cuttings from Istanbul, and for the rest of the week supervised the staff catering, found himself at length back beside his busts in charge of the men of letters. Thirty or forty officials retired thankfully into competitive commercial life, and forty or fifty new men and women appeared to take their places; among them, he never quite knew how, Ambrose. The Press, though sceptical of good results, congratulated the public upon maintaining a system of government in which the will of the people was given such speedy effect. The lesson of the muddle at the Ministry of Information ? for muddle there undoubtedly was ? is not that such things occur under a democracy, but that they are susceptible to remedy, they wrote; the wind of democratic criticism has blown, clear and fresh, through the departments of the Ministry; charges have been frankly made and frankly answered. Our enemies may ponder this portent. Ambrose’s post as sole representative of Atheism in the Religious Department was not, at this stage of the war, one of great importance. He was in no position, had he wished it, to introduce statuary into his quarters. He had for his use a single table and a single chair. He shared a room and a secretary with a fanatical young Roman Catholic layman who never tired of exposing discrepancies between Mein Kampf and the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, a bland nonconformist minister, and a Church of England clergyman who had been brought in to succeed the importer of the mahogany prie-dieu. “We must reorientate ourselves to Geneva,” this cleric said; “the first false step was taken when the Lytton report was shelved.” He argued long and gently, the Roman Catholic argued long and fiercely, while the nonconformists sat as a bemused umpire between them. Ambrose’s task consisted in representing to British and colonial atheists that Nazism was at heart agnostic with a strong tinge of religious superstition; he envied the lot of his colleagues who had at their finger-tips long authentic summaries of suppressed Sunday Schools, persecuted monks, and pagan Nordic rites. His was uphill work; he served a small and critical public; but whenever he discovered in the pile of foreign newspapers which passed from desk to desk any reference to German church-going, he circulated it to the two or three magazines devoted to his cause. He counted up the number of times the word “God” appeared in Hitler’s speeches and found the sum impressive; he wrote a pointed little article to show that Jew-baiting was religious in origin. He did his best, but time lay heavy on his hands and, more and more, as the winter wore on, he found himself slipping away from his rancorous colleagues, to the more human companionship of Mr. Bentley.
The great press of talent in search of occupation which had thronged the Ministry during its first weeks had now dropped to a mere handful; the doorkeeper was schooled to detect and deter the job seekers. No one wanted another reorganization for some time to come. Mr. Bentley’s office became an enclave of culture in a barbaric world. It was here that the Ivory Tower was first discussed.
“Art for Art’s sake, Geoffrey. Back to the lily and the lotus, away from these dusty young immortelles, these dandelions sprouting on the vacant lot.”
“A kind of new Yellow Book,” suggested Mr. Bentley sympathetically.
Ambrose turned sharply from his contemplation of Mrs. Siddons. “Geoffrey. How can you be so unkind?”
“My dear Ambrose…”
“That’s just what they’ll call it.”
“Who will?”
“Parsnip,” said Ambrose with venom, “Pimpernell, Poppet and Tom. They’ll say we’re deserting the workers’ cause.”
“I’m not aware that I ever joined it,” said Mr. Bentley. “I claim to be one of the very few living Liberals.”
“We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by economists.”
“I haven’t.”
“For years now we’ve allowed ourselves to think of nothing but concrete mixers and tractors.”
“I haven’t,” said Mr. Bentley crossly. “I’ve thought a great deal about Nolleykins.”
“Well,” said Ambrose, “I’ve had enough. Il faut en finir” ? and added: “Nous gagnerons parce que nous sommes les plus forts.”
Later he said, “I was never a Party member.”
“Party?”
“Communist Party. I was what they call, in their horrible jargon, a fellow traveller.”
“Ah.”
“Geoffrey, they do the most brutal things, don’t they, to Communists who try to leave the Party?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Geoffrey, you don’t think they’d do that to fellow travellers, do you?”
“I don’t expect so.”
“But they might?”
“Oh yes, they might.”
“Oh dear.”
Later he said, “You know, Geoffrey, even in fascist countries they have underground organizations. Do you think the underground organizations would get hold of us?”
“Who?”
“The fellow travellers.”
“Really it’s too ridiculous to talk like this of fellow travellers and the underground. It sounds like strap-hangers on the Bakerloo railway.”
“It’s all very well for you to laugh. You were never one of them.”
“But my dear Ambrose, why should these political friends of yours mind so very much, if you produce a purely artistic paper?”
“I heard of a cellist in America. He’d been a member of the Party and he accepted an invitation to play at an
