The Mouse That Roared (2 page)

Her address was greeted with a robust round of applause, for all the delegates present looked upon their Duchess as part daughter and part ruler, for whom they would willingly lay down their lives at any moment. There were cries of “Long live Duchess Gloriana the Twelfth” and then the time came for the majority leader to reply to the throne.

Since the crux of the crisis lay in the fact that there was no majority leader, it had been agreed at a bi-partisan caucus that the leaders of the two parties should each make an address, presenting his side of the question for decision by the Duchess.

The Count of Mountjoy, looking quite splendid in his multi-coloured trunk hose, jerkin, and cape with flowing sleeves, made the first speech. With the election over, he was now prepared to be less fanatical on the subject of Anti-Dilutionism and put the matter crisply, saying that while the watering of Grand Pinot might in the first instance produce some gain, in the end it must result in the discrediting of the wine and the total loss of all revenues from its export.

Mr. David Benter, a dogged, stocky man, slow of speech and thought, who led the Dilutionists, then put his side of the case.

It was not proposed to add more than ten per cent of water by volume to the wine, he stated. This would certainly not destroy its bouquet, but, on the other hand, it would greatly increase the output and the additional revenue if budgeted with practicality, and would ensure that the duchy would be able to import the goods and foodstuffs needed. What plans had the Anti-Dilutionists to offer which would achieve the same results?

Mountjoy did not reply directly to that question, preferring to return to his attack on the Dilutionist programme. Even if it might be held--and certainly no gentleman could countenance such a belief--that the addition of ten per cent of water to the famous Pinot would not harm its bouquet and its reputation, what guarantee was there that the amount added would be restricted to ten per cent as the Dilutionists were now maintaining?

A ten per cent increase in revenue from wine exports might be sufficient for present needs. But there was no surety that those needs would not increase. Prices of food and wool were rising on the world market. More revenue would be needed next year; probably more still the year after. Did the Dilutionists believe that they could just continue adding more and more water until the famous Pinot was no better than some of the cheap wines produced by France, consumed by Frenchmen, and undoubtedly responsible for the loss of national pride and martial spirit among the men of that once proud country?

The programme of the Dilutionists was fraught with danger for the whole of Grand Fenwick, and far from ensuring its survival must, in the long run, bring about its downfall.

After some more discussion, much of it heated, but no progress towards the solution of the vital problem, the two sides turned to the throne for a ruling in the matter, and the Duchess faced the first crisis of her reign.

“Bobo,” she said to Mountjoy, forgetting the formality of the occasion and calling him by his pet name, “what do other nations do when they are short of money? I don’t mean big nations, but little ones like ours?”

“They issue a new but limited series of stamps which are bought at high prices by stamp collectors all over the world.”

“We have already issued so many series of stamps,” said Benter, “that they are not worth the money printed on the face of them. It has got to the point where it actually costs us more to issue the stamps than we can expect to receive in return.”

“I read the other day,” said the Duchess, “that the Americans are giving away millions to lots of countries and not even asking for the money back. Can’t we arrange to get a loan of some kind from the United States?”

“They are only giving the money away to countries they are afraid might become Communist, Your Grace,” replied Benter. “Nobody in Grand Fenwick would ever become a Communist. We all work our own lands. We know how hard it is to make a little profit. Nobody can call himself oppressed. Unless a man suspects that others are getting more than their fair share, there is no reason for him to become a Communist.’’ “Couldn’t we organize a Communist party here--just for the purpose of obtaining a loan?” Gloriana asked. “I don’t really mean that we want a true Communist party--just someone who would stand up and tell the people to unite against oppression and throw off their shackles and all those other things. Then we could arrange for the matter to be reported in the American newspapers. An American senator could be invited over and could see some mass meetings. They’d have to be held on Sundays because everybody is busy during the week. But we could get a dispensation from the Bishop for holding a political meeting on Sunday. Then the American senator could report to Washington and we could persuade him to recommend a loan to save the duchy from Communism.”

