VI.
My dear Charles,—I was talking to the Editor the other day about this correspondence of ours which we are conducting in the public Press, thus saving the twopenny stamps and avoiding the increased cost of living which is hitting everyone else so hard.
"This ought to be put a stop to," said he.
"That is just what I have been saying since 1918," I replied; "but the question is what to do about it? When you get down to it, the word 'Bolshevist' is but the Russian for 'advanced Socialist,' and there is nothing to prevent Socialists, whether they be advanced or retarded. How then are you going to put a stop to Bolshevism?"
"I was thinking of the correspondence," the Editor replied.
So I stopped talking to him and sat down to write my last letter to you on the subject.
To resume: In the summer of 1918 the German War Lords began to have their doubts of a Pax Germanica and saw signs rather of a Wash-out Germanicum. Things looked ill with them, so they consulted their doctor, a certain person who called himself "Dr. Help-us" by way of a jest. He proved more successful as a business man, however, than he was as a humourist. He advised that the "War of World Conquest" was not likely to produce a dividend, because its name was against it. Cut out "Imperialism"; substitute another word, with just as many syllables and no less an imposing sound, "Proletariat"; call the thing "Class Warfare"; advertise it thoroughly and attract to it all the political egoists of disappointed ambition in the various countries of the enemy, and the German War Lords would find it no longer necessary to crush all existing nations, since all existing nations would then set about to crush themselves.
The idea was voted excellent, and the trial run in Russia gave complete satisfaction.
But not all countries were so immediately susceptible to the idea of a World Revolution. Victory hath its charms and does not predispose a people to complain; so where the Masses (invested with a capital "M" to flatter their vanity and secure their goodwill) were victorious and content they were to be made to believe by advertisement that with a little trouble they could become even more victorious and more content. The Kaiser and Imperialism had been disposed of; it only remained to get rid of Capitalism and Charles. The subterranean campaign was developed, and that is what our conspirators have since been so brisk and busy about.
That was the programme; but it is a programme which required money. And so at last to the Chinese Bonds.
Oh, those Chinese Bonds! How some people abroad have learned to curse the very mention of them these last many months! I don't know where that tiresome man, Litvinoff, first got them from, but my poor friends, whose business all this is, were running after them at least ten months ago. Sometimes they were in Russia, sometimes they showed up in Denmark, sometimes they got scent of them in Germany, and I am told it is the merest fluke that the Bonds did not come to Switzerland for the winter sports. And wherever they turned up they were always just on their way to England; either they had a poor sense of direction or, being bad sailors, were afraid of the crossing. There was never any knowing in what corner of the earth they would next be appearing; in fact the only country which those Chinese Bonds seemed to have successfully avoided was China.
The first time we heard of them, I will admit that we were thrilled. They gave a touch of reality to an otherwise over-hairy and unconvincing narrative of conspiracy. The second time we were told of them we were pleasurably moved. So it was true, after all, about those Chinese Bonds?
The third time we heard of them we were satisfied; the fourth time we heard of them we were indifferent; the fifth time bored, the sixth time irritated, the seventh time infuriated, and the eighth time we said to our informant, "Now look you here. We appreciate the excitement of your mysterious presence and the soothing effects of your hushed voice, and as long as you care to go on revealing your secrets we will listen. You may speak of finance and you may even touch upon British bank-notes forged by the Soviets; you may go so far as to divulge some new forms of script involved, getting as near as even, say, Japanese Debentures; but if you so much as mention China or its Bonds to us again we will wrap you up in a parcel and post you to Moscow with a personal note of warning to Lenin as to your inner knowledge and the dangerous publicity you are giving it."
For ourselves we wrote many a learned treatise on the subject and sent many a thousand memos home to those authorities near to whose hearts the welfare of those Bonds should be. And after many months of this correspondence someone in the what-d'you-call-it office suddenly sat up and took notice and wrote to us as follows: "His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Thingummy has the honour to inform you that rumours have reached his ears concerning the existence of certain bonds, alleged to be Chinese, in the hands of Bolshevist agitators coming or intending to come to this country. You are requested to ascertain and report what, if anything, is known of these Chinese Bonds."
I could have made a story for you of the uses to which the Bonds were put in other countries and newspapers as well as your own. But that painfully honest journal, The Daily Herald, has anticipated me. And anything more you want to know about the conspiracies or the conspirators you may now, as I judge from reading your Press, experience for yourself. So upon that these letters may end. I would like to have concluded by a protestation that, in making these frank statements as to the working of, and against, the Conspirators, I personally draw no pecuniary benefit of any sort, not a sovereign, not a bob, not a half-penny stamp. It is perhaps better, however, to anticipate discovery by owning up to the fact that my frankness is being paid for at so many pence per line.
Yours ever,
Henry.
(Concluded.)
Nervous Party. "Are you sure that lobster's all right?"
Fishmonger (on his dignity). "Quite right, Sir. If it isn't we shall be here to-morrow."
Nervous Party. "Yes—but shall I be here to-morrow?"
Epitaph for a Professor of Tango:
"Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit."