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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England
+by P. G. Wodehouse
+#22 in our series by P. G. Wodehouse
+
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+Title: The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England
+       A Tale of the Great Invasion
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7050]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWOOP ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SWOOP!
+
+or
+
+How Clarence Saved England
+
+_A Tale of the Great Invasion_
+
+
+
+
+
+by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+It may be thought by some that in the pages which follow I have painted
+in too lurid colours the horrors of a foreign invasion of England.
+Realism in art, it may be argued, can be carried too far. I prefer to
+think that the majority of my readers will acquit me of a desire to be
+unduly sensational. It is necessary that England should be roused to a
+sense of her peril, and only by setting down without flinching the
+probable results of an invasion can this be done. This story, I may
+mention, has been written and published purely from a feeling of
+patriotism and duty. Mr. Alston Rivers' sensitive soul will be jarred
+to its foundations if it is a financial success. So will mine. But in a
+time of national danger we feel that the risk must be taken. After all,
+at the worst, it is a small sacrifice to make for our country.
+
+P. G. WODEHOUSE.
+
+_The Bomb-Proof Shelter,_ _London, W._
+
+
+
+
+
+Part One
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+AN ENGLISH BOY'S HOME
+
+
+_August the First, 19--_
+
+Clarence Chugwater looked around him with a frown, and gritted his
+teeth.
+
+"England--my England!" he moaned.
+
+Clarence was a sturdy lad of some fourteen summers. He was neatly, but
+not gaudily, dressed in a flat-brimmed hat, a coloured handkerchief, a
+flannel shirt, a bunch of ribbons, a haversack, football shorts, brown
+boots, a whistle, and a hockey-stick. He was, in fact, one of General
+Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts.
+
+Scan him closely. Do not dismiss him with a passing glance; for you are
+looking at the Boy of Destiny, at Clarence MacAndrew Chugwater, who
+saved England.
+
+To-day those features are familiar to all. Everyone has seen the
+Chugwater Column in Aldwych, the equestrian statue in Chugwater Road
+(formerly Piccadilly), and the picture-postcards in the stationers'
+windows. That bulging forehead, distended with useful information; that
+massive chin; those eyes, gleaming behind their spectacles; that
+_tout ensemble_; that _je ne sais quoi_.
+
+In a word, Clarence!
+
+He could do everything that the Boy Scout must learn to do. He could
+low like a bull. He could gurgle like a wood-pigeon. He could imitate
+the cry of the turnip in order to deceive rabbits. He could smile and
+whistle simultaneously in accordance with Rule 8 (and only those who
+have tried this know how difficult it is). He could spoor, fell trees,
+tell the character from the boot-sole, and fling the squaler. He did
+all these things well, but what he was really best at was flinging the
+squaler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Clarence, on this sultry August afternoon, was tensely occupied
+tracking the family cat across the dining-room carpet by its
+foot-prints. Glancing up for a moment, he caught sight of the other
+members of the family.
+
+"England, my England!" he moaned.
+
+It was indeed a sight to extract tears of blood from any Boy Scout. The
+table had been moved back against the wall, and in the cleared space
+Mr. Chugwater, whose duty it was to have set an example to his
+children, was playing diabolo. Beside him, engrossed in cup-and-ball,
+was his wife. Reggie Chugwater, the eldest son, the heir, the hope of
+the house, was reading the cricket news in an early edition of the
+evening paper. Horace, his brother, was playing pop-in-taw with his
+sister Grace and Grace's _fiance_, Ralph Peabody. Alice, the other
+Miss Chugwater, was mending a Badminton racquet.
+
+Not a single member of that family was practising with the rifle, or
+drilling, or learning to make bandages.
+
+Clarence groaned.
+
+"If you can't play without snorting like that, my boy," said Mr.
+Chugwater, a little irritably, "you must find some other game. You made
+me jump just as I was going to beat my record."
+
+"Talking of records," said Reggie, "Fry's on his way to his eighth
+successive century. If he goes on like this, Lancashire will win the
+championship."
+
+"I thought he was playing for Somerset," said Horace.
+
+"That was a fortnight ago. You ought to keep up to date in an important
+subject like cricket."
+
+Once more Clarence snorted bitterly.
+
+"I'm sure you ought not to be down on the floor, Clarence," said Mr.
+Chugwater anxiously. "It is so draughty, and you have evidently got a
+nasty cold. _Must_ you lie on the floor?"
+
+"I am spooring," said Clarence with simple dignity.
+
+"But I'm sure you can spoor better sitting on a chair with a nice
+book."
+
+"_I_ think the kid's sickening for something," put in Horace
+critically. "He's deuced roopy. What's up, Clarry?"
+
+"I was thinking," said Clarence, "of my country--of England."
+
+"What's the matter with England?"
+
+"_She's_ all right," murmured Ralph Peabody.
+
+"My fallen country!" sighed Clarence, a not unmanly tear bedewing the
+glasses of his spectacles. "My fallen, stricken country!"
+
+"That kid," said Reggie, laying down his paper, "is talking right
+through his hat. My dear old son, are you aware that England has never
+been so strong all round as she is now? Do you _ever_ read the
+papers? Don't you know that we've got the Ashes and the Golf
+Championship, and the Wibbley-wob Championship, and the Spiropole,
+Spillikins, Puff-Feather, and Animal Grab Championships? Has it come to
+your notice that our croquet pair beat America last Thursday by eight
+hoops? Did you happen to hear that we won the Hop-skip-and-jump at the
+last Olympic Games? You've been out in the woods, old sport."
+
+Clarence's heart was too full for words. He rose in silence, and
+quitted the room.
+
+"Got the pip or something!" said Reggie. "Rum kid! I say, Hirst's
+bowling well! Five for twenty-three so far!"
+
+Clarence wandered moodily out of the house. The Chugwaters lived in a
+desirable villa residence, which Mr. Chugwater had built in Essex. It
+was a typical Englishman's Home. Its name was Nasturtium Villa.
+
+As Clarence walked down the road, the excited voice of a newspaper-boy
+came to him. Presently the boy turned the corner, shouting, "Ker-lapse
+of Surrey! Sensational bowling at the Oval!"
+
+He stopped on seeing Clarence.
+
+"Paper, General?"
+
+Clarence shook his head. Then he uttered a startled exclamation, for
+his eye had fallen on the poster.
+
+It ran as follows:--
+
+    SURREY
+    DOING
+    BADLY
+    GERMAN ARMY LANDS IN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+THE INVADERS
+
+
+Clarence flung the boy a halfpenny, tore a paper from his grasp, and
+scanned it eagerly. There was nothing to interest him in the body of
+the journal, but he found what he was looking for in the stop-press
+space. "Stop press news," said the paper. "Fry not out, 104. Surrey 147
+for 8. A German army landed in Essex this afternoon. Loamshire
+Handicap: Spring Chicken, 1; Salome, 2; Yip-i-addy, 3. Seven ran."
+
+Essex! Then at any moment the foe might be at their doors; more, inside
+their doors. With a passionate cry, Clarence tore back to the house.
+
+He entered the dining-room with the speed of a highly-trained Marathon
+winner, just in time once more to prevent Mr. Chugwater lowering his
+record.
+
+"The Germans!" shouted Clarence. "We are invaded!"
+
+This time Mr. Chugwater was really annoyed.
+
+"If I have told you once about your detestable habit of shouting in the
+house, Clarence, I have told you a hundred times. If you cannot be a
+Boy Scout quietly, you must stop being one altogether. I had got up to
+six that time."
+
+"But, father----"
+
+"Silence! You will go to bed this minute; and I shall consider the
+question whether you are to have any supper. It will depend largely on
+your behaviour between now and then. Go!"
+
+"But, father----"
+
+Clarence dropped the paper, shaken with emotion. Mr. Chugwater's
+sternness deepened visibly.
+
+"Clarence! Must I speak again?"
+
+He stooped and removed his right slipper.
+
+Clarence withdrew.
+
+Reggie picked up the paper.
+
+"That kid," he announced judicially, "is off his nut! Hullo! I told you
+so! Fry not out, 104. Good old Charles!"
+
+"I say," exclaimed Horace, who sat nearest the window, "there are two
+rummy-looking chaps coming to the front door, wearing a sort of fancy
+dress!"
+
+"It must be the Germans," said Reggie. "The paper says they landed here
+this afternoon. I expect----"
+
+A thunderous knock rang through the house. The family looked at one
+another. Voices were heard in the hall, and next moment the door opened
+and the servant announced "Mr. Prinsotto and Mr. Aydycong."
+
+"Or, rather," said the first of the two newcomers, a tall, bearded,
+soldierly man, in perfect English, "Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig and
+Captain the Graf von Poppenheim, his aide-de-camp."
+
+"Just so--just so!" said Mr. Chugwater, affably. "Sit down, won't you?"
+
+The visitors seated themselves. There was an awkward silence.
+
+"Warm day!" said Mr. Chugwater.
+
+"Very!" said the Prince, a little constrainedly.
+
+"Perhaps a cup of tea? Have you come far?"
+
+"Well--er--pretty far. That is to say, a certain distance. In fact,
+from Germany."
+
+"I spent my summer holiday last year at Dresden. Capital place!"
+
+"Just so. The fact is, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Chugwater. By the way--my wife, Mrs. Chugwater."
+
+The prince bowed. So did his aide-de-camp.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Jugwater," resumed the prince, "we are not here on a
+holiday."
+
+"Quite so, quite so. Business before pleasure."
+
+The prince pulled at his moustache. So did his aide-de-camp, who seemed
+to be a man of but little initiative and conversational resource.
+
+"We are invaders."
+
+"Not at all, not at all," protested Mr. Chugwater.
+
+"I must warn you that you will resist at your peril. You wear no
+uniform--"
+
+"Wouldn't dream of such a thing. Except at the lodge, of course."
+
+"You will be sorely tempted, no doubt. Do not think that I do not
+appreciate your feelings. This is an Englishman's Home."
+
+Mr. Chugwater tapped him confidentially on the knee.
+
+"And an uncommonly snug little place, too," he said. "Now, if you will
+forgive me for talking business, you, I gather, propose making some
+stay in this country."
+
+The prince laughed shortly. So did his aide-de-camp. "Exactly,"
+continued Mr. Chugwater, "exactly. Then you will want some
+_pied-a-terre_, if you follow me. I shall be delighted to let you
+this house on remarkably easy terms for as long as you please. Just
+come along into my study for a moment. We can talk it over quietly
+there. You see, dealing direct with me, you would escape the
+middleman's charges, and--"
+
+Gently but firmly he edged the prince out of the room and down the
+passage.
+
+The aide-de-camp continued to sit staring woodenly at the carpet.
+Reggie closed quietly in on him.
