There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily in a chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness.
At length Barker said suddenly:
“Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? The Hammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly good speculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it? It will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose we let it alone?”
“And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up?” cried out Buck, starting to his feet. “What do you propose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologize to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To kneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of the Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved Notting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well...they were beaten by a trick. And they’ll fight again.”
“Buck,” said Barker, “I always admired you. And you were quite right in what you said the other day.”
“In what?”
“In saying,” said Barker, rising quietly, “that we had all got into Adam Wayne’s atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the whole territorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, with barricades at the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne extends, God knows where...it extends to this office at any rate. The red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling this room with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-haired madman who said the last word you spoke.”
Buck walked to the window without replying.
“You understand, of course,” he said at last, “I do not dream of giving in.”
The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue omnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been greatly disturbed by these events, for the affair was treated as a Notting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in the hands of a gang of recognized rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as they would have done if a road were being mended, and the omnibup on which the correspondent of the Court Journal was sitting swept round the corner of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.
The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the speed at which it was going.
“Forward, my beauty, my Arab,” he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, “fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he sleep side by side with thee...”
His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stopage. Looking over the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being held by men in the uniform of Wayne’s army, and heard the voice of an officer calling out orders.
King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard or picket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not number more than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark, clever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad in an ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a long seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectacles completed the outfit in a pleasing manner.
“To whom have I the honour of speaking?” said the King, endeavouring to look like Charles I, in spite of personal difficulties.
The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity.
“My name is Bowles,” he said. “I am a chemist. I am also a captain of O company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having to incommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by our proclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have the honour...Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty’s pardon. I am quite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King.”
Auberon put up his hands with indescribable grandeur.
“Not with the King,” he said; “with the special war correspondent of the Court Journal.”
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully.
“Do you call me Majesty? I repeat,” said Auberon firmly, “I am a representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn over the past.”
“Very well, sir,” said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, “in our eyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the throne. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories should be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any objection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?”
“The Provost I have had the honour of meeting,” said Auberon, easily. “We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most delighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it would be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them.”
“Will you be so good as to step this way?” said the leader of O company.
“I am always good,” said Mr. Pinker. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT ARMY OF SOUTH KENSINGTON
THE article from the special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King’s arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, “Try American style,” and the fragment began:
“The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very...;” and then broke off, followed by the note, “Good sound journalism safer. Try it.”
The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin:
“The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any...”
This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost undecipherable, but seemed to be something like:
“How about old Steevens and the mot juste? E.g. ...”
“Morning winked a little wearily at me over the cult edge of Campden Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black cardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours; but at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I knew that it was the guard of Swindon’s West Kensington army. They are being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the Bayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great water works tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the water works tower looked swart.
“As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the blue cloudy masses of Barker’s men blocking the entrance to the highroad like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied troops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as follows...The Yellow Army (if I may so describe the West Kensingtonians) lies, as I have said, hi a strip along the ridge; its furthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, its furthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Green Army of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen’s Road to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and extending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. The fourth side of this rough square, the Queen’s Road side, is held by some of Buck’s Purple warriors.
“The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Along the crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington. They are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northward lies our hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the south-west run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of violet irises (aptly symbolized by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. The argent exterior... (I am losing the style. I should have said ‘Curving with a whisk’ instead of merely ‘Curving.’ Also I should have called the hyacinths ‘sudden.’ I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid for this style of writing. Please ask the office-boy to insert mots justes.)