A Diversity of Creatures | Page 7

administrator myself, but we've had a little fuss with our Serviles. What?
In a big city there's bound to be a few men and women who can't live
without listening to themselves, and who prefer drinking out of pipes
they don't own both ends of. They inhabit flats and hotels all the year
round. They say it saves 'em trouble. Anyway, it gives 'em more time to
make trouble for their neighbours. We call 'em Serviles locally. And
they are apt to be tuberculous.'
'Just so!' said the man called Mulligan. Transportation is Civilisation.
Democracy is Disease. I've proved it by the blood-test, every time.'
'Mulligan's our Health Officer, and a one-idea man,' said the Mayor,
laughing. 'But it's true that most Serviles haven't much control. They
will talk; and when people take to talking as a business, anything may
arrive--mayn't it, De Forest?'
'Anything--except the facts of the case,' said De Forest, laughing.
'I'll give you those in a minute,' said the Mayor. 'Our Serviles got to
talking--first in their houses and then on the streets, telling men and
women how to manage their own affairs. (You can't teach a Servile not
to finger his neighbour's soul.) That's invasion of privacy, of course,
but in Chicago we'll suffer anything sooner than make Crowds. Nobody
took much notice, and so I let 'em alone. My fault! I was warned there
would be trouble, but there hasn't been a Crowd or murder in Illinois
for nineteen years.'

'Twenty-two,' said his Chief of Police.
'Likely. Anyway, we'd forgot such things. So, from talking in the
houses and on the streets, our Serviles go to calling a meeting at the
Old Market yonder.' He nodded across the square where the wrecked
buildings heaved up grey in the dawn-glimmer behind the square-cased
statue of The Negro in Flames. 'There's nothing to prevent any one
calling meetings except that it's against human nature to stand in a
Crowd, besides being bad for the health. I ought to have known by the
way our men and women attended that first meeting that trouble was
brewing. There were as many as a thousand in the market-place,
touching each other. Touching! Then the Serviles turned in all
tongue-switches and talked, and we--'
'What did they talk about?' said Takahira.
'First, how badly things were managed in the city. That pleased us
Four--we were on the platform--because we hoped to catch one or two
good men for City work. You know how rare executive capacity is.
Even if we didn't it's--it's refreshing to find any one interested enough
in our job to damn our eyes. You don't know what it means to work,
year in, year out, without a spark of difference with a living soul.'
'Oh, don't we!' said De Forest. 'There are times on the Board when we'd
give our positions if any one would kick us out and take hold of things
themselves.'
'But they won't,' said the Mayor ruefully. 'I assure you, sir, we Four
have done things in Chicago, in the hope of rousing people, that would
have discredited Nero. But what do they say? "Very good, Andy. Have
it your own way. Anything's better than a Crowd. I'll go back to my
land." You can't do anything with folk who can go where they please,
and don't want anything on God's earth except their own way. There
isn't a kick or a kicker left on the Planet.'
'Then I suppose that little shed yonder fell down by itself?' said De
Forest. We could see the bare and still smoking ruins, and hear the
slag-pools crackle as they hardened and set.

'Oh, that's only amusement. 'Tell you later. As I was saying, our
Serviles held the meeting, and pretty soon we had to ground-circuit the
platform to save 'em from being killed. And that didn't make our people
any more pacific.'
'How d'you mean?' I ventured to ask.
'If you've ever been ground-circuited,' said the Mayor, 'you'll know it
don't improve any man's temper to be held up straining against nothing.
No, sir! Eight or nine hundred folk kept pawing and buzzing like flies
in treacle for two hours, while a pack of perfectly safe Serviles invades
their mental and spiritual privacy, may be amusing to watch, but they
are not pleasant to handle afterwards.'
Pirolo chuckled.
'Our folk own themselves. They were of opinion things were going too
far and too fiery. I warned the Serviles; but they're born house-dwellers.
Unless a fact hits 'em on the head they cannot see it. Would you believe
me, they went on to talk of what they called "popular government"?
They did! They wanted us to go back to the old Voodoo-business of
voting with papers and wooden boxes, and word-drunk people and
printed formulas, and news-sheets! They