The Napoleon of Notting Hill
knows to be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite--it must be
malice or spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it's
against the public good. The King's Government would be justified in
forcing you."
With his lean fingers spread on the table, he stared anxiously at
Wayne's face, which did not move.
"In forcing you ... it would," he repeated.
"It shall," said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. "We
have done our best to be decent."
Wayne lifted his large eyes slowly.
"Was it my Lord Buck," he inquired, "who said that the King of England
'shall' do something?"
Buck flushed and said testily--
"I mean it must--it ought to. As I say, we've done our best to be
generous; I defy any one to deny it. As it is, Mr. Wayne, I don't want
to say a word that's uncivil. I hope it's not uncivil to say that you
can be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public works
for a whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his front
garden or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do what
you say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sell
before now. The King could compel you, and I hope he will."
"Until he does," said Wayne, calmly, "the power and government of
this great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defy
it."
"In what sense," cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, "is
the Government on your side?"
With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on the
table. It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketches
of vestrymen in crowns and wreaths.
"The Charter of the Cities," he began.
Buck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed.
"That tomfool's joke. Haven't we had enough--"
"And there you sit," cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice
like a trumpet, "with no argument but to insult the King before his
face."
Buck rose also with blazing eyes.
"I am hard to bully," he began--and the slow tones of the King struck
in with incomparable gravity--
"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present.
It is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects."
Barker turned to him with frantic gestures.
"For God's sake don't back up the madman now," he implored. "Have
your joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--"
"My Lord Provost of South Kensington," said King Auberon, steadily, "I
do not follow your remarks, which are uttered with a rapidity unusual
at Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your
fingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North
Kensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his
Sovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Do
you disagree?"
Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without
speaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice--
"My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed."
Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's surprise
there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish
distress.
"I am sorry, your Majesty," he said; "I fear I was more than equally
to blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating
somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am
ashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore,
comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke
chiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no
doubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest
of the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good
temper."
Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded,
and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King,
for some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed.
"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill," began Buck,
pleasantly, "seems to me to show that we have at least got on to a
friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been
offered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred.
Well, I am a rich man and I won't be outdone in generosity. Let us say
fifteen hundred pounds, and have done with it. And let us shake
hands;" and he rose, glowing and laughing.
"Fifteen hundred pounds," whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; "can we
do fifteen hundred pounds?"
"I'll stand the racket," said Buck, heartily. "Mr. Wayne is a
gentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations are
at an end."
Wayne bowed.
"They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the
property."
"What?" cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet.
"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly," said the King.
"I have, I have," cried Buck, springing up also; "I said--"
"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly," said the King; "the negotiations are
at an end."
All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose without
excitement.
"Have I, then," he said, "your Majesty's permission to depart? I have
given my last answer."
"You have it," said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes from
the table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passed
out of the room.
"Well?" said Wilson, turning round to Barker--"well?"
Barker shook his head desperately.
"The man ought to be in an asylum," he said. "But one thing is
clear--we need not bother further about him. The man can be treated as
mad."
"Of course," said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness.
"You're perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but he
can be treated as mad. Let's put it in simple form. Go and tell any
twelve men in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that there
is a man offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell
commonly for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not
accepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill and
calls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? What more can we have
on our side than the common sense of everybody? On what else do all
laws rest? I'll tell you, Barker, what's better than any further
discussion. Let's send in workmen on the spot to pull down Pump
Street. And if old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That's
all."
Barker's eyes kindled.
"I always regarded you, Buck, if you don't mind my saying so, as a
very strong man. I'll follow you."
"So, of course, will I," said Wilson.
Buck rose again impulsively.
"Your Majesty," he said, glowing with popularity, "I beseech your
Majesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committed
ourselves. Your Majesty's leniency, our own offers, have fallen in
vain on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. He
may be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more
probable that he is off his head. Unless that assumption were acted
on, all human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we propose
to start operations in Notting Hill at once."
The King leaned back in his chair.
"The Charter of the Cities ...," he said with a rich intonation.
But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not again
make the mistake of disrespect.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, "I am not here to say a word against
anything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educated
man than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectual
grounds, for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to your
common good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter
of the Cities, did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne?
Did you expect that the Charter--whether it was an experiment, or a
scheme of decoration, or a joke--could ever really come to this--to
stopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road,
to spoiling the chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, to
disorganising half a city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever
were your objects, were they that?"
Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringly
still.
"Provost Buck," said Auberon, "you speak in public uncommonly well. I
give you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme did
not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic
power had been great enough."
"I thank your Majesty," said Buck, courteously, but quickly. "Your
Majesty's statements are always clear and studied; therefore I may
draw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you set
your heart did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will
survive his removal. Why not let us clear away this particular Pump
Street, which does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by
your Majesty's own statement, interfere with yours."
"Caught out!" said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally,
as if he were watching a cricket match.
"This man Wayne," continued Buck, "would be shut up by any doctors in
England. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile no
one's interests, not even in all probability his own, can be really
damaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our
interests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten
years. Not the interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated
inhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for
you say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the
rise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the
man has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors
would probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred
mountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so bold a
word, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle to our proceeding
with the improvements."
And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among the
allies.
"Mr. Buck," said the King, "I beg your pardon, for a number of
beautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified
as a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you
send in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed,
but of which, I am sorry to say, I think him quite capable--knocks
their teeth out?"
"I have thought of that, your Majesty," said Mr. Buck, easily, "and I
think it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guard
of, say, a hundred men--a hundred of the North Kensington Halberdiers"
(he smiled grimly), "of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say a hundred
and fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about
a hundred."
"Still they might stand together and lick you," said the King,
dubiously.
"Then say two hundred," said Buck, gaily.
"It might happen," said the King, restlessly, "that one Notting Hiller
fought better than two North Kensingtons."
"It might," said Buck, coolly; "then say two hundred and fifty."
The King bit his lip.
"And if they are beaten too?" he said viciously.
"Your Majesty," said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair,
"suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fighting
matters are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred and
fifty, say, of Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of
them can fight two of us--we can send in, not four hundred, but six
hundred, and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediate
probability that one of them could fight four of us. So what I say is
this. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in eight hundred men and
smash him--smash him almost without seeing him. And go on with the
improvements."
And Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose.
"Do you know, Mr. Buck," said the King, staring gloomily at the table,
"the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind a