“Eccentricity is their badge of office?” suggested Gumbril. He sat down luxuriously on the Patent Small-Clothes.
“That’s more like it,” said Mr. Bojanus, tilting his moustaches. “The leader has got to look different from the other ones. In the good old days they always wore their official badges. The leader ’ad his livery, like every one else, to show who he was. That was sensible, Mr. Gumbril. Nowadays he has no badge—at least not for ordinary occasions—for I don’t count Privy Councillors’ uniforms and all that sort of once-a-year fancy dress. ’E’s reduced to dressing in some eccentric way or making the most of the peculiarities of ’is personal appearance. A very ’apazard method of doing things, Mr. Gumbril, very ’apazard.”
Gumbril agreed.
Mr. Bojanus went on, making small, neat gestures as he spoke. “Some of them,” he said, “wear ’uge collars, like Mr. Gladstone. Some wear orchids and eyeglasses, like Joe Chamberlain. Some let their ’air grow, like Lloyd George. Some wear curious ’ats, like Winston Churchill. Some put on black shirts, like this Mussolini, and some put on red ones, like Garibaldi. Some turn up their moustaches, like the German Emperor. Some turn them down, like Clemenceau. Some grow whiskers, like Tirpitz. I don’t speak of all the uniforms, orders, ornaments, ’ead-dresses, feathers, crowns, buttons, tattooings, ear-rings, sashes, swords, trains, tiaras, urims, thummims and what not, Mr. Gumbril, that ’ave been used in the past and in other parts of the world to distinguish the leader. We, ’oo know our ’istory, Mr. Gumbril, we know all about that.”
Gumbril made a deprecating gesture. “You speak for yourself, Mr. Bojanus,” he said.
Mr. Bojanus bowed.
“Pray continue,” said Gumbril.
Mr. Bojanus bowed again. “Well, Mr. Gumbril,” he said, “the point of all these things, as I’ve already remarked, is to make the leader look different, so that ’e can be recognized at the first coop d’oil, as you might say, by the ’erd ’e ’appens to be leading. For the ’uman ’erd, Mr. Gumbril, is an ’erd which can’t do without a leader. Sheep, for example: I never noticed that they ’ad a leader; nor rooks. Bees, on the other ’and, I take it, ’ave. At least when they’re swarming. Correct me, Mr. Gumbril, if I’m wrong. Natural ’istory was never, as you might say, my forty.”
“Nor mine,” protested Gumbril.
“As for elephants and wolves, Mr. Gumbril, I can’t pretend to speak of them with first-’and knowledge. Nor llamas, nor locusts, nor squab pigeons, nor lemmings. But ’uman beings, Mr. Gumbril, those I can claim to talk of with authority, if I may say so in all modesty, and not as the scribes. I ’ave made a special study of them, Mr. Gumbril. And my profession ’as brought me into contact with very numerous specimens.”