Gumbril could not help wondering where precisely in Mr. Bojanus’s museum he himself had his place.
“The ’uman ’erd,” Mr. Bojanus went on, “must have a leader. And a leader must have something to distinguish him from the ’erd. It’s important for ’is interests that he should be recognized easily. See a baby reaching out of a bath and you immediately think of Pears’ Soap; see the white ’air waving out behind and think of Lloyd George. That’s the secret. But in my opinion, Mr. Gumbril, the old system was much more sensible, give them regular uniforms and badges, I say; make Cabinet Ministers wear feathers in their ’air. Then the people will be looking to a real fixed symbol of leadership, not to the peculiarities of the mere individuals. Beards and ’air and funny collars change; but a good uniform is always the same. Give them feathers, that’s what I say, Mr. Gumbril. Feathers will increase the dignity of the State and lessen the importance of the individual. And that,” concluded Mr. Bojanus with emphasis, “that, Mr. Gumbril, will be all to the good.”
“But you don’t mean to tell me,” said Gumbril, “that if I chose to show myself to the multitude in my inflated trousers, I could become a leader—do you?”
“Ah, no,” said Mr. Bojanus. “You’d ’ave to ’ave the talent for talking and ordering people about, to begin with. Feathers wouldn’t give the genius, but they’d magnify the effect of what there was.”
Gumbril got up and began to divest himself of the Small-Clothes. He unscrewed the valve and the air whistled out, dyingly. He too sighed. “Curious,” he said pensively, “that I’ve never felt the need for a leader. I’ve never met any one I felt I could whole-heartedly admire or believe in, never any one I wanted to follow. It must be pleasant, I should think, to hand oneself over to somebody else. It must give you a warm, splendid, comfortable feeling.”
Mr. Bojanus smiled and shook his head. “You and I, Mr. Gumbril,” he said, “we’re not the sort of people to be impressed with feathers or even by talking and ordering about. We may not be leaders ourselves. But at any rate we aren’t the ’erd.”
“Not the main herd, perhaps.”
“Not any ’erd,” Mr. Bojanus insisted proudly.
Gumbril shook his head dubiously and buttoned up his trousers. He was not sure, now he came to think of it, that he didn’t belong to all the herds—by a sort of honorary membership and temporarily, as occasion offered, as one belongs to the Union at the sister university or to the Naval and Military Club while one’s own is having its annual clean-out. Shearwater’s herd, Lypiatt’s herd, Mr. Mercaptan’s herd, Mrs. Viveash’s herd, the architectural herd of his father, the educational herd (but that, thank God! was now bleating on distant pastures), the herd of Mr. Bojanus—he belonged to them all a little, to none of them completely. Nobody belonged to his herd. How could they? No chameleon can live with comfort on a tartan. He put on his coat.
“I’ll send the garments this evening,” said Mr. Bojanus. Gumbril left the shop. At the theatrical wig-maker’s in Leicester Square he ordered a blond fan-shaped beard to match his own hair and moustache. He would, at any rate, be his own leader; he would wear a badge, a symbol of authority. And Coleman had said that there were dangerous relations to be entered into by the symbol’s aid.