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….
§ 2
“And you really begin to think,” said Wilkins, “that there has been an increase in violence and unreasonableness in the world?”
“My case is that it is an irruption,” said Boon. “But I do begin to see a sort of violence of mind and act growing in the world.”