stencilled "The Earth is flat!" and all the barns and walls they could get at.... Oh Lord, but Huckley was drunk! We had to fill 'em up to make 'em forgive us for not being aeroplanes. Unthankful yokels! D'you realise that Emperors couldn't have commanded the talent Bat decanted on 'em? Why, 'Dal alone was.... ”

“ Pallant muttered 'Hear! hear!' I saw Ollyett's eye flash--it was to Ollyett that Masquerier addressed himself chiefly,--and Woodhouse leaned forward with joined hands.
'Are you with me?' he went on, gathering us all up in one sweep of the arm. 'When I begin a thing I see it through, gentlemen. What Bat can't break, breaks him! But I haven't struck that thing yet. This is no one-turn turn-it-down show. This is business to the dead finish. Are you with me, gentlemen? Good! Now, we'll pool our assets. ”

“ He said my home address was--'
'It was his tone--his tone!' Ollyett almost shouted. Woodhouse said nothing, but his face whitened as he brooded.
'Well, any way,' Bat went on, 'I'm glad I always believed in God and Providence and all those things. Else I should lose my nerve. We've put it over the whole world--the full extent of the geographical globe. We couldn't stop it if we wanted to now. It's got to burn itself out. I'm not in charge any more. What d'you expect'll happen next. ”

“ It was Morgiana and Drexel, that fluid and electric review which Bat--though he gave Lafone the credit--really created.
'Ye-es,' said Bat dreamily, after Morgiana had given 'the nasty jar' to the Forty Thieves in their forty oil 'combinations.' 'As you say, I've got 'em and I can hold 'em. What a man does doesn't matter much; and how he does it don't matter either. It's the when--the psychological moment. 'Press can't make up for it; money can't; brains can't. A lot's luck, but all the rest is genius. ”

“ Woodhouse says he'll run us down after lunch. He wants to see Huckley too.'
Pallant could not accompany us, but Bat took his place.
'It's odd,' said Bat, 'that none of us except Ollyett has ever set eyes on Huckley since that time. That's what I always tell My people. Local colour is all right after you've got your idea. Before that, it's a mere nuisance.' He regaled us on the way down with panoramic views of the success--geographical and financial--of 'The Gubby' and The Song.
'By the way,' said he, 'I've assigned 'Dal all the gramophone rights of "The Earth." She's a born artist. ”

“ Just think how this thing has--'
'Just let me run through that little case of yours again,' said Pallant, and picked up The Bun which had it set out in full.
'Any chance of 'Dal looking in on us to-night?' Ollyett began.
'She's occupied with her Art too,' Bat answered bitterly. 'What's the use of Art? Tell me, some one!' A barrel-organ outside promptly pointed out that the Earth was flat. 'The gramophone's killing street organs, but I let loose a hundred-and-seventy-four of those hurdygurdys twelve hours after The Song,' said Bat. ”

“ Bat, Ollyett, and I, who by divers roads have learned the psychology of crowds, retreated towards the tavern door. Woodhouse, the newspaper proprietor, anxious, I presume, to keep touch with the public, dived into the thick of it. Every one else told the Society to go away at once. When the lady at the harmonium (I began to understand why it is sometimes necessary to kill women) pointed at the stencilled park pillars and called them 'the cromlechs of our common faith,' there was a snarl and a rush. The police-sergeant checked it, but advised the Society to keep on going. ”

“ But Lafone! Lafone was beyond everything. Impact, personality--conviction--the whole bag o' tricks! He sweated conviction. Gad, he convinced me while he was speaking! (Him? He was President of the Geoplanarians, of course. Haven't you read my account?) It is an infernally plausible theory. After all, no one has actually proved the earth is round, have they?'
'Never mind the earth. What about Huckley?'
'Oh, Huckley got tight. That's the worst of these model villages if you let 'em smell fire-water. There's one alcoholic pub in the place that Sir Thomas can't get rid of. Bat made it his base. ”

“ Ours is, after all, a kindly earth. While The Song ran and raped it with the cataleptic kick of 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' multiplied by the West African significance of 'Everybody's doing it,' plus twice the infernal elementality of a certain tune in Dona et Gamma; when for all practical purposes, literary, dramatic, artistic, social, municipal, political, commercial, and administrative, the Earth was flat, the Rector of Huckley wrote to us--again as a lover of accuracy--to point out that the Huckley vote on 'the alleged flatness of this scene of our labours here below' was not unanimous ”

“ Oh, be truthful! Earth is flat for evermore.
They sang several verses with the fervour of Christians awaiting their lions. Then there were growlings in the air. The sexton, embraced by the landlord, two-stepped out of the pub-door. Each was trying to outroar the other. 'Apologising in advarnce for what he says,' the landlord shouted: 'You'd better go away' (here the sexton began to speak words) . 'This isn't the time nor yet the place for--for any more o' this chat.'
The crowd thickened. I saw the village police-sergeant come out of his cottage buckling his belt. ”

