INTO THE DANGERS OF A PUBLIC LIFE
"At what time is my meeting?" thought Mr.Lavender vaguely, gazing at the light filtering through the Venetian blind."Blink!"His dog, who was lying beside his bed gnawing a bone which with some presence of mind she had brought in, raised herself and regarded him with the innocence of her species."She has an air of divine madness,"thought Mr.Lavender, which is very pleasing to me.I have a terrible headache." And seeing a bellrope near his hand he pulled it.
A voice said: "Yes, sir."
"I wish to see my, servant, Joe Petty," said Lavender."I shall not require any breakfast thank you.What is the population of High Barnet?""I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, sir," answered the voice, which seemed to be that of his housekeeper; "but you can't see Joe; he's gone out with a flea in his ear.The idea of his letting you get your feet wet like that!
"How is this?" said Mr.Lavender."I thought you were the chambermaid of the inn at High Barnet?""No, indeed," said Mrs.Petty soothingly, placing a thermometer in his mouth."Smoke that a minute, sir.Oh! look at what this dog's brought in! Fie!" And taking the bone between thumb and finger she cast it out of the window; while Blink, aware that she was considered in the wrong, and convinced that she was in the right, spread out her left paw, laid her head on her right paw, and pressed her chin hard against it.Mrs.
Petty, returning from the window, stood above her master, who lay gazing up with the thermometer jutting out through the middle of his moustache.
"I thought so!" she said, removing it; "a hundred and one.No getting up for you, sir! That Joe!""Mrs.Petty," said Mr.Lavender rather feebly, for his head pained him excessively, "bring me the morning papers.""No, sir.The thermometer bursts at an an' ten.I'll bring you the doctor."Mr.Lavender was about to utter a protest when he reflected that all public men had doctors.
"About the bulletin?" he said faintly.
"What?" ejaculated Mrs.Petty, whose face seemed to Mr.Lavender to have become all cheekbones, eyes, and shadows.Joe never said a about a bullet.Where? and however did you get it in?
"I did not say 'bullet in'," murmured Mr.Lavender closing his eyes! "Isaid bulletin.They have it."
At this mysterious sentence Mrs.Petty lifted her hands, and muttering the word "Ravin'!" hastened from the room.No sooner had she gone, however, than Blink, whose memory was perfect, rose, and going to the window placed her forepaws on the sill.Seeing her bone shining on the lawn below, with that disregard of worldly consequence which she shared with all fine characters, she leaped through.The rattle of the Venetian blind disturbed Mr.Lavender from the lethargy to which he had reverted.
"Mr.John Lavender passed a good night," he thought, "but his condition is still critical." And in his disordered imagination he seemed to see people outside Tube stations, standing stock-still in the middle of the traffic, reading that bulletin in the evening papers."Let me see," he mused, "how will they run? To-morrow I shall be better, but not yet able to leave my bed; the day after to-morrow I shall have a slight relapse, and my condition will still give cause for anxiety; on the day following--What is that noise.For a sound like the whiffling of a wind through dry sticks combined with the creaking of a saw had, impinged on his senses.It was succeeded by scratching."Blink!" said Mr.Lavender.
A heartrending whine came from outside the door.Mr.Lavender rose and opened it.His dog came in carrying her bone, and putting it down by the bed divided her attention between it and her master's legs, revealed by the nightshirt which, in deference to the great Disraeli, he had never abandoned in favour of pyjamas.Having achieved so erect a posture Mr.
Lavender, whose heated imagination had now carried him to the convalescent stage of his indisposition, felt that a change of air would do him good, and going to the window, leaned out above a lilac-tree.
"Mr.John Lavender" he murmured, "has gone to his seat to recuperate before resuming his public duties.
While he stood there his attention was distracted by a tall young lady of fine build and joyous colour, who was watering some sweet-peas in the garden of the adjoining castle: Naturally delicate, Mr.Lavender at once sought a jacket, and, having put it on, resumed his position at the window.He had not watched her more than two minutes before he saw that she was cultivating soil, and, filled with admiration, he leaned still further out, and said:
"My dear young madam, you are doing a great work."Thus addressed, the young lady, who had those roving grey eyes which see everything and betoken a large nature not devoid of merry genius, looked up and smiled.
"Believe me," continued Mr.Lavender, "no task in these days is so important as the cultivation of the soil; now that we are fighting to the last man and the last dollar every woman and child in th islands should put their hands to the plough.And at that word his vision became feverishly enlarged, so that he seemed to see not merely the young lady, but quantities of young ladies, filling the whole garden.
"This," he went on, raising his voice, "is the psychological moment, the turning-point in the history of these islands.The defeat of our common enemies imposes on us the sacred duty of feeding ourselves once more.
'There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to---- Oh!" For in his desire to stir his audience, Mr.Lavender had reached out too far, and losing foothold on his polished bedroom floor, was slipping down into the lilac-bush.He was arrested by a jerk from behind; where Blink, moved by this sudden elopement of her master, had seized him by the nightshirt tails, and was staying his descent.
"Is anything up?" said the young lady.