Lalage's Lovers

by George A. Birmingham

Lalage was, in my opinion, herself guilty of something very like the sin of tommyrot when she mocked another bishop for a sermon he had preached on “Empire Day.” He said that wherever the British flag flies there is liberty for subject peoples and several other obviously true things of the same kind. I do not see what else, under the circumstances, the poor man could say. Nor do I blame him in the least for boldly demanding more battleships to carry something—I think he said the Gospel—to still remoter lands. Lalage chose to pretend that liberty and subjection are contradictory terms, but this is plainly absurd. Lord Thormanby talked over this part of the Gazette with me some months later and gave it as his opinion that a man whom he knew in the club had put the case very well by saying that there are several quite distinct kinds of liberty.

I found myself still more puzzled by Lalage’s attitude toward another man who was not even, strictly speaking, a bishop. He was a moderator, or an ex-moderator, of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. He had made a speech in which he set forth reasons why he and others like him should have a recognized place in the vice-regal court. I am not myself passionately fond of vice-regal courts, but I know that many people regard them with great reverence, and I do not see why a man should be laughed at for wanting to walk through the state rooms in Dublin Castle in front of somebody else. It is a harmless, perhaps a laudable, ambition. Lalage chose to see something funny in it, and I am bound to say that when I had finished her article I too began to catch a glimpse of the amusing side of it.

I spent a long time over the Gazette. The more I read it the greater my perplexity grew. Many things which I had accepted for years as solemn and necessary parts of the divine ordering of the world were suddenly seized, contorted, and made to grin like apes. I felt disquieted, inclined, and yet half afraid, to laugh. I was rendered acutely uncomfortable by an editorial note which followed the last jibe at the last bishop: “The next number of the Anti-Tommy-Rot Gazette will deal with politicians and may be expected to be lively. Subscribe at once.—Ed.”

I was so profoundy distrustful of my own judgment in delicate matters that I determined to find out if I could what Dodds thought of Lalage’s opinions. Dodds is preeminently a man of the world, very sound, unemotional and full of common sense. I did not produce the Gazette or mention Lalage’s name, for Dodds has had a prejudice against her since the evening on which he played bridge with Miss Battersby. Nor did I make a special business of asking his advice. I waited until we sat down to bridge together after dinner and then I put a few typical cases before him in casual tones, as if they were occurring to me at the moment.

“Dodds,” I said, holding the cards in my hand, “supposing that a bishop for whom you always had a respect on account of the dignity of his office, were to say——”

“I wouldn’t have any respect for a bishop on account of his office,” said Dodds. “Why don’t you deal?”

“We’re Presbyterians,” said Mrs. Dodds.

“That needn’t prevent you considering this case, for the word bishop is here used—that is to say, I am using it—to mean any eminent ecclesiastic. All right, I’m dealing as fast as I can. Supposing that a man of that kind, call him a bishop or anything else you like, were to say that boys and girls ought not to read ‘Ivanhoe’ on account of the danger to their faith and morals contained in that book, would you or would you not say that he, the bishop, not ‘Ivanhoe,’ was talking what in ordinary slang is called tommyrot?”

I finished dealing and, after glancing rather inattentively at my cards, declared hearts.

Dodds, who was sitting on my left, picked up his hand and doubled my hearts. He did so in a tone that convinced me that I had been rash in my declaration. He paid no attention whatever to my question about the bishop and “Ivanhoe.” It turned out that he had a remarkably good hand and he scored thirty-two below the line, which of course gave him the game. Mrs. Dodds, who was my partner, seemed temporarily soured, and while Dodds was explaining to us how well he had played, she took up the question about the bishop.