“ Bat, who had employed it as a back-cloth to one of his own dramas, dismissed it as a thing used and emptied, but Woodhouse expressed my feelings when he said: 'Is that all--after all we've done?'
'I know,' said Ollyett soothingly. '"Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing: When Ilion like a mist rose into towers." I've felt the same sometimes, though it has been Paradise for me. But they do suffer.'
The fourth brake in thirty minutes had just turned into Sir Thomas's park to tell the Hall that 'The Earth was flat'; a knot of obviously American tourists were kodaking his lodge-gates ”

“ Yes, he invented "Geoplanarians." He wanted Huckley to think it meant aeroplanes. Yes, I know that there is a real Society that thinks the world's flat--they ought to be grateful for the lift--but Bat made his own. He did! He created the whole show, I tell you. He swept out half his Halls for the job. Think of that--on a Saturday! They--we went down in motor char-a-bancs--three of 'em--one pink, one primrose, and one forget-me-not blue--twenty people in each one and "The Earth is Flat" on each side and across the back. ”

“ So we turned up--through a world still singing that the Earth was flat--at the little clay-coloured market-town with the large Corn Exchange and the small Jubilee memorial. We had some difficulty in getting seats in the court. Woodhouse's imported London lawyer was a man of commanding personality, with a voice trained to convey blasting imputations by tone. When the case was called, he rose and stated his client's intention not to proceed with the charge. ”

“ Winnie came back in our char-a-banc. After a bit we had to get out and dance it in a field. It's quite a dance the way we did it--and Lafone invented a sort of gorilla lockstep procession at the end. Bat had sent down a film-chap on the chance of getting something. He was the son of a clergyman--a most dynamic personality. He said there isn't anything for the cinema in meetings qua meetings--they lack action. Films are a branch of art by themselves. But he went wild over the Gubby. ”

“ He began with an allocution pitched in a tone that would have justified revolt throughout empires. Evidence, when the crowded little court did not drown it with applause, was given in the pauses of the address. They were all very proud of their Sir Thomas, and looked from him to us, wondering why we did not applaud too. ”

“ Motor char-a-bancs--uniformed guides and key-bugles included. They're getting a bit fed up with the tune there nowadays,' Ollyett added.
'They play it under his windows, don't they?' Bat asked. 'He can't stop the right of way across his park.'
'He cannot,' Ollyett answered. 'By the way, Woodhouse, I've bought that font for you from the sexton. I paid fifteen pounds for it.'
'What am I supposed to do with it?' asked Woodhouse.
'You give it to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is fourteenth-century work all right. You can trust me.'
'Is it worth it--now?' said Pallant. ”

“ The art of the music-hall's changed since your day. They didn't overdo it a bit. You see, people who believe the earth is flat don't dress quite like other people. You may have noticed that I hinted at that in my account. It's a rather flat-fronted Ionic style--neo-Victorian, except for the bustles, 'Dal told me,--but 'Dal looked heavenly in it! So did little Victorine. And there was a girl in the blue brake--she's a provincial--but she's coming to town this winter and she'll knock 'em--Winnie Deans. ”

“ Oh, here's the parish history of Huckley written by the Rector and here's your share of the picture-postcards. Are we all dining with this Mr. Masquerier to-night?'
'Yes!' said we all.
* * * * If Woodhouse knew nothing of journalism, young Ollyett, who had graduated in a hard school, knew a good deal. Our halfpenny evening paper, which we will call The Bun to distinguish her from her prosperous morning sister, The Cake, was not only diseased but corrupt. We found this out when a man brought us the prospectus of a new oil-field and demanded sub-leaders on its prosperity. ”

“ The Irish first conceived the idea of using their order-papers as funnels wherewith to reach the correct 'vroom--vroom' on 'Earth.' Labour, always conservative and respectable at a crisis, stood out longer than any other section, but when it came in it was howling syndicalism. ”

“ With that rare instinct for grasping the heart of a situation which is the mark of the Anglo-Saxon, all our contemporaries and, I should say, two-thirds of our correspondents demanded how such a person could be made more ridiculous than he had already proved himself to be. ”

“ We rooked seventy pounds out of 'em last month. No car can resist the temptation. You ought to have one your side the county, Mike. They simply can't resist it.'
'Whew!' said Woodhouse. 'We're in for trouble. Don't you say a word--or Ollyett either! I'll pay the fines and we'll get it over as soon as possible. Where's Pallant?'
'At the back of the court somewhere,' said Ollyett. 'I saw him slip in just now.'
The fat man then took his seat on the Bench, of which he was chairman, and I gathered from a bystander that his name was Sir Thomas Ingell, Bart., M.P., of Ingell Park, Huckley. ”

“ M.L. Sigden who suggested, through The Bun, that the little place might have begun life in Anglo-Saxon days as 'Hogslea' or among the Normans as 'Argile,' on account of its much clay. The Rector had his own ideas too (he said it was mostly gravel) , and M.L. Sigden had a fund of reminiscences. Oddly enough--which is seldom the case with free reading-matter--our subscribers rather relished the correspondence, and contemporaries quoted freely.
'The secret of power,' said Ollyett, 'is not the big stick. ”