To her surprise it was David Benter, Dilutionist leader and acknowledged spokesman of the working class, who raised the strongest objection to the plan which took the rest of the delegates completely by surprise. He came of sturdy yeoman stock, and one of his ancestors had accompanied Sir Roger Fenwick when the castle in which they were now sitting was stormed and the duchy founded.

“My lady,” he said, shaking his big head solemnly, “it will not do. Even if we obtained the loan, we could not pay back the money and so would forfeit some of our independence by being in the debt of another nation. Your ancestors and mine, Your Highness, fought to make this an independent country. It is not a big one. But it is as free as any in the world, and has been free longer than most. It would not be right to lose any of that freedom now. Our forefathers passed liberty onto us with the land we were born in, and it is the part of free men to pass the same liberty on to their children, though we all must live in rags to do it.”

“But the Americans never take over any of the lands of the nations they lend money to, nor do they insist upon getting the money back,” said Mountjoy. “They are quite different from any other people in the world in this respect. For some reason, which I don’t understand, they are content with their own country and don’t want anybody else’s. So we would be in no danger if we borrowed a large sum from them to save Grand Fenwick from Communism. I move that we accept the suggestion from the throne and organize a Communist party for the purpose of obtaining money from the United States of America.”

There was an hour more of debate before Mountjoy could get the matter put to a vote. The division found six in favour of the proposal and four against it and the motion was carried.

“Now,” said the Duchess, pleased at the success of her first test in the position of leader of her people, “who shall we get to be chief of the Communists?”

“It must be someone from Grand Fenwick,” said Benter, solemnly. “You can’t trust those foreign Communists at all. They have no patriotism even for the place that they come from.”

“We could ask Tully Bascomb,” said Mountjoy. “He is always against everything, and might be persuaded to be for Communism and against Grand Fenwick if we convinced him that he was really for Grand Fenwick and against Communism. I humbly submit that the leader of the Dilutionist party and myself form a bi-partisan delegation of two to persuade him that he can show no higher patriotism to Grand Fenwick than becoming a Communist and advocating the overthrow of the nation.”

The Duchess Gloriana XII put a pretty finger to her pretty cheek in deep thought.

“No,” she said. “On so delicate a mission as this, I believe I should go myself. You and Mr. Benter might be too successful and make a real Communist out of Mr. Bascomb.”

Tully Bascomb lived in a small and secluded cottage on the outskirts of Fenwick Forest. It was two miles from the City of Fenwick which clustered around the castle and in which most of the duchy’s subjects lived.

The forest was a national preserve. Perhaps it is really too much to call it a forest, for it comprised no more than five hundred acres, so that anyone who was not from Grand Fenwick would call it a wood, or perhaps even a copse.

But Grand Fenwick was as proud of its five hundred wooded acres as if it were as large and as varied as the redwood forests of California. The forest had indeed all the features of far more imposing preserves. It counted fifty different varieties of trees, a waterfall twenty feet high, a haunted oak where a mad huntsman had hanged himself, and three miles of walks and paths which were really the same walk and path winding around within a few feet of itself, each portion carefully concealed from the rest by trees and bushes.

Tully Bascomb was the chief forest ranger of Grand Fenwick. The title suggests a staff of forest rangers of lower degree, and, indeed, he had a staff of one--his father, Pierce Bascomb. The two had lived together on the outskirts of the forest for the whole of Tully’s twenty-eight years, the father resigning the post of chief forest ranger in favour of his son, both to provide him with employment and to insure the preservation of the forest when he died.

The elder Bascomb, bespectacled, tall, and lean, with eyebrows so bushy that they more than compensated for the lack of a vestige of hair on his pate, was among Grand Fenwick’s most distinguished citizens. He was the only living author in the whole duchy, which boasted but two authors in all its history. His
Migratory Birds of Grand Fenwick
was held to be a work of the greatest learning, and had been published by popular subscription, while his
Grand Fenwick Birds of Prey
and
Fenwickian Songbirds
were reckoned works the equal of anything published in Europe.

