silent, too, for a little time; then she went out down the valley, and returned in the dress of a Hill girl-infamously dirty, but without the nose and ear rings she had her hair braided into the long pig-tail, helped out with black thread, that Hill women wear. "I am going back to my own people," said she. "You have killed Lispeth. There is only left old Jadéh's daughter-the daughter of a pahari and the servant of Tarka Devi. You are all liars, you English." By the time that the Chaplain's wife had recovered from the shock of the announcement that Lispeth had 'verted to her mother's gods, the girl had gone; and she never came back. She took to her own unclean people savagely, as if to make up the arrears of the life she had stepped out of; and, in a little time, she married a wood cutter who beat her after the manner of paharis, and her beauty faded soon. "There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the heathen," said the Chaplain's wife, "and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart an infidel." Seeing she had taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chaplain's wife. Lispeth was a very old woman when she died. She always had a perfect command of English, and when she was sufficiently drunk, could sometimes be induced to tell the story of her first love-affair. It was hard then to realise that the bleared, wrinkled creature could ever have been "Lispeth of the Kotgarh Mission". (Plain Tales from the Hills.) G. Bernard Shaw. (born 1865) Augustus does his Bit. The Mayor's parlour in the Hall of Little Pifflington. Lord Augustus Highcastle, a distinguished member of the governing class, in the uniform of a colonel and very well preserved at 45, is comfortably seated at a writing-table with his heels on it, reading The Morning Post... Portraits of past Mayors, in robes and gold chains, adorn the walls. An elderly clerk with a short white beard and whiskers, and a very red nose, shuffles in. Augustus (hastily putting aside his paper and replacing his feet on the floor): Hullo! Who are you? The Clerk: The staff (a slight impediment in his speech adds to the impression of incompetence produced by his age and appearance). Augustus: You the staff! What do you mean, man? The Clerk: At the front. Augustus: Quite right. Most proper. Why arn't you at the front? Augustus: But you can still do your bit. Many an older man is in the G.R.'s, or volunteering for home defence. The Clerk: I have volunteered. Augustus: Then why are you not in uniform? The Clerk: They said they wouldn't have me if I was given away with a pound of tea. Told me to go home and not be an old silly. (A sense of unbearable wrong, till now only smouldering in him, bursts into flame). Young Bill Knight, that I took with me, got two and sevenpence. I got nothing. Is it justice? This country is going to the dogs, if you ask me. Augustus (rising indignantly): I do not ask you, sir; and I will not allow you to say such things in my presence. Our statesmen are the greatest known to history. Our generals are invincible. Our army is the admiration of the world. (Furiously.) How dare you tell me that the country is going to the dogs! The Clerk: Why did they give young Bill Knight two and sevenpence, and not give me even my tram fare? Do you call that being great statesmen? As good as robbing me, I call it. Augustus: That's enough. Leave the room. (He sits down and takes up his pen, settling himself to work. The clerk shuffles to the door. Augustus adds, with cold politeness.) Send me the Secretary. The Clerk: I'm the Secretary. I can't leave the room and send myself to you at the same time, can I? Augustus: Don't be insolent. Where is the gentleman I have been corresponding with: Mr. Horatio Floyd Beamish ? The Clerk (returning and bowing): Here. Me. Augustus: You! Ridiculous. What right have you to call yourself by a pretentious name of that sort? The Clerk: You may drop the Horatio Floyd. Beamish is good enough for me. Augustus: Is there nobody else to take my instructions? The Clerk: It's me or nobody. And for two pins I'd chuck it. Don't you drive me too far. Old uns like me is up in the world now. Augustus: If we were not at war, I should discharge you on the spot for disrespectful behaviour. But England is in danger; and I cannot think of my personal dignity at such a moment. (Shouting at him.) Don't you think of yours, either, worm that you are; or I'll have you arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act, double quick. The Clerk: What do I care about the realm? They done me out of two and seven Augustus: Oh, damn your two and seven! Did you receive my letters ? The Clerk: Yes. Augustus: I addressed a meeting here last night-went straight to the platform from the train. I wrote to you that I should expect you to be present and report yourself. Why did you not do so? The Clerk: The police wouldn't let me on the platform. Augustus: Did you tell them who you were? The Clerk: They knew who I was. That's why they wouldn't let me up. Augustus: This is too silly for anything. This town wants waking up. I made the best recruiting speech I ever made in my life; and not a man joined. The Clerk: What did you expect? You told them our gallant fellows is falling at the rate of a thousand a day in the big push. Dying for Little Pifflington, you says. Come and take their places, you says. That ain't the way to recruit. Augustus. But I expressly told them their widows would have pensions. The Clerk: I heard you. Would have been all right if it had been the widows you wanted to get round. Augustus (rising angrily): This town is inhabited by dastards. I say it with a full sense of responsibility, dastards! They call themselves Englishmen; and they are afraid to fight. The Clerk: Afraid to fight! You should see them on a Saturday night. Augustus: Yes: they fight one another; but they won't fight the Germans. The Clerk: They got grudges again one another: how can they have grudges again the Huns that they never saw? They've no imagination: that's what it is. Bring the Huns here; and they'll quarrel with them fast enough. Augustus (returning to his seat with a grunt of