§ 1
At this point the surviving manuscript comes to an abrupt end.
But Boon read or extemporized far beyond this point.
He made a figure that was at once absurd and pitiful of his little Author making this raid upon the world, resolved to detect and exorcise these suspected Wild Asses, and he told us at great length of how steadily and inevitably the poor enthusiast entangled himself in feuds and false accusations, libels and denunciations, free fights, burglaries, and so to universal execration in a perpetually tightening coil. “I’ll stick to it,” he squeaks, with every fresh blow of Fate. Behind him, with a developing incurable bronchitis that could never be fatal, toiled the devil, more and more despondent, more and more draggle-tailed, voiceless and unhelpful.
After a time he was perpetually trying to give his Author the slip.
But continually it is clearer that there were diabolical Wild Asses loose and active in the affairs of the world….
One day the Author had an inspiration. “Was your lot the only lot that ever escaped?”
“Oh no!” said the devil. “Ages before—there were some. It led to an awful row. Just before the Flood. They had to be drowned out. That’s why they’ve been so stiff with me…. I’m not quite sure whether they didn’t interbreed. They say in hell that the world has never been quite the same place since.”…
You see the scope this story gave Boon’s disposition to derision. There were endless things that Boon hated, movements that seemed to him wanton and mischievous, outbreaks of disastrous violence, evil ideas. I should get myself into as much hot water as his Author did if I were to tell all this poor man’s adventures. He went to Ulster, he pursued prominent Tariff Reformers, he started off to Mexico and came back to investigate Pan-Germanism. I seem to remember his hanging for days about the entrance to Printing House Square…. And there was a scene in the House of Commons. The Author and the devil had been tracking a prominent politician—never mind whom—with the growing belief that here at last they had one of them. And Walpurgis Night grew near. Walpurgis Night came.
“We must not lose sight of him,” said the Author, very alert and ruthless. “If necessary we must smash the windows, blow open doors.”
But the great man went down to the House as though nothing could possibly happen. They followed him.
“He will certainly rush home,” said the Author, as the clock crept round to half-past eleven. “But anyhow let us get into the Strangers’ Gallery and keep our eyes on him to the last.”
They managed it with difficulty.
I remember how vividly Boon drew the picture for us: the rather bored House, a coming and going of a few inattentive Members, the nodding Speaker and the clerks, the silent watchers in the gallery, a little flicker of white behind the grille. And then at five minutes to twelve the honourable Member arose….
“We were wrong,” said the Author.
“The draught here is fearful,” said the devil. “Hadn’t we better go?”
The honourable Member went on speaking showy, memorable, mischievous things. The seconds ticked away. And then—then it happened.
The Author made a faint rattling sound in his throat and clung to the rail before him. The devil broke into a cold sweat. There, visible to all men, was a large black Wild Ass, kicking up its heels upon the floor of the House. And braying.
And nobody was minding!
The Speaker listened patiently, one long finger against his cheek. The clerks bowed over the papers. The honourable Member’s two colleagues listened like men under an anæsthetic, each sideways, each with his arm over the back of the seat. Across the House one Member was furtively writing a letter and three others were whispering together.
The Author felt for the salt, then he gripped the devil’s wrist.
“Say those words!” he shouted quite loudly—“say those words! Say them now. Then—we shall have him.”
But you know those House of Commons ushers. And at that time their usual alertness had been much quickened by several Suffragette outrages. Before the devil had got through his second sentence or the Author could get his salt out of his pocket both devil and Author were travelling violently, scruff and pant-seat irresistibly gripped, down Saint Stephen’s Hall….