CHAPTER XI
THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL
1
In December Dora did a foolish thing. It is needless to say that she did other foolish things in other months; it is to be feared that she had been born before the Brains Acts; her mental category must be well below C3. But this particular folly is selected for mention because it had a disastrous effect on the already precarious destiny of the Ministry of Brains. Putting out a firm and practised hand, she laid it heavily and simultaneously upon four journals who were taking a rebellious attitude towards the Brains Act—the Nation, Stop It, the Herald, and the Patriot. Thus she angered at one blow considerable sections of the Thoughtful, the Advanced, the Workers (commonly but erroneously known as the proletariat) and the Vulgar.
"Confound the fools," as Chester bitterly remarked; but the deed was then done.
"How long," Vernon Prideaux asked, "will it take governments to learn that revolutionary propaganda disseminated all over the country don't do as much harm as this sort of action?"
Chester was of opinion that, give the Ministry of Brains its chance, let it work for, say, fifty years, and even governments might at the end of that time have become intelligent enough to acquire such elementary pieces of knowledge. If only the Ministry were given its chance, if it could weather the present unrest, let the country get used to it.... Custom: that was the great thing. People settled down under things at last. All sorts of dreadful things. Education, vaccination, taxation, sanitation, representation.... It was only a question of getting used to them.
2
Though the authorities were prepared for trouble, they did not foresee the events of Boxing-day, that strange day in the history of the Ministry.