disgust): Mf. They'll have them here if they're not careful. (Seated.) Have you carried out my orders about the war saving? The Clerk: Yes. Augustus: The allowance of petrol has been reduced by three quarters ? The Clerk: It has. Augustus: And you have told the motor-car people to come here and arrange to start munition work now that their motor business is stopped? The Clerk: It ain't stopped. They're busier than ever. Augustus: Busy at what? The Clerk: Making small cars. Augustus: New cars! The Clerk: The old cars only do twelve miles to the gallon. Everybody has to have a car that will do thirty-five now. Augustus: Can't they take the train? The Clerk: There ain't no trains now. They've tore up the rails and sent them to the front. Augustus: Psha! The Clerk: Well, we have to get about somehow. Augustus: This is perfectly monstrous. Not in the least what I intended. The Clerk: Hell Augustus: Sir! The Clerk (explaining): Hell, they says, is paved with good intentions. Augustus (springing to his feet): Do you mean to insinuate that hell is paved with my good intentions-with the good intentions of His Majesty's Government? The Clerk: I dont mean to insinuate anything until the Defence of the Realm Act is repealed. It ain't safe. Augustus: They told me that this town had set an example to all England in the matter of economy. I came down here to promise the Mayor a knighthood for his exertions. The Clerk: The Mayor! Where do I come in? Augustus: You don't come in. You go out. This is a fool of a place. I'm greatly disappointed. Deeply disappointed. (Flinging himself back into his chair.) Disgusted. The Clerk: What more can we do? We've shut up everything. The picture gallery is shut. The museum is shut. The theatres and picture shows is shut: I havn't seen a movy picture for six months. Augustus: Man, man: do you want to see picture shows when the Hun is at the gate? The Clerk (mournfully): I don't now, though it drove me melancholy mad at first. I was on the point of taking a pennorth 1) of rat poison – Augustus: Why didn't you? The Clerk: Because a friend advised me to take to drink instead. That saved my life, though it makes me very poor company in the mornings, as (hiccuping) perhaps you've noticed. Augustus: Well, upon my soul! You are not ashamed to stand there and confess yourself a disgusting drunkard. The Clerk: Well, what of it? We're at war now; and everything's changed. Besides, I should lose my job here if I stood drinking at the bar. I'm a respectable man and must buy my drink and take it home with me. And they won't serve me with less than a quart. If you'd told me before the war that I could get through a quart of whisky in a day, I shouldn't have believed you. That's the good of war: it brings out powers in a man that he never suspected himself capable of. You said so yourself in your speech last night. Augustus: I did not know that I was talking to an imbecile. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. There must be an end of this drunken slacking. I'm going to establish a new order of things here. I shall come down every morning before breakfast until things are properly in train. Have a cup of coffee and two rolls for me here every morning at half-past ten. The Clerk: You can't have no rolls. The only baker that baked rolls was a Hun; and he's been interned. Augustus: Quite right, too. And was there no Englishman to take his place? The Clerk: There was. But he was caught spying; and they took him up to London and shot him. 1) = pennyworth. Augustus: Shot an Englishman! The Clerk: Well, it stands to reason if the Germans wanted a spy they wouldn't employ a German that everybody would suspect, don't it? Augustus (rising again): Do you mean to say, you scoundrel, that an Englishman is capable of selling his country to the enemy for gold? The Clerk: Not as a general thing I wouldn't say it; but there's men here would sell their own mothers for two coppers if they got the chance. Augustus: Beamish: it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest. The Clerk: It wasn't me that let Little Pifflington get foul. I don't belong to the governing classes. I only tell you why you can't have no rolls. Augustus (intensely irritated): Can you tell me where I can find an intelligent being to take my orders? - The Clerk: One of the street sweepers used to teach in the school until it was shut up for the sake of economy. Will he do? Augustus: What! You mean to tell me that when the lives of the gallant fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the British Empire, depend on our keeping up the supply of shells, you are wasting money on sweeping the streets? The Clerk: We have to. We dropped it for a while; but the infant death rate went up something frightful. Augustus: What matters the death rate of Little Pifflington in a moment like this? Think of our gallant soldiers, not of your squalling infants. The Clerk: If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't buy 'em in boxes, like toy soldiers. Augustus: Beamish: the long and the short of it is, you are no patriot. Go downstairs to your office; and have that gas stove taken away and replaced by an ordinary grate. The Board of Trade has urged on me the necessity for economizing gas. The Clerk: Our orders from the Minister of Munitions is to use gas instead of coal, because it saves material. Which is it to be? Augustus (bawling furiously at him): Both! Don't criticize your orders: obey them. Yours not to reason why: yours but to do and die. That's war. (Cooling down.) Have you anything else to say? The Clerk: Yes: I want a rise. Augustus (reeling against the table in his horror): A rise! Horatio Floyd Beamish: do you know that we are at war? The Clerk: (feebly ironical): I have noticed something about it in the papers. Heard you mention it once or twice, now I come to think of it. Augustus: Our gallant fellows are dying in the trenches; and you want a rise! The Clerk: What are they dying for? To keep me alive, ain't it? Well, what's the good of that if I'm dead of hunger by the time they come back? Augustus: Everybody else is making sacrifices without a thought of self; and you |