+
+"Excuse me," he said; "talking shop and all that. But I'm an agent for
+the Come One Come All Accident and Life Assurance Office. You have
+heard of it probably? We can offer you really exceptional terms. You
+must not miss a chance of this sort. Now here's a prospectus--"
+
+Horace sidled forward.
+
+"I don't know if you happen to be a cyclist, Captain--er--Graf; but if
+you'd like a practically new motorbike, only been used since last
+November, I can let you--"
+
+There was a swish of skirts as Grace and Alice advanced on the visitor.
+
+"I'm sure," said Grace winningly, "that you're fond of the theatre,
+Captain Poppenheim. We are getting up a performance of 'Ici on parle
+Francais,' in aid of the fund for Supplying Square Meals to Old-Age
+Pensioners. Such a deserving object, you know. Now, how many tickets
+will you take?"
+
+"You can sell them to your friends, you know," added Mrs. Chugwater.
+
+The aide-de-camp gulped convulsively.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ten minutes later two penniless men groped their way, dazed, to the
+garden gate.
+
+"At last," said Prince Otto brokenly, for it was he, "at last I begin
+to realise the horrors of an invasion--for the invaders."
+
+And together the two men staggered on.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+ENGLAND'S PERIL
+
+
+When the papers arrived next morning, it was seen that the situation
+was even worse than had at first been suspected. Not only had the
+Germans effected a landing in Essex, but, in addition, no fewer than
+eight other hostile armies had, by some remarkable coincidence, hit on
+that identical moment for launching their long-prepared blow.
+
+England was not merely beneath the heel of the invader. It was beneath
+the heels of nine invaders.
+
+There was barely standing-room.
+
+Full details were given in the Press. It seemed that while Germany was
+landing in Essex, a strong force of Russians, under the Grand Duke
+Vodkakoff, had occupied Yarmouth. Simultaneously the Mad Mullah had
+captured Portsmouth; while the Swiss navy had bombarded Lyme Regis, and
+landed troops immediately to westward of the bathing-machines. At
+precisely the same moment China, at last awakened, had swooped down
+upon that picturesque little Welsh watering-place, Lllgxtplll, and,
+despite desperate resistance on the part of an excursion of Evanses and
+Joneses from Cardiff, had obtained a secure foothold. While these
+things were happening in Wales, the army of Monaco had descended on
+Auchtermuchty, on the Firth of Clyde. Within two minutes of this
+disaster, by Greenwich time, a boisterous band of Young Turks had
+seized Scarborough. And, at Brighton and Margate respectively, small
+but determined armies, the one of Moroccan brigands, under Raisuli, the
+other of dark-skinned warriors from the distant isle of Bollygolla, had
+made good their footing.
+
+This was a very serious state of things.
+
+Correspondents of the _Daily Mail_ at the various points of attack
+had wired such particulars as they were able. The preliminary parley at
+Lllgxtplll between Prince Ping Pong Pang, the Chinese general, and
+Llewellyn Evans, the leader of the Cardiff excursionists, seems to have
+been impressive to a degree. The former had spoken throughout in pure
+Chinese, the latter replying in rich Welsh, and the general effect,
+wired the correspondent, was almost painfully exhilarating.
+
+So sudden had been the attacks that in very few instances was there any
+real resistance. The nearest approach to it appears to have been seen
+at Margate.
+
+At the time of the arrival of the black warriors which, like the other
+onslaughts, took place between one and two o'clock on the afternoon of
+August Bank Holiday, the sands were covered with happy revellers. When
+the war canoes approached the beach, the excursionists seem to have
+mistaken their occupants at first for a troupe of nigger minstrels on
+an unusually magnificent scale; and it was freely noised abroad in the
+crowd that they were being presented by Charles Frohmann, who was
+endeavouring to revive the ancient glories of the Christy Minstrels.
+Too soon, however, it was perceived that these were no harmless Moore
+and Burgesses. Suspicion was aroused by the absence of banjoes and
+tambourines; and when the foremost of the negroes dexterously scalped a
+small boy, suspicion became certainty.
+
+In this crisis the trippers of Margate behaved well. The Mounted
+Infantry, on donkeys, headed by Uncle Bones, did much execution. The
+Ladies' Tormentor Brigade harassed the enemy's flank, and a
+hastily-formed band of sharp-shooters, armed with three-shies-a-penny
+balls and milky cocos, undoubtedly troubled the advance guard
+considerably. But superior force told. After half an hour's fighting
+the excursionists fled, leaving the beach to the foe.
+
+At Auchtermuchty and Portsmouth no obstacle, apparently, was offered to
+the invaders. At Brighton the enemy were permitted to land unharmed.
+Scarborough, taken utterly aback by the boyish vigour of the Young
+Turks, was an easy prey; and at Yarmouth, though the Grand Duke
+received a nasty slap in the face from a dexterously-thrown bloater,
+the resistance appears to have been equally futile.
+
+By tea-time on August the First, nine strongly-equipped forces were
+firmly established on British soil.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+WHAT ENGLAND THOUGHT OF IT
+
+
+Such a state of affairs, disturbing enough in itself, was rendered
+still more disquieting by the fact that, except for the Boy Scouts,
+England's military strength at this time was practically nil.
+
+The abolition of the regular army had been the first step. Several
+causes had contributed to this. In the first place, the Socialists had
+condemned the army system as unsocial. Privates, they pointed out, were
+forbidden to hob-nob with colonels, though the difference in their
+positions was due to a mere accident of birth. They demanded that every
+man in the army should be a general. Comrade Quelch, in an eloquent
+speech at Newington Butts, had pointed, amidst enthusiasm, to the
+republics of South America, where the system worked admirably.
