The Napoleon of Notting Hill Page 5

  CHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_

  "In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea," saidAuberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who had never beento Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strangelook in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for theyheard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearingpatent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be theminister at all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a returnticket to Maidstone."

  There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambertwent swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. ThenAuberon resumed.

  "That story," he said reverently, "is the test of humour."

  They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as theybegan to climb a slope.

  "I perceive," continued Auberon, "that you have passed the test, andconsider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing.Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The greatanecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt prettybenedicted, didn't you, Barker?"

  "I saw the point," said Barker, somewhat loftily.

  "Do you know," said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, "I have lots ofstories as good as that. Listen to this one."

  And he slightly cleared his throat.

  "Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist.'There,' people of wide experience would say, 'There goes thesallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.' Once this was said so that heoverheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve andgrey. Polycarp turned upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow!_Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes._' It was said that noactuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again."

  Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted.

  "Here is another," continued the insatiable Quin. "In a hollow of thegrey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whoseuncle was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-greenhollows, she knew nothing of this: she didn't know that there was aBoat Race. Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heardof nobody at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (Iknow not why), and in whose historical memory she put her simpletrust. And by and by in God's good time, it was discovered that thisuncle of hers was not really her uncle, and they came and told her so.She smiled through her tears, and said only, 'Virtue is its ownreward.'"

  Again there was a silence, and then Lambert said--

  "It seems a bit mysterious."

  "Mysterious!" cried the other. "The true humour is mysterious. Do younot realise the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies?"

  "And what's that?" asked Lambert, shortly.

  "It is very simple," replied the other. "Hitherto it was the ruin of ajoke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of ajoke that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the onesanctity remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughlyafraid of. Look at that tree."

  His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant outtowards them from the ridge of the hill.

  "If," said Mr. Quin, "I were to say that you did not see the greattruths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any manof intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You wouldmerely regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory aboutvegetable cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that treethe vile mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as aSocialist crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I wereto say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking atthat tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation ofGod, you would simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me.But if"--and he lifted a pontifical hand--"if I say that you cannotsee the humour of that tree, and that I see the humour of it--my God!you will roll about at my feet."

  He paused a moment, and then resumed.

  "Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is thenew religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselveswith the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will beset in it. It will be asked, 'Can you see the humour of this ironrailing?' or 'Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can yousee the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?'How often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset."

  "Quite so," said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment.

  "Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M.P.'sfor Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctualEssex M.P., perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act ofplucking a poppy--"

  Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in adefiant attitude.

  "Auberon," he said, "chuck it. I won't stand it. It's all bosh."

  Both men stared at him, for there was something very explosive aboutthe words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time.

  "You have," began Quin, "no--"

  "I don't care a curse," said Lambert, violently, "whether I have 'adelicate sense of humour' or not. I won't stand it. It's all aconfounded fraud. There's no joke in those infernal tales at all. Youknow there isn't as well as I do."

  "Well," replied Quin, slowly, "it is true that I, with my rathergradual mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finersense of Barker perceived it."

  Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon.

  "You ass," said Lambert; "why can't you be like other people? Whycan't you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man whosits on his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are."

  Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge andthe wind struck their faces.

  "Lambert," said Auberon, "you are a great and good man, though I'mhanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist ordeliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved inmarble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your presentattitude, the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hillthat the new humour was the last of the religions. You have made itthe last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very seriouswarning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything _outre_, to imitatethe man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a manwhose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And fortwopence I'd do it."

  "Do it, then," said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. "It wouldbe funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk."

  Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towardsthe main avenue of Kensington Gardens.

  "Two hundred yards away," he said, "are all your fashionableacquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each otherand at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, apeak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a greatpulpit or platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us.Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madnesswhich goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man."

  "I don't know what you are talking about," said Lambert,contemptuously. "I only know I'd rather you stood on your silly head,than talked so much."

  "Auberon! for goodness' sake ..." cried Barker, springing forward; buthe was too late. Faces from all the benches and avenues were turned intheir direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and thesharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black,like a picture in a child's toy-book. And on the top of the smallhill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness uponhis head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air.

  "For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot," cried Barker,wringing his hands; "we shall have the whole town here."

  "Yes, get up, get up, man," said Lambert, amused and annoyed. "I wasonly fooling; get up."

  Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than thetrees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a s
erious expression.Barker stamped wildly.

  "Oh, let's get home, Barker, and leave him," said Lambert; "some ofyour proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!"

  Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them.One held a paper in his hand.

  "There he is, officer," said Lambert, cheerfully; "we ain'tresponsible for him."

  The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye.

  "We have not come, gentlemen," he said, "about what I think you arealluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce theselection of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from theold _regime_, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereignimmediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across KensingtonGardens."

  Barker's eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed withambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of theintellect he had really believed in the chance method of selectingdespots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might havefallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure.

  "Which of us," he began, and the respectful official interrupted him.

  "Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, weknow your services to the Government, and should be very thankful ifit were. The choice has fallen...."

  "God bless my soul!" said Lambert, jumping back two paces. "Not me.Don't say I'm autocrat of all the Russias."

  "No, sir," said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towardsAuberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs andmaking a noise like a cow; "the gentleman whom we have to congratulateseems at the moment--er--er--occupied."

  "Not Quin!" shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; "it can't be. Auberon,for God's sake pull yourself together. You've been made King!"

  With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answeredmodestly--

  "I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men whohave previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the onlypeculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarchthat ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his headand body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote apoem that I wrote in my youth--

  A nobler office on the earthThan valour, power of brain, or birthCould give the warrior kings of old.

  The intellect clarified by this posture--"

  Lambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him.

  "Don't you understand?" cried Lambert. "It's not a joke. They'vereally made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste."

  "The great Bishops of the Middle Ages," said Quin, kicking his legs inthe air, as he was dragged up more or less upside down, "were in thehabit of refusing the honour of election three times and thenaccepting it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those greatmen. I will accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh!I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet ofhumour."

  By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men werestill trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation.

  "Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert," he said, "that I should be ofmore public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And whenshould a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me thannow, when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer," hecontinued, addressing the startled messenger, "are there no ceremoniesto celebrate my entry into the city?"

  "Ceremonies," began the official, with embarrassment, "have been moreor less neglected for some little time, and--"

  Auberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat.

  "All ceremony," he said, "consists in the reversal of the obvious.Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women.Kindly help me on with this coat." And he held it out.

  "But, your Majesty," said the officer, after a moment's bewildermentand manipulation, "you're putting it on with the tails in front."

  "The reversal of the obvious," said the King, calmly, "is as near aswe can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on."

  The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert anightmare, which they could not properly realise or recall. The King,with his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that wereawaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royalresidence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned intocrowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming anautocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowdsgrew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. Andwhen he had reached the great market-place opposite the church,Barker knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind,because a cry went up such as had never before greeted any of thekings of the earth.

  BOOK II