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Title: The Split In The Cabinet; or, The Fate Of England
Author: Stephen Leacock [
More Titles by Leacock]
CHAPTER I
"The fate of England hangs upon it," murmured Sir John Elphinspoon, as he sank wearily into an armchair. For a moment, as he said "England," the baronet's eye glistened and his ears lifted as if in defiance, but as soon as he stopped saying it his eye lost its brilliance and his ears dropped wearily at the sides of his head.
Lady Elphinspoon looked at her husband anxiously. She could not conceal from herself that his face, as he sank into his chair, seemed somehow ten years older than it had been ten years ago.
"You are home early, John?" she queried.
"The House rose early, my dear," said the baronet.
"For the All England Ping-Pong match?"
"No, for the Dog Show. The Prime Minister felt that the Cabinet ought to attend. He said that their presence there would help to bind the colonies to us. I understand also that he has a pup in the show himself. He took the Cabinet with him."
"And why not you?" asked Lady Elphinspoon.
"You forget, my dear," said the baronet, "as Foreign Secretary my presence at a Dog Show might be offensive to the Shah of Persia. Had it been a Cat Show----"
The baronet paused and shook his head in deep gloom.
"John," said his wife, "I feel that there is something more. Did anything happen at the House?"
Sir John nodded.
"A bad business," he said. "The Wazuchistan Boundary Bill was read this afternoon for the third time."
No woman in England, so it was generally said, had a keener political insight than Lady Elphinspoon.
"The third time," she repeated thoughtfully, "and how many more will it have to go?"
Sir John turned his head aside and groaned.
"You are faint," exclaimed Lady Elphinspoon, "let me ring for tea."
The baronet shook his head.
"An egg, John--let me beat you up an egg."
"Yes, yes," murmured Sir John, still abstracted, "beat it, yes, do beat it."
Lady Elphinspoon, in spite of her elevated position as the wife of the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, held it not beneath her to perform for her husband the plainest household service. She rang for an egg. The butler broke it for her into a tall goblet filled with old sherry, and the noble lady, with her own hands, beat the stuff out of it. For the veteran politician, whose official duties rarely allowed him to eat, an egg was a sovereign remedy. Taken either in a goblet of sherry or in a mug of rum, or in half a pint of whisky, it never failed to revive his energies.
The effect of the egg was at once visible in the brightening of his eye and the lengthening of his ears.
"And now explain to me," said his wife, "what has happened. What is this Boundary Bill?"
"We never meant it to pass," said Sir John. "It was introduced only as a sop to public opinion. It delimits our frontier in such a way as to extend our suzerainty over the entire desert of El Skrub. The Wazoos have claimed that this is their desert. The hill tribes are restless. If we attempt to advance the Wazoos will rise. If we retire it deals a blow at our prestige."
Lady Elphinspoon shuddered. Her long political training had taught her that nothing was so fatal to England as to be hit in the prestige.
"And on the other hand," continued Sir John, "if we move sideways, the Ohulîs, the mortal enemies of the Wazoos, will strike us in our rear."
"In our rear!" exclaimed Lady Elphinspoon in a tone of pain. "Oh, John, we must go forward. Take another egg."
"We cannot," groaned the Foreign Secretary. "There are reasons which I cannot explain even to you, Caroline, reasons of State, which absolutely prevent us from advancing into Wazuchistan. Our hands are tied. Meantime if the Wazoos rise, it is all over with us. It will split the Cabinet."
"Split the Cabinet!" repeated Lady Elphinspoon in alarm. She well knew that next to a blow in the prestige the splitting of the Cabinet was about the worst thing that could happen to Great Britain. "Oh, John, they must be held together at all costs. Can nothing be done?"
"Everything is being done that can be. The Prime Minister has them at the Dog Show at this moment. To-night the Chancellor is taking them to moving pictures. And to-morrow--it is a State secret, my dear, but it will be very generally known in the morning--we have seats for them all at the circus. If we can hold them together all is well, but if they split we are undone. Meantime our difficulties increase. At the very passage of the Bill itself a question was asked by one of the new labour members, a miner, my dear, a quite uneducated man----"
"Yes?" queried Lady Elphinspoon.