Some quibble had once been raised by an American ornithologist that a nation no more than five miles long and three wide could hardly claim to have any native birds. All, he had been bold enough to assert, must be birds which came from other countries, stopping in Grand Fenwick only for a short while on their way to other places. To this Pierce Bascomb had replied, in a paper addressed to the Audubon Society and published by them, that the only being who could claim to pass with authority on the nationality of a bird, was the bird itself. On the same basis it might be argued that there were no British birds and no American birds, although innumerable books had been written, published, and generally accepted which assigned the nationality of these two countries to the bird life to be found in them.

That being so, Grand Fenwick could claim to have a native bird life with the same amount of justice as any other nation, however large it might be. The discussion was thereupon dropped and Pierce Bascomb’s books on the bird life of Grand Fenwick accepted.

Nor was this the sum total of the achievements of the great literary man of the duchy. He had also published three books dealing with the flora of the nation, and although the total circulation of all his works was less than five thousand copies, he was, next to the Duchess Gloriana XII, Grand Fenwick’s most revered and beloved citizen.

His son, Tully, however, though widely quoted and regarded as the philosopher and wit of the country, was not held in the same esteem as his father. Partially this was due to the fact that he had no respect for anyone’s opinion, not even his own. He had but to hear a statement to deny it, or if not deny it, at least demand that it be examined scrupulously to see whether it was true or false. Also he was of a roving nature. He had not only been to France and to Switzerland, but even to Italy and England and twice to the United States of America. And all this journeying, far beyond the means of the richest of citizens, he had accomplished without a penny in his pocket.

He would turn the charge of the national forest over to his father and, with no more credit in the world than a quick tongue and a suit of clothes, leave for some distant part for a month, six months or even a year or two.

Anyone who left Grand Fenwick to live abroad even for a short while was suspected of lacking loyalty to his homeland, although he might achieve some esteem as a traveller, and there had at one time been a movement to exclude Tully altogether from the country as unworthy to be a citizen. Only the eminence of his father prevented the movement from succeeding, but his position was still one of half citizen and half alien.

All these things the Duchess Gloriana XII thought of as she rode her ducal bicycle from the castle to Tully’s cottage on the fringe of the forest. She herself could not make up her mind whether she liked Tully or she didn’t. Partially, she had to admit this was the reason why she had elected to see him about the Communist proposal instead of entrusting the matter to the Count of Mountjoy and Benter. It would be a good opportunity for finding out exactly what she did feel about him.

He was not physically her ideal of a man, she told herself. He had his father’s bushy eyebrows and a rather prominent nose. He was tall and tended to stoop and his limbs seemed to be at odds with each other, as if his frame had been constructed of assorted joints, not one of which was the mate to the other. Also he had a most impolite way of looking you straight in the eyes as if searching for a hidden motive in even the most innocent conversation. And thinking of this, the Duchess decided that she would come straight to the point in her interview with Tully.

She found him in the kitchen of the cottage, a leather apron around his waist, soling a pair of stout boots at a cobbler’s last. He rose as she entered, beckoned her to a chair with his hammer, and then took a handful of nails out of his mouth.

“I was expecting you, Your Grace,” he said, when she was seated. “What can I do for you?”

“What do you mean, you were expecting me?” Gloriana demanded, colouring a little with pique. “Did somebody tell you I was coming?”

“No. But the last, election was a draw between the Dilutionists and the Anti-Dilutionists. It is quite impossible for a democracy to work without one side imposing its will on the other. So although you have popular representation, in its truest form, you haven’t got a government. In such circumstances it is usual for someone to form a third party, drawing on voters from both sides. The thing has been going on in France for so long that nobody can say what any particular party stands for. The next step is usually a dictatorship. I presume you want me to form a third party.”