+
+Scotland, too, disapproved of the army, because it was professional.
+Mr. Smith wrote several trenchant letters to Mr. C. J. B. Marriott on
+the subject.
+
+So the army was abolished, and the land defence of the country
+entrusted entirely to the Territorials, the Legion of Frontiersmen, and
+the Boy Scouts.
+
+But first the Territorials dropped out. The strain of being referred to
+on the music-hall stage as Teddy-boys was too much for them.
+
+Then the Frontiersmen were disbanded. They had promised well at the
+start, but they had never been themselves since La Milo had been
+attacked by the Manchester Watch Committee. It had taken all the heart
+out of them.
+
+So that in the end England's defenders were narrowed down to the
+Boy Scouts, of whom Clarence Chugwater was the pride, and a large
+civilian population, prepared, at any moment, to turn out for their
+country's sake and wave flags. A certain section of these, too, could
+sing patriotic songs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was inevitable, in the height of the Silly Season, that such a topic
+as the simultaneous invasion of Great Britain by nine foreign powers
+should be seized upon by the press. Countless letters poured into the
+offices of the London daily papers every morning. Space forbids more
+than the gist of a few of these.
+
+Miss Charlesworth wrote:--"In this crisis I see no alternative. I shall
+disappear."
+
+Mr. Horatio Bottomley, in _John Bull_, said that there was some
+very dirty and underhand work going on, and that the secret history of
+the invasion would be published shortly. He himself, however, preferred
+any invader, even the King of Bollygolla, to some K.C.'s he could name,
+though he was fond of dear old Muir. He wanted to know why Inspector
+Drew had retired.
+
+The _Daily Express_, in a thoughtful leader, said that Free Trade
+evidently meant invaders for all.
+
+Mr. Herbert Gladstone, writing to the _Times_, pointed out that he
+had let so many undesirable aliens into the country that he did not see
+that a few more made much difference.
+
+Mr. George R. Sims made eighteen puns on the names of the invading
+generals in the course of one number of "Mustard and Cress."
+
+Mr. H. G. Pelissier urged the public to look on the bright side. There
+was a sun still shining in the sky. Besides, who knew that some foreign
+marksman might not pot the censor?
+
+Mr. Robert FitzSimmons offered to take on any of the invading generals,
+or all of them, and if he didn't beat them it would only be because the
+referee had a wife and seven small children and had asked him as a
+personal favour to let himself be knocked out. He had lost several
+fights that way.
+
+The directors of the Crystal Palace wrote a circular letter to the
+shareholders, pointing out that there was a good time coming. With this
+addition to the public, the Palace stood a sporting chance of once more
+finding itself full.
+
+Judge Willis asked: "What is an invasion?"
+
+Signor Scotti cabled anxiously from America (prepaid): "Stands Scotland
+where it did?"
+
+Mr. Lewis Waller wrote heroically: "How many of them are there? I am
+usually good for about half a dozen. Are they assassins? I can tackle
+any number of assassins."
+
+Mr. Seymour Hicks said he hoped they would not hurt George Edwardes.
+
+Mr. George Edwardes said that if they injured Seymour Hicks in any way
+he would never smile again.
+
+A writer in _Answers_ pointed out that, if all the invaders in the
+country were piled in a heap, they would reach some of the way to the
+moon.
+
+Far-seeing men took a gloomy view of the situation. They laid stress on
+the fact that this counter-attraction was bound to hit first-class
+cricket hard. For some years gates had shown a tendency to fall off,
+owing to the growing popularity of golf, tennis, and other games. The
+desire to see the invaders as they marched through the country must
+draw away thousands who otherwise would have paid their sixpences at
+the turnstiles. It was suggested that representations should be made to
+the invading generals with a view to inducing them to make a small
+charge to sightseers.
+
+In sporting circles the chief interest centered on the race to London.
+The papers showed the positions of the various armies each morning in
+their Runners and Betting columns; six to four on the Germans was
+freely offered, but found no takers.
+
+Considerable interest was displayed in the probable behaviour of the
+nine armies when they met. The situation was a curious outcome of the
+modern custom of striking a deadly blow before actually declaring war.
+Until the moment when the enemy were at her doors, England had imagined
+that she was on terms of the most satisfactory friendship with her
+neighbours. The foe had taken full advantage of this, and also of the
+fact that, owing to a fit of absent-mindedness on the part of the
+Government, England had no ships afloat which were not entirely
+obsolete. Interviewed on the subject by representatives of the daily
+papers, the Government handsomely admitted that it was perhaps in
+some ways a silly thing to have done; but, they urged, you could not
+think of everything. Besides, they were on the point of laying down a
+_Dreadnought_, which would be ready in a very few years. Meanwhile,
+the best thing the public could do was to sleep quietly in their beds.
+It was Fisher's tip; and Fisher was a smart man.
+
+And all the while the Invaders' Marathon continued.
+
+Who would be the first to reach London?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+THE GERMANS REACH LONDON
+
+
+The Germans had got off smartly from the mark and were fully justifying
+the long odds laid upon them. That master-strategist, Prince Otto of
+Saxe-Pfennig, realising that if he wished to reach the Metropolis
+quickly he must not go by train, had resolved almost at once to walk.