"He asked the Colonial Secretary"--Sir John shuddered--"to tell him where Wazuchistan is. Worse than that, my dear," added Sir John, "he defied him to tell him where it is."
"What did you do? Surely he has no right to information of that sort?"
"It was a close shave. Luckily the Whips saved us. They got the Secretary out of the House and rushed him to the British Museum. When he got back he said that he would answer the question a month from Friday. We got a great burst of cheers, but it was a close thing. But stop, I must speak at once with Powers. My despatch box, yes, here it is. Now where is young Powers? There is work for him to do at once."
"Mr. Powers is in the conservatory with Angela," said Lady Elphinspoon.
"With Angela!" exclaimed Sir John, while a slight shade of displeasure appeared upon his brow. "With Angela again! Do you think it quite proper, my dear, that Powers should be so constantly with Angela?"
"John," said his wife, "you forget, I think, who Mr. Powers is. I am sure that Angela knows too well what is due to her rank, and to herself, to consider Mr. Powers anything more than an instructive companion. And I notice that, since Mr. Powers has been your secretary, Angela's mind is much keener. Already the girl has a wonderful grasp on foreign policy. Only yesterday I heard her asking the Prime Minister at luncheon whether we intend to extend our Senegambian protectorate over the Fusees. He was delighted."
"Oh, very well, very well," said Sir John. Then he rang a bell for a manservant.
"Ask Mr. Powers," he said, "to be good enough to attend me in the library."
CHAPTER II
Angela Elphinspoon stood with Perriton Powers among the begonias of the conservatory. The same news which had so agitated Sir John lay heavy on both their hearts.
"Will the Wazoo rise?" asked Angela, clasping her hands before her, while her great eyes sought the young man's face and found it. "Oh, Mr. Powers! Tell me, will they rise? It seems too dreadful to contemplate. Do you think the Wazoo will rise?"
"It is only too likely," said Powers. They stood looking into one another's eyes, their thoughts all on the Wazoo.
Angelina Elphinspoon, as she stood there against the background of the begonias, made a picture that a painter, or even a plumber, would have loved. Tall and typically English in her fair beauty, her features, in repose, had something of the hauteur and distinction of her mother, and when in motion they recalled her father.
Perriton Powers was even taller than Angela. The splendid frame and stern features of Sir John's secretary made him a striking figure. Yet he was, quite frankly, sprung from the people, and made no secret of it. His father had been simply a well-to-do London surgeon, who had been knighted for some mere discoveries in science. His grandfather, so it was whispered, had been nothing more than a successful banker who had amassed a fortune simply by successful banking. Yet at Oxford young Powers had carried all before him. He had occupied a seat, a front seat, in one of the boats, had got his blue and his pink, and had taken a double final in Sanscrit and Arithmetic.
He had already travelled widely in the East, spoke Urdu and Hoodoo with facility, while as secretary to Sir John Elphinspoon, with a seat in the House in prospect, he had his foot upon the ladder of success.
"Yes," repeated Powers thoughtfully, "they may rise. Our confidential despatches tell us that for some time they have been secretly passing round packets of yeast. The whole tribe is in a ferment."
"But our sphere of influence is at stake," exclaimed Angela.
"It is," said Powers. "As a matter of fact, for over a year we have been living on a mere modus vivendi."
"Oh, Mr. Powers," cried Angela, "what a way to live."
"We have tried everything," said the secretary. "We offered the Wazoo a condominium over the desert of El Skrub. They refused it."
"But it's our desert," said Angela proudly.
"It is. But what can we do? The best we can hope is that El Boob will acquiesce in the status quo."
At that moment a manservant appeared in the doorway of the conservatory.
"Mr. Powers, sir," he said, "Sir John desires your attendance, sir, in the library, sir."
Powers turned to Angela, a new seriousness upon his face.
"Miss Elphinspoon," he said, "I think I know what is coming. Will you wait for me here? I shall be back in half an hour."
"I will wait," said the girl. She sat down and waited among the begonias, her mind still on the Wazoo, her whole intense nature strung to the highest pitch. "Can the modus vivendi hold?" she murmured.
