The day's play

by A. A. Milne

MEDES AND PERSIANS

I have already said that I am not afraid of my housekeeper, so there is no need for me to say it again. There are other motives than fear which prevent a man from arguing with housekeepers; dislike of conversation with his intellectual inferiors may be one, the sporting instinct is certainly another. If one is to play "Medes and Persians" properly, one must be a sportsman about it. Of course, I could say right out to her "Do this," and she might do it. Or she could say right out to me, "Do that," and I would reply, "Don't be absurd." But that wouldn't be the game.

As I play it, a "Mede" is a law which she lays down, and to which (after many a struggle) in the end I submit; a "Persian" is a law which I lay down, and to which ... after many a struggle ... in the end ... (when it is too late).... Well, there are many Medes, but so far I have only scored one Persian of note.

The first Mede was established last winter. For many weeks I had opened my bedroom door of a morning to find a small jug of cold water on the mat outside. The thing puzzled me. What do I want with a small jug of cold water, I asked myself, when I have quite enough in the bath as it is? Various happy thoughts occurred to me—as that it was lucky, that it collected the germs, or (who knows?) indicated a wife with five thousand a year—but it was a month before the real solution flashed across my mind. "Perhaps," I said, "it was hot once. But," I added, "it must have been a long time ago."

The discovery upset me a good deal. In the first place, it is annoying suddenly to have all one's hopes of a rich wife and protection from disease dashed to the ground; in the second, I object to anybody but a relation interfering with my moral character. Here was a comparative stranger trying to instil the habit of early rising into me by leaving shaving-water outside the door at three A.M. Was this a thing to be taken lying down?

Decidedly. So I stayed in bed and ignored the water-jug; save that each morning, as I left my rooms, I gave it a parting sneer. It was gone by the evening, but turned up again all right next day. After a month I began to get angry. My housekeeper was defying me; very well, we would see who could last the longer.

But after two months it was a Mede. Yet I have this triumph over her. That though I take the water in I ... pour it into the bath and slip back into bed again. I don't think she knows that.

Since then there have been many Medes. Little ones as to the position of the chairs; bigger ones as to the number of blankets on the bed. You mustn't think, though, that I always submit so easily. Sometimes I am firm. In the matter of "Africa Joe" I have been very firm. Here, I know, I have right on my side.

A year ago I was presented with a model of an Irish jolting car (with horse and driver complete), which had been cut out of some sort of black wood. The thing used to stand over my fireplace. Later on I acquired, at different times, a grey hippopotamus (in china) and a black elephant. These I harnessed on in front of the horse; and the whole affair made a very pretty scene, which was known to my friends as "Sunday in the Forest: Africa Joe drives his Family to Church." Besides all these I had yet another animal—a green frog climbing a cardboard ladder. I leant this against the clock. One had the illusion that the frog was climbing up in order to look at the works—which was particularly pleasing because the clock didn't go.

Very well. You have the two scenes on the same mantelboard. One, the frog as Bond Street watchmaker and jeweller, and the other (such is Empire), Africa Joe in the heart of the forest. And what does the housekeeper do? If you will believe me, she takes the frog down from the clock and props him up behind the car, just as though he were getting on to it in order to go to church with the others!

Now I do put it to you that this is simply spoiling the picture altogether. Here we have a pleasant domestic episode, such as must occur frequently in the African forests. Black Joe harnesses his horse, elephant, hippopotamus, or what not, and drives his family to the eleven o'clock service. And into this scene of rural simplicity a mere housekeeper elbows her way with irrevelant frogs and ladders!

It is a mystery to me that she cannot see how absurd her contribution is. To begin with, the family is in black (save the hippopotamus, who is in a quiet grey), so is it likely that they would tolerate the presence of a garish green-and-yellow stranger? (More than likely Joe is a churchwarden, and has not only himself to think of.) Then, again, consider the title of the scene: "Africa Joe drives his Family"—not "Africa Joe about to drive." The horse is trotting, the elephant has one leg uplifted, and even the hippopotamus is not in a position of rest. How then could the frog put a ladder up against a moving cart, and climb in? No; here anyhow was a Mede that must be resisted at all costs. On the question of Africa Joe I would not be dictated to.

But, after re-emphasising my position daily for three weeks, I saw that there was only one thing to do. The frog must be sacrificed to the idea of Empire. So I burnt him.

But it is time I mentioned my one Persian. It was this way. In the winter I used always to dry myself after the bath in front of my sitting-room fire. Now, I know all about refraction, and the difficulty of seeing into a room from outside, and so forth, but this particular room is unusually light, having six large windows along one of its sides. I thought it proper, therefore, to draw down the three end blinds by the fireplace; more especially as the building directly opposite belonged to the Public House Reform Association. In the fierce light that beats from reform associations one cannot be too careful.

Little things like blinds easily escape the memory, and it was obvious that it would be much pleasanter if the housekeeper could be trained always to leave the end three down. The training followed its usual course.

Every morning I found the blinds up and every morning I drew them down and left them there. After a month it seemed impossible that I could ever establish my Persian. But then she forgot somehow; and one day I woke up to find the three blinds down.

By a real stroke of genius I drew them up as soon as my dressing was over. Next morning they were down again. I bathed, dried, dressed and threw them up. She thought it was a Mede, and pulled them down.

But it was a Persian, and, as I pulled them up, I knew that I had scored.

Yet, after all, I am not so sure. For it is now the summer, and I have no fire, and I do not want the blinds left down. And when I pull them up every morning I really want to find them up next morning. But I find them down. So perhaps it really is a Mede. To tell the truth, the distinction between the two is not so clear as it ought to be. I must try to come to some arrangement with the housekeeper about it.