+Though hampered considerably by crowds of rustics who gathered, gaping,
+at every point in the line of march, he had made good progress. The
+German troops had strict orders to reply to no questions, with the
+result that little time was lost in idle chatter, and in a couple of
+days it was seen that the army of the Fatherland was bound, barring
+accidents, to win comfortably.
+
+The progress of the other forces was slower. The Chinese especially
+had undergone great privations, having lost their way near
+Llanfairpwlgwnngogogoch, and having been unable to understand the
+voluble directions given to them by the various shepherds they
+encountered. It was not for nearly a week that they contrived to reach
+Chester, where, catching a cheap excursion, they arrived in the
+metropolis, hungry and footsore, four days after the last of their
+rivals had taken up their station.
+
+The German advance halted on the wooded heights of Tottenham. Here a
+camp was pitched and trenches dug.
+
+The march had shown how terrible invasion must of necessity be. With no
+wish to be ruthless, the troops of Prince Otto had done grievous
+damage. Cricket-pitches had been trampled down, and in many cases even
+golf-greens dented by the iron heel of the invader, who rarely, if
+ever, replaced the divot. Everywhere they had left ruin and misery in
+their train.
+
+With the other armies it was the same story. Through
+carefully-preserved woods they had marched, frightening the birds and
+driving keepers into fits of nervous prostration. Fishing, owing to
+their tramping carelessly through the streams, was at a standstill.
+Croquet had been given up in despair.
+
+Near Epping the Russians shot a fox....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The situation which faced Prince Otto was a delicate one. All his early
+training and education had implanted in him the fixed idea that, if he
+ever invaded England, he would do it either alone or with the
+sympathetic co-operation of allies. He had never faced the problem of
+what he should do if there were rivals in the field. Competition is
+wholesome, but only within bounds. He could not very well ask the other
+nations to withdraw. Nor did he feel inclined to withdraw himself.
+
+"It all comes of this dashed Swoop of the Vulture business," he
+grumbled, as he paced before his tent, ever and anon pausing to sweep
+the city below him with his glasses. "I should like to find the fellow
+who started the idea! Making me look a fool! Still, it's just as bad
+for the others, thank goodness! Well, Poppenheim?"
+
+Captain von Poppenheim approached and saluted.
+
+"Please, sir, the men say, 'May they bombard London?'"
+
+"Bombard London!"
+
+"Yes, sir; it's always done."
+
+Prince Otto pulled thoughtfully at his moustache.
+
+"Bombard London! It seems--and yet--ah, well, they have few pleasures."
+
+He stood awhile in meditation. So did Captain von Poppenheim. He kicked
+a pebble. So did Captain von Poppenheim--only a smaller pebble.
+Discipline is very strict in the German army.
+
+"Poppenheim."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Any signs of our--er--competitors?"
+
+"Yes, sir; the Russians are coming up on the left flank, sir. They'll
+be here in a few hours. Raisuli has been arrested at Purley for
+stealing chickens. The army of Bollygolla is about ten miles out. No
+news of the field yet, sir."
+
+The Prince brooded. Then he spoke, unbosoming himself more freely than
+was his wont in conversation with his staff.
+
+"Between you and me, Pop," he cried impulsively, "I'm dashed sorry we
+ever started this dashed silly invading business. We thought ourselves
+dashed smart, working in the dark, and giving no sign till the great
+pounce, and all that sort of dashed nonsense. Seems to me we've simply
+dashed well landed ourselves in the dashed soup."
+
+Captain von Poppenheim saluted in sympathetic silence. He and the
+prince had been old chums at college. A life-long friendship existed
+between them. He would have liked to have expressed adhesion verbally
+to his superior officer's remarks. The words "I don't think" trembled
+on his tongue. But the iron discipline of the German Army gagged him.
+He saluted again and clicked his heels.
+
+The Prince recovered himself with a strong effort.
+
+"You say the Russians will be here shortly?" he said.
+
+"In a few hours, sir."
+
+"And the men really wish to bombard London?"
+
+"It would be a treat to them, sir."
+
+"Well, well, I suppose if we don't do it, somebody else will. And we
+got here first."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then--"
+
+An orderly hurried up and saluted.
+
+"Telegram, sir."
+
+Absently the Prince opened it. Then his eyes lit up.
+
+"Gotterdammerung!" he said. "I never thought of that. 'Smash up London
+and provide work for unemployed mending it.--GRAYSON,'" he read.
+"Poppenheim."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Let the bombardment commence."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And let it continue till the Russians arrive. Then it must stop, or
+there will be complications."
+
+Captain von Poppenheim saluted, and withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+THE BOMBARDMENT OF LONDON
+
+
+Thus was London bombarded. Fortunately it was August, and there was
+nobody in town.
+
+Otherwise there might have been loss of life.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS
+
+
+The Russians, led by General Vodkakoff, arrived at Hampstead half an
+hour after the bombardment had ceased, and the rest of the invaders,
+including Raisuli, who had got off on an _alibi_, dropped in at
+intervals during the week. By the evening of Saturday, the sixth of
+August, even the Chinese had limped to the metropolis. And the question
+now was, What was going to happen? England displayed a polite
+indifference to the problem. We are essentially a nation of
+sight-seers. To us the excitement of staring at the invaders was
+enough. Into the complex international problems to which the situation
+gave rise it did not occur to us to examine. When you consider that a
+crowd of five hundred Londoners will assemble in the space of two
+minutes, abandoning entirely all its other business, to watch a
+cab-horse that has fallen in the street, it is not surprising that the
+spectacle of nine separate and distinct armies in the metropolis left
+no room in the British mind for other reflections.
