That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day

by Richard Dehan

"How sad!" Her brows were still frowning, but her wide red mouth was beginning to curl up at the corners. "Couldn't you reform? Is it too late?"

"I hope so!" he answered her. "For if I were good I should possess no attraction for a woman of your type. And to charm you I would give my soul—if I had a soul!"

"Great Scott! You're candid.... Modest too.... And complimentary!"

"I am candid, because I cannot help myself."

Three comedians had come upon the stage. She told him not to talk to her. She wanted to see the turn; she liked music-hall stuff. He obeyed, mentally congratulating himself on having ascertained her social status, something better than a typist, hardly on the same level with his sister Gusta's dame de compagnie.

While his bold eyes read the book of her provoking beauty, the performance on the stage, backed by the deep green palmate foliage and white or ruddy candelabra-like blossom-sprays of the chestnuts, framed by a broad band of electric lamp-flowers, was culminating to its final gag. A preposterously fat man attired in the historic low-crowned hat, Union Jack waistcoat, brass-buttoned blue tail-coat, leathers and hunting-tops of the traditional John Bull, another comedian in the legendary costume of M. Jacques Prud'homme, and a truculent-looking personage whose Teutonic French accent, spiked silver helmet with the Prussian eagle, First Imperial Guards cuirass and tunic, breeches and spurred jack-boots, in combination with a well-known moustache with upright ends, a huge Iron Cross, and a great many other property decorations, left no doubt as to the political bent of the scrap of pantomime.

It was an ordinary bit of comic knockabout, to which the tragic circumstances of the day lent a peculiar tang. One has seen it before, played by the three comedians, in the green-baize aprons, brown duffel knee-breeches, and shirt-sleeves sported by the waiters of low-class Paris or Munich brasseries.

In the centre of the stage, instead of a bright-hooped beer-barrel on a wooden cellar-stand, was a revolving globe representing the World. And each of the three comedians, being armed with a tumbler, a spile-awl, and a spigot-tap, proceeded, with appropriate patter, gesture, and grimaces, to insert his spigot, draw, and drink. John Bull turned the globe to the United Kingdom, and tapped the big black patch in East Middlesex. Creamy-headed London porter filled his glass. He held it up, nodded a "Here's to you!" and toped off. M. Prud'homme punctured France in the rich vine-growing district of Epernay. Champagne crowned the goblet, and he drank in dumb show to Gallia, the land of love, laughter, and wine. It was then the turn of the Teuton. He bored, and Brandenburg yielded a tall bock of foaming blonde lager. He sucked it down with guttural Achs of delight.

But this was not all. John Bull exploited the East Indies. A stream of rubies and emeralds filled his glass. He bored deep in the Union of South Africa—diamonds and gold-dust heaped the vessel. Fired by his success, M. Prud'homme inserted his spigot into wealthy Bordeaux, whipped it out, applied his lips, and drank deep. He corked the oozing spot and tapped Algerian Africa. Coffee rewarded him, fragrant and richly black. He next exploited Pondicherry, Chandernagore on the Hooghly, French Equatorial Africa, and New Caledonia. Nothing came. He tried Cochin China, and drew off a glass of yellow tea at boiling-point. Encouraged to drink the strange beverage by the appreciative pantomime of his British neighbour, he swallowed it, with results of a Rabelaisian nature, at which everybody laughed heartily, including Patrine.

It was now the turn of the Teuton. He drew German beer from Togoland, Cameroon; German South-West and South-East Africa yielded an indifferent brand of the beverage. German New Guinea in the Pacific, the Solomon, Caroline, and other islands, with Asian Kiao-Chao, merely wetted the bottom of the glass with a pale fluid, German beer by courtesy. "Sapperlot! Der Teufel! Kreuzdonnerwetter!" He tasted, spat, stamped, and sputtered forth strange expletives, M. Prud'homme's terror at these unearthly utterances being provocative of more humour of the Rabelaisian kind. Then he decided to try again, excited to envy by the spectacle of the stout Briton drawing gold from Australia, gold from Canada, gold from New Zealand and the West Indies, and gold from Ceylon, gold from the Crown Colonies in China, gold from the Gold Coast, gold from Rhodesia and Nigeria, gold from everywhere; filling the capacious pockets of his blue brass-buttoned coat, of his tight breeches, of his nankeen waistcoat, until he bulked enormously, a Bull of Gargantuan size.