“I daresay you’re right. All that What-d’you-call-it of Life she keeps working away at… Only you must write to Harriet. I’m far too busy at the moment. Got to think of something to say to the Bishop.”
But next day Prudence and William went out with the ponies. She had an assignation with Basil.
“Listen, William, you’re to go out of the city by the lane behind the Baptist school and the Jewish abattoirs, then past the Parsee death house and the fever hospital.”
“Not exactly the prettiest ride.”
“Darling. Don’t be troublesome. You might get seen the other way. Once you’re clear of the Arab cemetery you can go where you like. And you’re to fetch me at Youkoumian’s at five.”
“Jolly afternoon for me, leading Mischief all the time.”
“Now, William, you know you manage him perfectly. You’re the only person I’d trust to take him. I can’t leave him outside Youkoumian’s, can I, because of discretion.’
“What you don’t seem to see is that it’s pretty dim for me, floundering about half the day, I mean, in a dust heap with two ponies while you neck with the chap who’s cut me out.”
“William, don’t be coarse. And anyway ‘cut you out’ nothing. You had me all to yourself for six months and weren’t you just bored blue with it?”
“Well, I daresay he’ll be bored soon.”
“Cad.”
Basil still lived in the large room over Mr. Youkoumian’s Store. There was a verandah, facing onto a yard littered with scrap iron and general junk, accessible by an outside staircase. Prudence passed through the shop, out and up. The atmosphere of the room was rank with tobacco smoke. Basil, in shirt sleeves, rose from the deck chair to greet her. He threw the butt of his Burma cheroot into the tin hip bath which stood unemptied at the side of the bed; it sizzled and went out and floated throughout the afternoon, slowly unfurling in the soapy water. He bolted the door. It was half dark in the room. Dusty parallels of light struck through the shutters onto the floor boards and the few, shabby mats. Prudence stood isolated, waiting for him, her hat in her hand. At first neither spoke. Presently she said, “You might have shaved,” and then, “Please help with my boots.”
Below, in the yard, Madame Youkoumian up-braided a goat. Strips of sunlight traversed the floor I85 as an hour passed. In the bath water, the soggy stub of tobacco emanated a brown blot of juice.
Banging on the door.
“Heavens,” said Prudence, “that can’t be William already.”
“Mr. Seal, Mr. Seal.’
“Well, what is it? I’m resting.’
“Well you got to stop,” said Mr. Youkoumian. “They’re looking for you all over the town. Damn fine rest I’ve had this afternoon, like ell I aven’t.”
“What is it?”
“Emperor must see you at once. E’s got a new idea. Very modern and important. Some damn fool nonsense about Swedish drill.”
Basil hurried to the Palace to find his master in a state of high excitement.
“I have been reading a German book. We must draft a decree at once… communal physical exercises. The whole population, every morning, you understand. And we must get instructors from Europe. Cable for them. Quarter of an hour’s exercise a morning. And community singing. That is very important. The health of the nation depends on it. I have been thinking it over. Why is there no cholera in Europe? Because of community singing and physical jerks… and bubonic plague… and leprosy.’
Back in her room Prudence reopened the Pano-186 rama of Life and began writing: a woman in love.., “A woman,” said Mr. Youkoumian. “That’s what Seth needs to keep im quiet. Always sticking is nose in too much everywhere. You listen to me, Mr. Seal—if we can fix Seth with a woman our modernisation will get along damn fine.”
“There’s always Fifi.”
“Oh, Mr. Seal, e ad er when e was a little boy. Don’t you worry. I’ll fix it O.K.”
Royal interruptions of the routine of the Ministry were becoming distressingly frequent in the last few days as the Emperor assimilated the various books that had arrived for him by the last mail. Worst of all the Pageant of Birth Control was proving alto-gether more trouble than it was worth; in spite of repeated remonstrances, however, it continued to occupy the mind of the Emperor in precedence of all other interests. He had already renamed the site of the Angelican Cathedral, Place Marie Stopes.
“Heaven knows what will happen if he ever discovers psycho-analysis,” remarked Basil, gloomily foreseeing a Boulevard Kraft-Ebbing, an Avenue CEdipus and a pageant of coprophagists.
“Hell discover every damn modern thing,” said Mr. Youkoumian, “if we don’t find him a woman damn quick… ere’s another letter from the Vicar Apostolic. If I adn’t ordered all that stuff from Cairo I’d drop the whole pageant. But you can’t use it for nothing else but what it’s for—so far as I can see, not like boots what they can eat.”
The opposition to the pageant was firm and wide-spread. The conservative party rallied under the leadership of the Earl of Ngumo. This nobleman, himself one of a family of forty-eight (most of whom he had been obliged to assassinate on his succession to the title) was the father of over sixty sons and uncounted daughters. This progeny was a favourite boast of his; in fact he maintained a concert party of seven minstrels for no other purpose than to sing at table about this topic when he entertained friends. Now in ripe age, with his triumphs behind him, he found himself like some scarred war veteran surrounded by pacifists, his prestige assailed and his proudest achievements held up to vile detraction. The new proposals struck at the very roots of sport and decency and he expressed the general feeling of the landed gentry when he threatened amid loud grunts of approval to dismember any man on his estates whom he found using the new-fangled and impious appliances.
The smart set, composed (under the leadership of Lord Boaz) of cosmopolitan blacks, courtiers, younger sons and a few of the decayed Arab intelli-gentsia, though not actively antagonistic, were tepid in their support they discussed the question languidly in Fifi’s salon and, for the most part, adopted a sophisticated attitude maintaining