+
+The attraction was beginning to draw people back to London now. They
+found that the German shells had had one excellent result, they had
+demolished nearly all the London statues. And what might have
+conceivably seemed a draw-back, the fact that they had blown great
+holes in the wood-paving, passed unnoticed amidst the more extensive
+operations of the London County Council.
+
+Taking it for all in all, the German gunners had simply been
+beautifying London. The Albert Hall, struck by a merciful shell, had
+come down with a run, and was now a heap of picturesque ruins;
+Whitefield's Tabernacle was a charred mass; and the burning of the
+Royal Academy proved a great comfort to all. At a mass meeting in
+Trafalgar Square a hearty vote of thanks was passed, with acclamation,
+to Prince Otto.
+
+But if Londoners rejoiced, the invaders were very far from doing so.
+The complicated state of foreign politics made it imperative that there
+should be no friction between the Powers. Yet here a great number of
+them were in perhaps as embarrassing a position as ever diplomatists
+were called upon to unravel. When nine dogs are assembled round one
+bone, it is rarely on the bone alone that teeth-marks are found at the
+close of the proceedings.
+
+Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig set himself resolutely to grapple with the
+problem. His chance of grappling successfully with it was not improved
+by the stream of telegrams which arrived daily from his Imperial
+Master, demanding to know whether he had yet subjugated the country,
+and if not, why not. He had replied guardedly, stating the difficulties
+which lay in his way, and had received the following: "At once mailed
+fist display. On Get or out Get.--WILHELM."
+
+It was then that the distracted prince saw that steps must be taken at
+once.
+
+Carefully-worded letters were despatched by District Messenger boys to
+the other generals. Towards nightfall the replies began to come in,
+and, having read them, the Prince saw that this business could never be
+settled without a personal interview. Many of the replies were
+absolutely incoherent.
+
+Raisuli, apologising for delay on the ground that he had been away in
+the Isle of Dogs cracking a crib, wrote suggesting that the Germans and
+Moroccans should combine with a view to playing the Confidence Trick on
+the Swiss general, who seemed a simple sort of chap. "Reminds me of
+dear old Maclean," wrote Raisuli. "There is money in this. Will you
+come in? Wire in the morning."
+
+The general of the Monaco forces thought the best way would be to
+settle the thing by means of a game of chance of the odd-man-out class.
+He knew a splendid game called Slippery Sam. He could teach them the
+rules in half a minute.
+
+The reply of Prince Ping Pong Pang of China was probably brilliant and
+scholarly, but it was expressed in Chinese characters of the Ming
+period, which Prince Otto did not understand; and even if he had it
+would have done him no good, for he tried to read it from the top
+downwards instead of from the bottom up.
+
+The Young Turks, as might have been expected, wrote in their customary
+flippant, cheeky style. They were full of mischief, as usual. The body
+of the letter, scrawled in a round, schoolboy hand, dealt principally
+with the details of the booby-trap which the general had successfully
+laid for his head of staff. "He was frightfully shirty," concluded the
+note jubilantly.
+
+From the Bollygolla camp the messenger-boy returned without a scalp,
+and with a verbal message to the effect that the King could neither
+read nor write.
+
+Grand Duke Vodkakoff, from the Russian lines, replied in his smooth,
+cynical, Russian way:--"You appear anxious, my dear prince, to scratch
+the other entrants. May I beg you to remember what happens when you
+scratch a Russian?"
+
+As for the Mad Mullah's reply, it was simply pure delirium. The journey
+from Somaliland, and his meeting with his friend Mr. Dillon, appeared
+to have had the worse effects on his sanity. He opened with the
+statement that he was a tea-pot: and that was the only really coherent
+remark he made.
+
+Prince Otto placed a hand wearily on his throbbing brow.
+
+"We must have a conference," he said. "It is the only way."
+
+Next day eight invitations to dinner went out from the German camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be idle to say that the dinner, as a dinner, was a complete
+success. Half-way through the Swiss general missed his diamond
+solitaire, and cold glances were cast at Raisuli, who sat on his
+immediate left. Then the King of Bollygolla's table-manners were
+frankly inelegant. When he wanted a thing, he grabbed for it. And he
+seemed to want nearly everything. Nor was the behaviour of the leader
+of the Young Turks all that could be desired. There had been some talk
+of only allowing him to come down to dessert; but he had squashed in,
+as he briefly put it, and it would be paltering with the truth to say
+that he had not had far more champagne than was good for him. Also, the
+general of Monaco had brought a pack of cards with him, and was
+spoiling the harmony by trying to induce Prince Ping Pong Pang to find
+the lady. And the brainless laugh of the Mad Mullah was very trying.
+
+Altogether Prince Otto was glad when the cloth was removed, and the
+waiters left the company to smoke and talk business.
+
+Anyone who has had anything to do with the higher diplomacy is aware
+that diplomatic language stands in a class by itself. It is a language
+specially designed to deceive the chance listener.
+
+Thus when Prince Otto, turning to Grand Duke Vodkakoff, said quietly,
+"I hear the crops are coming on nicely down Kent way," the habitual
+frequenter of diplomatic circles would have understood, as did the
+Grand Duke, that what he really meant was, "Now about this business.
+What do you propose to do?"