In half an hour Powers returned. He was wearing now his hat and light overcoat, and carried on a strap round his neck a tin box with a white painted label, "British Foreign Office. Confidential Despatches. This Side Up With Care."
"Miss Elphinspoon," he said, and there was a new note in his voice, "Angela, I leave England to-night----"
"To-night!" gasped Angela.
"On a confidential mission."
"To Wazuchistan!" exclaimed the girl.
Powers paused a moment. "To Wazuchistan," he said, "yes. But it must not be known. I shall return in a month--or never. If I fail"--he spoke with an assumed lightness--"it is only one more grave among the hills. If I succeed, the Cabinet is saved, and with it the destiny of England."
"Oh, Mr. Powers," cried Angela, rising and advancing towards him, "how splendid! How noble! No reward will be too great for you."
"My reward," said Powers, and as he spoke he reached out and clasped both of the girl's hands in his own, "yes, my reward. May I come and claim it here?"
For a moment he looked straight into her eyes. In the next he was gone, and Angela was alone.
"His reward!" she murmured. "What could he have meant? His reward that he is to claim. What can it be?"
But she could not divine it. She admitted to herself that she had not the faintest idea.
CHAPTER III
In the days that followed all England was thrilled to its base as the news spread that the Wazoo might rise at any moment.
"Will the Wazoos rise?" was the question upon every lip.
In London men went to their offices with a sense of gloom. At lunch they could hardly eat. A feeling of impending disaster pervaded all ranks.
Sir John as he passed to and fro to the House was freely accosted in the streets.
"Will the Wazoos rise, sir?" asked an honest labourer. "Lord help us all, sir, if they do."
Sir John, deeply touched, dropped a shilling in the honest fellow's hat, by accident.
At No. 10 Downing Street, women of the working class, with children in their arms, stood waiting for news.
On the Exchange all was excitement. Consols fell two points in twenty-four hours. Even raising the Bank rate and shutting the door brought only a temporary relief.
Lord Glump, the greatest financial expert in London, was reported as saying that if the Wazoos rose England would be bankrupt in forty-eight hours.
Meanwhile, to the consternation of the whole nation, the Government did nothing. The Cabinet seemed to be paralysed.
On the other hand the Press became all the more clamorous. The London Times urged that an expedition should be sent at once. Twenty-five thousand household troops, it argued, should be sent up the Euphrates or up the Ganges or up something without delay. If they were taken in flat boats, carried over the mountains on mules, and lifted across the rivers in slings, they could then be carried over the desert on jackasses. They could reach Wazuchistan in two years. Other papers counselled moderation. The Manchester Guardian recalled the fact that the Wazoos were a Christian people. Their leader, El Boob, so it was said, had accepted Christianity with childlike simplicity and had asked if there was any more of it. The Spectator claimed that the Wazoos, or more properly the Wazi, were probably the descendants of an Iranic or perhaps Urgumic stock. It suggested the award of a Rhodes Scholarship. It looked forward to the days when there would be Wazoos at Oxford. Even the presence of a single Wazoo, or, more accurately, a single Wooz, would help.
With each day the news became more ominous. It was reported in the Press that a Wazoo, inflamed apparently with ghee, or perhaps with bhong, had rushed up to the hills and refused to come down. It was said that the Shriek-el-Foozlum, the religious head of the tribe, had torn off his suspenders and sent them to Mecca.
That same day the Illustrated London News published a drawing "Wazoo Warriors Crossing a River and Shouting, Ho!" and the general consternation reached its height.
Meantime, for Sir John and his colleagues, the question of the hour became, "Could the Cabinet be held together?" Every effort was made. The news that the Cabinet had all been seen together at the circus, for a moment reassured the nation. But the rumour spread that the First Lord of the Admiralty had said that the clowns were a bum lot. The Radical Press claimed that if he thought so he ought to resign.
On the fatal Friday the question already referred to was scheduled for its answer. The friends of the Government counted on the answer to restore confidence. To the consternation of all, the expected answer was not forthcoming. The Colonial Secretary rose in his place, visibly nervous. Ministers, he said, had been asked where Wazuchistan was. They were not prepared, at the present delicate stage of negotiations, to say. More hung upon the answer than Ministers were entitled to divulge. They could only appeal to the patriotism of the nation. He could only say this, that wherever it was, and he used the word wherever with all the emphasis of which he was capable, the Government would accept the full responsibility for its being where it was.
