The Burning Spear | Page 6

to
the office of a lawyer save for the absence of tomes. It seemed
furnished almost exclusively by the Minister, who sat with knees
crossed, in a pair of large round tortoiseshell spectacles, which did not,
however, veil the keenness of his eyes. He was a man with close
cropped grey hair, a broad, yellow, clean-shaven face, and thrusting
grey eyes.
"Mr. Lavender," he said, in a raw, forcible voice; "sit down, will you?"
"I wrote to you," began our hero, "expressing the wish to offer myself
as a speaker."
"Ah!" said the Minister. "Let's see--Lavender, Lavender. Here's your
letter." And extracting a letter from a file he read it, avoiding with
difficulty his tortoiseshell spectacles. "You want to stump the country?
M.A., Barrister, and Fellow of the Zoological. Are you a good
speaker?"
"If zeal---" began Mr. Lavender.
"That's it; spark! We're out to win this war, sir."
"Quite so," began Mr. Lavender. "If devotion----"
"You'll have to use gas," said the Minister; and we don't pay."
"Pay!" cried Mr. Lavender with horror; "no, indeed!"
The Minister bent on him a shrewd glance.
"What's your line? Anything particular, or just general patriotism? I
recommend that; but you'll have to put some punch into it, you know."
"I have studied all the great orators of the war, sir," said Mr. Lavender,
"and am familiar with all the great writers on, it. I should form myself
on them; and if enthusiasm----"

"Quite!" said the Minister. "If you want any atrocities we can give you
them. No facts and no figures; just general pat."
"I shall endeavour----" began Mr. Lavender.
"Well, good-bye," said the Minister, rising. "When do you start?"
Mr. Lavender rose too. "To-morrow," he said, "if I can get inflated."
The Minister rang a bell.
"You're on your own, mind," he said. "No facts; what they want is
ginger. Yes, Mr. Japes?"
And seeing that the Minister was looking over his tortoiseshell.
spectacles at somebody behind him, Mr. Lavender turned and went out.
In the corridor he thought, "What terseness! How different from the
days when Dickens wrote his 'Circumlocution Office'! Punch!" And
opening the wrong door, he found himself in the presence of six little
girls in brown frocks, sitting against the walls with their thumbs in their
mouths.
"Oh!" he said, "I'm afraid I've lost my way."
The eldest of the little girls withdrew a thumb.
"What d'yer want?"
"The door," said Mr. Lavender.
"Second on the right."
"Goodbye," said Mr. Lavender.
The little girls did not answer. And he went out thinking, "These
children are really wonderful! What devotion one sees! And yet the
country is not yet fully roused!"

II
THE VALET
Joe Petty stood contemplating the car which, purchased some fifteen
years before had not been used since the war began. Birds had nested in
its hair. It smelled of mould inside; it creaked from rust. "The Guv'nor
must be cracked," he thought, "to think we can get anywhere in this old
geyser. Well, well, it's summer; if we break down it won't break my
'eart. Government job--better than diggin' or drillin'. Good old Guv!"
So musing, he lit his pipe and examined the recesses beneath the
driver's seat. "A bottle or three," he thought, "in case our patriotism
should get us stuck a bit off the beaten; a loaf or two, some 'oney in a
pot, and a good old 'am.

"A life on the rollin' road----' 'Ow they can give 'im the job I can't
think!" His soliloquy was here interrupted by the approach of his wife,
bearing a valise.
"Don't you wish you was comin', old girl?" he remarked to her lightly.
"I do not; I'm glad to be shut of you. Keep his feet dry. What have you
got under there?"
Joe Petty winked.
"What a lumbering great thing it looks!" said Mrs. Petty, gazing
upwards.
"Ah!" returned her husband thoughtfully, we'll 'ave the population
round us without advertisement. And taking the heads of two small
boys who had come up, he knocked them together in an absent-minded
fashion.
"Well," said Mrs. Petty, "I can't waste time. Here's his extra set of teeth.
Don't lose them. Have you got your own toothbrush? Use it, and
behave yourself. Let me have a line. And don't let him get excited." She
tapped her forehead.
"Go away, you boys; shoo!"
The boys, now six in number, raised a slight cheer ; for at that moment
Mr. Lavender, in a broad-brimmed grey felt hat and a holland dust-coat,
came out through his garden-gate carrying a pile of newspapers and
pamphlets so large that his feet, legs, and hat alone were visible.
"Open the door, Joe!" he said, and stumbled into the body of the
vehicle. A shrill cheer rose from the eight boys, who could see