+
+The company, with the exception of the representative of the Young
+Turks, who was drinking _creme de menthe_ out of a tumbler, the
+Mullah and the King of Bollygolla bent forward, deeply interested, to
+catch the Russian's reply. Much would depend on this.
+
+Vodkakoff carelessly flicked the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"So I hear," he said slowly. "But in Shropshire, they tell me, they are
+having trouble with the mangel-wurzels."
+
+The prince frowned at this typical piece of shifty Russian diplomacy.
+
+"How is your Highness getting on with your Highness's roller-skating?"
+he enquired guardedly.
+
+The Russian smiled a subtle smile.
+
+"Poorly," he said, "poorly. The last time I tried the outside edge I
+thought somebody had thrown the building at me."
+
+Prince Otto flushed. He was a plain, blunt man, and he hated this
+beating about the bush.
+
+"Why does a chicken cross the road?" he demanded, almost angrily.
+
+The Russian raised his eyebrows, and smiled, but made no reply. The
+prince, resolved to give him no chance of wriggling away from the
+point, pressed him hotly.
+
+"Think of a number," he cried. "Double it. Add ten. Take away the
+number you first thought of. Divide it by three, and what is the
+result?"
+
+There was an awed silence. Surely the Russian, expert at evasion as he
+was, could not parry so direct a challenge as this.
+
+He threw away his cigarette and lit a cigar.
+
+"I understand," he said, with a tinkle of defiance in his voice, "that
+the Suffragettes, as a last resource, propose to capture Mr. Asquith
+and sing the Suffragette Anthem to him."
+
+A startled gasp ran round the table.
+
+"Because the higher he flies, the fewer?" asked Prince Otto, with
+sinister calm.
+
+"Because the higher he flies, the fewer," said the Russian smoothly,
+but with the smoothness of a treacherous sea.
+
+There was another gasp. The situation was becoming alarmingly tense.
+
+"You are plain-spoken, your Highness," said Prince Otto slowly.
+
+At this moment the tension was relieved by the Young Turk falling off
+his chair with a crash on to the floor. Everyone jumped up startled.
+Raisuli took advantage of the confusion to pocket a silver ash-tray.
+
+The interruption had a good effect. Frowns relaxed. The wranglers began
+to see that they had allowed their feelings to run away with them. It
+was with a conciliatory smile that Prince Otto, filling the Grand
+Duke's glass, observed:
+
+"Trumper is perhaps the prettier bat, but I confess I admire Fry's
+robust driving."
+
+The Russian was won over. He extended his hand.
+
+"Two down and three to play, and the red near the top corner pocket,"
+he said with that half-Oriental charm which he knew so well how to
+exhibit on occasion.
+
+The two shook hands warmly.
+
+And so it was settled, the Russian having, as we have seen, waived his
+claim to bombard London in his turn, there was no obstacle to a
+peaceful settlement. It was obvious that the superior forces of the
+Germans and Russians gave them, if they did but combine, the key to the
+situation. The decision they arrived at was, as set forth above, as
+follows. After the fashion of the moment, the Russian and German
+generals decided to draw the Colour Line. That meant that the troops of
+China, Somaliland, Bollygolla, as well as Raisuli and the Young Turks,
+were ruled out. They would be given a week in which to leave the
+country. Resistance would be useless. The combined forces of the
+Germans, Russians, Swiss, and Monacoans were overwhelming, especially
+as the Chinese had not recovered from their wanderings in Wales and
+were far too footsore still to think of serious fighting.
+
+When they had left, the remaining four Powers would continue the
+invasion jointly.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig went to bed that night, comfortably
+conscious of a good work well done. He saw his way now clear before
+him.
+
+But he had made one miscalculation. He had not reckoned with Clarence
+Chugwater.
+
+
+
+
+
+Part Two
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+IN THE BOY SCOUTS' CAMP
+
+
+Night!
+
+Night in Aldwych!
+
+In the centre of that vast tract of unreclaimed prairie known to
+Londoners as the Aldwych Site there shone feebly, seeming almost to
+emphasise the darkness and desolation of the scene, a single light.
+
+It was the camp-fire of the Boy Scouts.
+
+The night was raw and windy. A fine rain had been falling for some
+hours. The date of September the First. For just a month England had
+been in the grip of the invaders. The coloured section of the hostile
+force had either reached its home by now, or was well on its way. The
+public had seen it go with a certain regret. Not since the visit of the
+Shah had such an attractive topic of conversation been afforded them.
+Several comic journalists had built up a reputation and a large price
+per thousand words on the King of Bollygolla alone. Theatres had
+benefited by the index of a large, new, unsophisticated public. A piece
+at the Waldorf Theatre had run for a whole fortnight, and "The Merry
+Widow" had taken on a new lease of life. Selfridge's, abandoning its
+policy of caution, had advertised to the extent of a quarter of a
+column in two weekly papers.
+
+Now the Young Turks were back at school in Constantinople, shuffling
+their feet and throwing ink pellets at one another; Raisuli, home again
+in the old mountains, was working up the kidnapping business, which had
+fallen off sadly in his absence under the charge of an incompetent
+_locum tenens_; and the Chinese, the Bollygollans, and the troops
+of the Mad Mullah were enduring the miseries of sea-sickness out in
+mid-ocean.
+
+The Swiss army had also gone home, in order to be in time for the
+winter hotel season. There only remained the Germans, the Russians, and
+the troops of Monaco.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+In the camp of the Boy Scouts a vast activity prevailed.