The House adjourned in something like confusion.
Among those seated behind the grating of the Ladies' Gallery was Lady Elphinspoon. Her quick instinct told her the truth. Driving home, she found her husband seated, crushed, in his library.
"John," she said, falling on her knees and taking her husband's hands in hers, "is this true? Is this the dreadful truth?"
"I see you have divined it, Caroline," said the statesman sadly. "It is the truth. We don't know where Wazuchistan is."
For a moment there was silence.
"But, John, how could it have happened?"
"We thought the Colonial Office knew. We were confident that they knew. The Colonial Secretary had stated that he had been there. Later on it turned out that he meant Saskatchewan. Of course they thought we knew. And we both thought that the Exchequer must know. We understood that they had collected a hut tax for ten years."
"And hadn't they?"
"Not a penny. The Wazoos live in tents."
"But, surely," pleaded Lady Elphinspoon, "you could find out. Had you no maps?"
Sir John shook his head.
"We thought of that at once, my dear. We've looked all through the British Museum. Once we thought we had succeeded. But it turned out to be Wisconsin."
"But the map in the Times? Everybody saw it."
Again the baronet shook his head. "Lord Southcliff had it made in the office," he said. "It appears that he always does. Otherwise the physical features might not suit him."
"But could you not send some one to see?"
"We did. We sent Perriton Powers to find out where it was. We had a month to the good. It was barely time, just time. Powers has failed and we are lost. To-morrow all England will guess the truth and the Government falls."
CHAPTER IV
The crowd outside of No. 10 Downing Street that evening was so dense that all traffic was at a standstill. But within the historic room where the Cabinet were seated about the long table all was calm. Few could have guessed from the quiet demeanour of the group of statesmen that the fate of an Empire hung by a thread.
Seated at the head of the table, the Prime Minister was quietly looking over a book of butterflies, while waiting for the conference to begin. Beside him the Secretary for Ireland was fixing trout flies, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer kept his serene face bent over upon his needlework. At the Prime Minister's right, Sir John Elphinspoon, no longer agitated, but sustained and dignified by the responsibility of his office, was playing spillikins.
The little clock on the mantel chimed eight.
The Premier closed his book of butterflies.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I fear our meeting will not be a protracted one. It seems we are hopelessly at variance. You, Sir Charles," he continued, turning to the First Sea Lord, who was in attendance, "are still in favour of a naval expedition?"
"Send it up at once," said Sir Charles.
"Up where?" asked the Premier.
"Up anything," answered the Old Sea Dog, "it will get there."
Voices of dissent were raised in undertones around the table.
"I strongly deprecate any expedition," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "I favour a convention with the Shriek. Let the Shriek sign a convention recognizing the existence of a supreme being and receiving from us a million sterling in acknowledgment."
"And where will you find the Shriek?" said the Prime Minister. "Come, come, gentlemen, I fear that we can play this comedy no longer. The truth is," he added with characteristic nonchalance, "we don't know where the bally place is. We can't meet the House to-morrow. We are hopelessly split. Our existence as a Government is at an end."
But, at that very moment, a great noise of shouting and clamour rose from the street without. The Prime Minister lifted his hand for silence. "Listen," he said. One of the Ministers went to a window and opened it, and the cries outside became audible. "A King's Messenger! Make way for the King's Messenger!"
The Premier turned quietly to Sir John.
"Perriton Powers," he said.
In another moment Perriton Powers stood before the Ministers.
Bronzed by the tropic sun, his face was recognizable only by the assured glance of his eye. An Afghan bernous was thrown back from his head and shoulders, while his commanding figure was draped in a long chibuok. A pair of pistols and a curved yasmak were in his belt.
"So you got to Wazuchistan all right," said the Premier quietly.
"I went in by way of the Barooda," said Powers. "For many days I was unable to cross it. The waters of the river were wild and swollen with rains. To cross it seemed certain death----"
"But at last you got over," said the Premier, "and then----"
"I struck out over the Fahuri desert. For days and days, blinded by the sun, and almost buried in sand, I despaired."
