The Napoleon of Notting Hill G. K. Chesterton (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

of wallpaper, and, laying it across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with feverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself, and rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure journalistic flavour.

“The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it is⁠—awful as it is⁠—(no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it draws attention to the what’s-his-name inefficiency (scandalous inefficiency, of course) of the government’s preparations. In our present state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly word!)⁠—it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct of General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels, give him a right to have judgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on which we must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from feelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. This situation would never have arisen but for what we can only call the indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things, but, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarise from Barker’s famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distress we may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial moment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single tongue, ‘Where is the King?’ What is he doing while his subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn that exalted person that neither his great position nor his incomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the fate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met the English people in the rare day of its wrath.”

“I am now,” said the King, “going to write an account of the battle by an eyewitness.” And he picked up a fourth sheet of wallpaper. Almost at the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a bandage round his head.

“I was told,” he said, with his usual gruff civility, “that your Majesty was here.”

“And of all things on earth,” cried the King, with delight, “here is an eyewitness! An eyewitness who, I regret to observe, has at present only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special article, Buck? Have you a rich style?”

Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, took no notice whatever of the King’s maddening geniality.

“I took the liberty, your Majesty,” he said shortly, “of asking Mr. Barker to come here also.”

As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with his usual air of hurry.

“What is happening now?” asked Buck, turning to him with a kind of relief.

“Fighting still going on,” said Barker. “The four hundred from West Kensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near the place. Poor Wilson’s Bayswater men got cut about, though. They fought confoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things do happen in the world. To think that of all of us it should be little Wilson with the red whiskers who came out best.”

The King made a note on his paper⁠—

“Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson.”

“Yes,” said Buck; “it makes one a bit less proud of one’s h’s.”

The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in his pocket.

“I have an idea,” he said. “I will be an eyewitness. I will write you such letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the real thing. Give me my coat, Paladium. I entered this room a mere King of England. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the Court Journal. It is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, Buck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. ‘When duty calls’⁠—the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive my first article this evening by the eight-o’clock post.”

And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswater omnibus that went swinging by.

“Well,” said Barker, gloomily, “well.”

“Barker,” said Buck, “business may be lower than politics, but war is, as I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. You politicians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have a despotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn to tack and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to a thing and get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment we’ve beaten Wayne.”

“Beaten Wayne,” repeated Barker.

“Why the dickens not?” cried the other, flinging out his hands. “Look here. I said last night that we had them by holding the nine entrances. Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for a singular event⁠—the lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Has it occurred to you, my brilliant Barker, that another singular event has happened since that singular event of the lamps going out?”

“What event?” asked Barker.

“By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen,” cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. “Why the hell aren’t we holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been done at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn’t let me go out. You were in command.”

Barker smiled grimly.

“It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that we anticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possible to reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we were fighting each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne’s friends were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards from Pump Street, at every