Suddenly they came upon the godlike apparition of Eugenia Malmains on her wash-tub. They gasped.
‘That’s the girl we want,’ said Jasper suddenly, ‘that’s Eugenia. I didn’t recognize her at first. I’m bound to say she’s become exceedingly beautiful since I was here, but she’s evidently quite batty just like I told you. Still you can’t have everything in this life. D’you mind if I make a pass at her too, old boy?’
‘Yes I do, you’re not to,’ said Noel peevishly, ‘and anyway shut up. I want to hear what she’s saying.’
‘The Union Jack Movement is a youth movement,’ Eugenia cried passionately, ‘we are tired of the old. We see things through their eyes no longer. We see nothing admirable in that debating society of aged and corrupt men called Parliament which muddles our great Empire into wars or treaties, dropping one by one the jewels from its crown, casting away its glorious colonies, its hitherto undenied supremacy at sea, its prestige abroad, its prosperity at home, and all according to each vacillating whim of some octogenarian statesman’s mistress –’
At this point a very old lady came up to the crowd, pushed her way through it and began twitching at Eugenia’s skirt. ‘Eugenia, my child,’ she said brokenly, ‘do get off that tub, pray, please get down at once. Oh! when her ladyship hears of this I don’t know what will happen.’
‘Go away Nanny,’ said Eugenia, who in the rising tide of oratory seemed scarcely aware that she had been interrupted. ‘How could anyone,’ she continued, ‘feel loyalty for these ignoble dotards, how can the sacred fire of patriotism glow in any breast for a State which is guided by such apathetic nonentities? Britons, I beseech you to take action. Oh! British lion, shake off the nets that bind you.’ Here the old lady again plucked Eugenia’s skirt. This time however, Eugenia turned round and roared at her, ‘Get out you filthy Pacifist, get out I say, and take your yellow razor gang with you. I will have free speech at my meetings. Now will you go of your own accord or must I tell the Comrades to fling you out? Where are my Union Jackshirts?’ Two hobbledehoys also dressed in red, white and blue shirts here came forward, saluted Eugenia and each taking one of the nanny’s hands they led her to a neighbouring bench where she sat rather sadly but unresistingly during the rest of the speech.
‘We Union Jackshirts,’ remarked Eugenia to the company at large, ‘insist upon the right to be heard without interruption at our own meetings. Let the Pacifists’ – here she gave her nanny a very nasty look – ‘hold their own meetings, we shall not interfere with them at all, but if they try to break up our meetings they do so at their own risk. Let me see, where had I got to – oh! yes. Patriotism is one of the primitive virtues of mankind. Allow it to atrophy and much that is valuable in human nature must perish. This is being proved today, alas, in our unhappy island as well as in those other countries, which, like ourselves, still languish ’neath the deadening sway of a putrescent democracy. Respect for parents, love of the home, veneration of the marriage tie, are all at a discount in England today, society is rotten with vice, selfishness, and indolence. The rich have betrayed their trust, preferring the fetid atmosphere of cocktail bars and night clubs to the sanity of a useful country life. The great houses of England, one of her most envied attributes, stand empty – why? Because the great families of England herd together in luxury flats and spend their patrimony in the divorce courts. The poor are no better than the rich, they also have learnt to put self before State, and satisfied with the bread and circuses which are flung to them by their politicians, they also take no steps to achieve a better spirit in this unhappy land.’
‘The girl’s a lunatic but she’s not stupid,’ said Jasper.
‘My friends, how can we be saved? Who can lift this country from the Slough of Despond in which she has for too long wallowed, to a Utopia such as our corrupt rulers have never pictured, even in their wildest dreams? He who aims highest will reach the highest goal, but how can those ancient dipsomaniacs reach any goal at all? Their fingers are paralysed with gout – they cannot aim; their eyesight is impeded with the film of age – they see no goal. The best that they can hope is that from day to day they may continue to creep about the halls of Westminster like withered tortoises seeking to warm themselves in the synthetic sunlight of each other’s approbation.’
‘I’m liking this,’ said Jasper, ‘my father’s brother is an M.P.’
‘How then, if a real sun shall arise, arise with a heat which will shrivel to cinders all who are not true at heart? How if a real Captain, a man, and not a tortoise, shall appear suddenly at their adulterous bedsides, a cup of castor oil in the one hand, a goblet of hemlock in the other, and offer them the choice between ignominy and a Roman death?
‘Britons! That day is indeed at hand. There is a new spirit abroad, a new wine that shall not be poured into those ancient bottles. Britons are at last coming to their senses, the British lion is opening his mouth to roar, the attitude of mind which we call Social Unionism is going to save this country from her shameful apathy. Soon your streets will
