“In a city that stands in the very centre of Africa, and is rarely visited by the casual tourist, the people had always bought eggs—a daily necessary in a climate where egg-flip was the usual diet—from a Merchant who came to their gates once a week. And the people always bid wildly against each other: so there was quite a lively auction every time the Merchant came, and the last egg in his basket used to fetch the value of two or three camels, or thereabouts. And eggs got dearer every week. And still they drank their egg-flip, and wondered where all their money went to.
“And there came a day when they put their heads together. And they understood what donkeys they had been.
“And next day, when the Merchant came, only one Man went forth. And he said ‘Oh, thou of the hooknose and the goggle-eyes, thou of the measureless beard, how much for that lot of eggs?’
“And the Merchant answered him ‘I could let thee have that lot at ten thousand piastres the dozen.’
“And the Man chuckled inwardly, and said ‘Ten piastres the dozen I offer thee, and no more, oh descendant of a distinguished grandfather!’
“And the Merchant stroked his beard, and said ‘Hum! I will await the coming of thy friends,’ So he waited. And the Man waited with him. And they waited both together.”
“The manuscript breaks off here,” said Mein Herr, as he rolled it up again; “but it was enough to open our eyes. We saw what simpletons we had been—buying our Scholars much as those ignorant savages bought their eggs—and the ruinous system was abandoned. If only we could have abandoned, along with it, all the other fashions we had borrowed from you, instead of carrying them to their logical results! But it was not to be. What ruined my country, and drove me from my home, was the introduction—into the Army, of all places—of your theory of Political Dichotomy!”
“Shall I trouble you too much,” I said, “if I ask you to explain what you mean by ‘the Theory of Political Dichotomy’?”
“No trouble at all!” was Mein Herr’s most courteous reply. “I quite enjoy talking, when I get so good a listener. What started the thing, with us, was the report brought to us, by one of our most eminent statesmen, who had stayed some time in England, of the way affairs were managed there. It was a political necessity (so he assured us, and we believed him, though we had never discovered it till that moment) that there should be two Parties, in every affair and on every subject. In Politics, the two Parties, which you had found it necessary to institute, were called, he told us, ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories.’ ”
“That must have been some time ago?” I remarked.
“It was some time ago,” he admitted. “And this was the way the affairs of the British Nation were managed. (You will correct me if I misrepresent it. I do but repeat what our traveler told us.) These two Parties—which were in chronic hostility to each other—took turns in conducting the Government; and the Party, that happened not to be in power, was called the ‘Opposition,’ I believe?”
“That is the right name,” I said. “There have always been, so long as we have had a Parliament at all, two Parties, one ‘in,’ and one ‘out.’ ”
“Well, the function of the ‘Ins’ (if I may so call them) was to do the best they could for the national welfare—in such things as making war or peace, commercial treaties, and so forth?”
“Undoubtedly,” I said.
“And the function of the ‘Outs’ was (so our traveller assured us, though we were very incredulous at first) to prevent the ‘Ins’ from succeeding in any of these things?”
“To criticize and to amend their proceedings,” I corrected him. “It would be unpatriotic to hinder the Government in doing what was for the good of the Nation! We have always held a Patriot to be the greatest of heroes, and an unpatriotic spirit to be one of the worst of human ills!”
“Excuse me for a moment,” the old gentleman courteously replied, taking out his pocketbook. “I have a few memoranda here, of a correspondence I had with our tourist, and, if you will allow me, I’ll just refresh my memory—although I quite agree with you—it is, as you say, one of the worst of human ills—” And, here Mein Herr began singing again:—
But oh, the worst of human ills
(Poor Tottles found) are ‘little bills!’
And, with no balance in the Bank,
What wonder that his spirits sank?
Still, as the money flowed away,
He wondered how on earth she spent it.
“You cost me twenty pounds a day,
At least!” cried Tottles (and he meant it).She sighed. “Those Drawing Rooms, you know!
I really never thought about it:
Mamma declared we ought to go—
We should be Nobodies without it.
That diamond-circlet for my brow—
I quite believed that she had sent it,
Until the Bill came in just now—”
“Viper!” cried Tottles (and he meant it).Poor Mrs. T. could bear no more,
But fainted flat upon the floor.
Mamma-in-law, with anguish wild,
Seeks, all in vain, to rouse her child.
“Quick! Take this box of smelling-salts!
Don’t scold her, James, or you’ll repent it,
She’s a dear girl, with all her faults—”
“She is!” groaned Tottles (and he meant it).“I was a donkey,” Tottles cried,
“To choose your daughter for my bride!
’Twas you that bid us cut a dash!
’Tis you have brought us to this smash!
You don’t suggest one single thing
That can in any way prevent it—
Then what’s the use of arguing?
Shut up!” cried Tottles (and he meant it).
Once more I started into wakefulness, and realised that Mein Herr was not the singer. He was still consulting his memoranda.
“It is exactly what my friend told me,” he resumed, after conning over various papers. “ ‘Unpatriotic’ is the very word I had used, in writing to him, and ‘hinder’