"But you got through it all right. And after that?"
"My first care was to disguise myself. Staining myself from head to foot with betel nut----"
"To look like a beetle," said the Premier. "Exactly. And so you got to Wazuchistan. Where is it and what is it?"
"My lord," said Powers, drawing himself up and speaking with emphasis, "I got to where it was thought to be. There is no such place!"
The whole Cabinet gave a start of astonishment.
"No such place!" they repeated.
"What about El Boob?" asked the Chancellor.
"There is no such person."
"And the Shriek-el-Foozlum?"
Powers shook his head.
"But do you mean to say," said the Premier in astonishment, "that there are no Wazoos? There you must be wrong. True we don't just know where they are. But our despatches have shown too many signs of active trouble traced directly to the Wazoos to disbelieve in them. There are Wazoos somewhere, there--there must be."
"The Wazoos," said Powers, "are there. But they are Irish. So are the Ohulîs. They are both Irish."
"But how the devil did they get out there?" questioned the Premier. "And why did they make the trouble?"
"The Irish, my lord," interrupted the Chief Secretary for Ireland, "are everywhere, and it is their business to make trouble."
"Some years ago," continued Powers, "a few Irish families settled out there. The Ohulîs should be properly called the O'Hooleys. The word Wazoo is simply the Urdu for McGinnis. El Boob is the Urdu for the Arabic El Papa, the Pope. It was my knowledge of Urdu, itself an agglutinative language----"
"Precisely," said the Premier. Then he turned to his Cabinet. "Well, gentlemen, our task is now simplified. If they are Irish, I think we know exactly what to do. I suppose," he continued, turning to Powers, "that they want some kind of Home Rule."
"They do," said Powers.
"Separating, of course, the Ohulî counties from the Wazoo?"
"Yes," said Powers.
"Precisely; the thing is simplicity itself. And what contribution will they make to the Imperial Exchequer?"
"None."
"And will they pay their own expenses?"
"They refuse to."
"Exactly. All this is plain sailing. Of course they must have a constabulary. Lord Edward," continued the Premier, turning now to the Secretary of War, "how long will it take to send in a couple of hundred constabulary? I think they'll expect it, you know. It's their right."
"Let me see," said Lord Edward, calculating quickly, with military precision, "sending them over the Barooda in buckets and then over the mountains in baskets--I think in about two weeks."
"Good," said the Premier. "Gentlemen, we shall meet the House to-morrow. Sir John, will you meantime draft us an annexation bill? And you, young man, what you have done is really not half bad. His Majesty will see you to-morrow. I am glad that you are safe."
"On my way home," said Powers, with quiet modesty, "I was attacked by a lion----"
"But you beat it off," said the Premier. "Exactly. Good night."
CHAPTER V
It was on the following afternoon that Sir John Elphinspoon presented the Wazoo Annexation Bill to a crowded and breathless House.
Those who know the House of Commons know that it has its moods. At times it is grave, earnest, thoughtful. At other times it is swept with emotion which comes at it in waves. Or at times, again, it just seems to sit there as if it were stuffed.
But all agreed that they had never seen the House so hushed as when Sir John Elphinspoon presented his Bill for the Annexation of Wazuchistan. And when at the close of a splendid peroration he turned to pay a graceful compliment to the man who had saved the nation, and thundered forth to the delighted ears of his listeners--
Arma virumque cano Wazoo qui primus ab oris,
and then, with the words "England, England," still on his lips, fell over backwards and was carried out on a stretcher, the House broke into wild and unrestrained applause.
CHAPTER VI
The next day Sir Perriton Powers--for the King had knighted him after breakfast--stood again in the conservatory of the house in Carlton Terrace.
"I have come for my reward," he said. "Do I get it?"
"You do," said Angela.
Sir Perriton clasped her in his arms.
"On my way home," he said, "I was attacked by a lion. I tried to beat it----"
"Hush, dearest," she whispered, "let me take you to father."
[The end]
Stephen Leacock's short story: The Split In The Cabinet; or, The Fate Of England
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