“That is in accordance with modern thought?”
“Perfectly.”
At noon Basil went to see the Emperor.
The heat, rarely intolerable in the hills, was at this time of day penetrating and devitalising. The palace roofs glared and shimmered. A hot breeze lifted the dust and powdered the bodies of the dan-gling courtiers and carried across the yard a few waste shreds of paper, baked crisp and brittle as dead leaves. Basil sauntered with half-shut eyes to the main entrance.
Soldiers stood up and saluted clumsily; the captain of the guard trotted after him and plucked at his sleeve.
“Good-morning, captain.”
“Good-morning, Excellency. You are on your way to the Emperor?”
“As usual.”
“There is a small matter. If I could interest your Excellency… It is about the two gentlemen who were banged. One was my cousin.”
“Yes?”
“His post has not yet been filled. It has always been held by my family. My uncle has made a petition to His Majesty…”
“Yes, yes. I will speak on his behalf.”
“But that is exactly what you must not do. My uncle is a wicked man, Excellency. It was he who poisoned my father. I am sure of it. He wanted my mother. It would be most unjust for him to have the post. There is my little brother—a man of supreme ability and devotion…”
“Very well, captain, I’ll do what I can.”
“The angels preserve your Excellency.’
The Emperor’s study was strewn with European papers and catalogues; his immediate concern was a large plan of Debra-Dowa on which he was working with ruler and pencil.
“Come in, Seal, I’m just rebuilding the city. The Anglican Cathedral will have to go, I think, and all the South quarter. Look, here is Seth Square with the avenues radiating from it. I’m calling this Boulevard Basil Seal.”
“Good of you, Seth.”
“And this Avenue Connolly.”
“Ah, I wanted to talk about him.” Basil sat down and approached his subject discreetly. “I wouldn’t say anything against him. I know you like him and in his rough and tumble way he’s a decent soldier.
But d’you ever feel that he’s not quite modern?”
“He never made full use of our tank.”
“Exactly. He’s opposed to progress throughout.
He wants to keep the army under his control. Now there’s the question of boots. I don’t think we told you, but the matter came before the Ministry and we sent in a recommendation that the guards should be issued with boots. It would increase their efficiency a hundred per cent. Half the sick list is due to hookworm, which as you know comes from going about barefooted. Besides, you know, there’s the question of prestige. There’s not a single guards’ regiment in Europe without boots. You’ve seen them for yourself at Buckingham Palace. You’ll never get the full respect of the powers until you give your troops boots.”
“Yes, yes, by all means. They shall have boots at once.”
“I was sure you’d see it that way. But the trouble is that Connolly’s standing out against it. Now we’ve no power at present to issue an army ordnance. That has to come through him—or through you as commander-in-chief of the army.”
“I’ll make out an order to-day. Of course they must have boots. I’ll hang any man I see barefooted.”
“Fine. I thought you’d stand by us, Seth. You know,” he added reflectively, “we’ve got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we’d had to modernise a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bi-cameral legislature, proportional representation, women’s suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the press, referendums…”
“What is all that?” asked the Emperor.
“Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern.”
Then they settled down to the business of the day.
“The British Legation are complaining again about their road.”
“That is an old question. I am tired of it. Besides you will see from the plan I have orientated all the roads leading out of the capital; they go by the points of the compass. I cannot upset my arrangements.”
“The Minister feels very strongly about it.”
“Well, another time… no, I tell you what I will do. Look, we will name this street after him. Then he will be satisfied.”
The Emperor took up his indiarubber and erased Connolly’s name from the new metropolis. Avenue Sir Samson Courteney he wrote in its place.
“I wish we had a tube railway,” he said. “Do you think it would pay?”
“No.”
