Four Just Men | Page 6

went round the table.
"We have every excuse for dropping it. There must be a horrible
slaughtering of the innocents--Braithewaite's Unemployed Bill must go;
and what the country will say to that, Heaven only knows."
"No, no!" The Foreign Secretary brought his fist down on the table with
a crash. "It shall go through; of that I am determined. We are breaking
faith with the Cortes, we are breaking faith with France, we are
breaking faith with every country in the Union. I have promised the
passage of this measure--and we must go through with it, even though
there are a thousand 'Just Men', and a thousand threats."
The Premier shrugged his shoulders.
"Forgive me for saying so, Ramon," said Bolton, the Solicitor, "but I
can't help feeling you were rather indiscreet to give particulars to the

Press as you did. Yes, I know we were agreed that you should have a
free hand to deal with the matter as you wished, but somehow I did not
think you would have been quite so--what shall I say?-- candid."
"My discretion in the matter, Sir George, is not a subject that I care to
discuss," replied Ramon stiffly.
Later, as he walked across Palace Yard with the youthful-looking
Chancellor, Mr Solicitor-General, smarting under the rebuff, said, a
propos of nothing, "Silly old ass." And the youthful guardian of
Britain's finances smiled.
"If the truth be told," he said, "Ramon is in a most awful funk. The
story of the Four Just Men is in all the clubs, and a man I met at the
Carlton at lunch has rather convinced me that there is really something
to be feared. He was quite serious about it--he's just returned from
South America and has seen some of the work done by these men."
"What was that?"
"A president or something of one of these rotten little republics ... about
eight months ago--you'll see it in the list... They hanged him ... most
extraordinary thing in the world. They took him out of bed in the
middle of the night, gagged him, blindfolded him, carried him to the
public jail, gained admission, and hanged him on the public
gallows--and escaped!"
Mr Solicitor saw the difficulties of such proceedings, and was about to
ask for further information when an under-secretary buttonholed the
Chancellor and bore him off. "Absurd," muttered Mr Solicitor crossly.
There were cheers for the Secretary for Foreign Affairs as his
brougham swept through the crowd that lined the approaches to the
House. He was in no wise exalted, for popularity was not a possession
he craved. He knew instinctively that the cheers were called forth by
the public's appreciation of his peril; and the knowledge chilled and
irritated him. He would have liked to think that the people scoffed at
the existence of this mysterious four--it would have given him some

peace of mind had he been able to think 'the people have rejected the
idea.
For although popularity or unpopularity was outside his scheme of
essentials, yet he had an unswerving faith in the brute instincts of the
mob. He was surrounded in the lobby of the House with a crowd of
eager men of his party, some quizzical, some anxious, all clamouring
for the latest information--all slightly in fear of the acid-tongued
Minister.
"Look here, Sir Philip"--it was the stout, tactless member for West
Brondesbury--"what is all this we hear about threatenin' letters? Surely
you're not goin' to take notice of things of that sort--why, I get two or
three every day of my life."
The Minister strode impatiently away from the group, but Tester--the
member--caught his arm.
"Look here----"he began.
"Go to the devil," said the Foreign Secretary plainly, and walked
quickly to his room.
"Beastly temper that man's got, to be sure," said the honourable
member despairingly. "Fact is, old Ramon's in a blue funk. The idea of
making a song about threatenin' letters! Why, I get----"
A group of men in the members' smokeroom discussed the question of
the Just Four in a perfectly unoriginal way.
"It's too ridiculous for words," said one oracularly. "Here are four men,
a mythical four, arrayed against all the forces and established agencies
of the most civilised nation on earth."
"Except Germany," interrupted Scott, MP, wisely.
"Oh, leave Germany out of it for goodness' sake," begged the first
speaker tartly. "I do wish, Scott, we could discuss a subject in which

the superiority of German institutions could not be introduced."
"Impossible," said the cheerful Scott, flinging loose the reins of his
hobby horse: "remember that in steel and iron alone the production per
head of the employee has increased 43 per cent., that her shipping----"
"Do you think Ramon will withdraw the bill?" asked the senior member
for Aldgate East, disentangling his attention from