+
+Few of London's millions realise how tremendous and far-reaching an
+association the Boy Scouts are. It will be news to the Man in the
+Street to learn that, with the possible exception of the Black Hand,
+the Scouts are perhaps the most carefully-organised secret society in
+the world.
+
+Their ramifications extend through the length and breadth of England.
+The boys you see parading the streets with hockey-sticks are but a
+small section, the aristocrats of the Society. Every boy in England,
+and many a man, is in the pay of the association. Their funds are
+practically unlimited. By the oath of initiation which he takes on
+joining, every boy is compelled to pay into the common coffers a
+percentage of his pocket-money or his salary. When you drop his weekly
+three and sixpence into the hand of your office-boy on Saturday,
+possibly you fancy he takes it home to mother. He doesn't. He spend
+two-and-six on Woodbines. The other shilling goes into the treasury of
+the Boy Scouts. When you visit your nephew at Eton, and tip him five
+pounds or whatever it is, does he spend it at the sock-shop?
+Apparently, yes. In reality, a quarter reaches the common fund.
+
+Take another case, to show the Boy Scouts' power. You are a City
+merchant, and, arriving at the office one morning in a bad temper, you
+proceed to cure yourself by taking it out of the office-boy. He says
+nothing, apparently does nothing. But that evening, as you are going
+home in the Tube, a burly working-man treads heavily on your gouty
+foot. In Ladbroke Grove a passing hansom splashes you with mud.
+Reaching home, you find that the cat has been at the cold chicken and
+the butler has given notice. You do not connect these things, but they
+are all alike the results of your unjust behaviour to your office-boy
+in the morning. Or, meeting a ragged little matchseller, you pat his
+head and give him six-pence. Next day an anonymous present of champagne
+arrives at your address.
+
+Terrible in their wrath, the Boy Scouts never forget kindness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whistle of a Striped Iguanodon sounded softly in the darkness. The
+sentry, who was pacing to and fro before the camp-fire, halted, and
+peered into the night. As he peered, he uttered the plaintive note of a
+zebra calling to its mate.
+
+A voice from the darkness said, "Een gonyama-gonyama."
+
+"Invooboo," replied the sentry argumentatively "Yah bo! Yah bo!
+Invooboo."
+
+An indistinct figure moved forward.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"A friend."
+
+"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."
+
+"Remember Mafeking, and death to Injuns."
+
+"Pass friend! All's well."
+
+The figure walked on into the firelight. The sentry started; then
+saluted and stood to attention. On his face was a worshipping look of
+admiration and awe, such as some young soldier of the Grande Armee
+might have worn on seeing Napoleon; for the newcomer was Clarence
+Chugwater.
+
+"Your name?" said Clarence, eyeing the sturdy young warrior.
+
+"Private William Buggins, sir."
+
+"You watch well, Private Buggins. England has need of such as you."
+
+He pinched the young Scout's ear tolerantly. The sentry flushed with
+pleasure.
+
+"My orders have been carried out?" said Clarence.
+
+"Yes, sir. The patrols are all here."
+
+"Enumerate them."
+
+"The Chinchilla Kittens, the Bongos, the Zebras, the Iguanodons, the
+Welsh Rabbits, the Snapping Turtles, and a half-patrol of the 33rd
+London Gazekas, sir."
+
+Clarence nodded.
+
+"'Tis well," he said. "What are they doing?"
+
+"Some of them are acting a Scout's play, sir; some are doing Cone
+Exercises; one or two are practising deep breathing; and the rest are
+dancing an Old English Morris Dance."
+
+Clarence nodded.
+
+"They could not be better employed. Inform them that I have arrived and
+would address them."
+
+The sentry saluted.
+
+Standing in an attitude of deep thought, with his feet apart, his hands
+clasped behind him, and his chin sunk upon his breast, Clarence made a
+singularly impressive picture. He had left his Essex home three weeks
+before, on the expiration of his ten days' holiday, to return to his
+post of junior sub-reporter on the staff of a leading London evening
+paper. It was really only at night now that he got any time to himself.
+During the day his time was his paper's, and he was compelled to spend
+the weary hours reading off results of races and other sporting items
+on the tape-machine. It was only at 6 p.m. that he could begin to
+devote himself to the service of his country.
+
+The Scouts had assembled now, and were standing, keen and alert, ready
+to do Clarence's bidding.
+
+Clarence returned their salute moodily.
+
+"Scout-master Wagstaff," he said.
+
+The Scout-master, the leader of the troop formed by the various
+patrols, stepped forward.
+
+"Let the war-dance commence."
+
+Clarence watched the evolutions absently. His heart was ill-attuned to
+dances. But the thing had to be done, so it was as well to get it over.
+When the last movement had been completed, he raised his hand.
+
+"Men," he said, in his clear, penetrating alto, "although you have not
+the same facilities as myself for hearing the latest news, you are all,
+by this time, doubtless aware that this England of ours lies 'neath the
+proud foot of a conqueror. It is for us to save her. (Cheers, and a
+voice "Invooboo!") I would call on you here and now to seize your
+hockey-sticks and rush upon the invader, were it not, alas! that such
+an action would merely result in your destruction. At present the
+invader is too strong. We must wait; and something tells me that we
+shall not have to wait long. (Applause.) Jealousy is beginning to
+spring up between the Russians and the Germans. It will be our task to
+aggravate this feeling. With our perfect organisation this should be
+easy. Sooner or later this smouldering jealousy is going to burst into
+flame. Any day now," he proceeded, warming as he spoke, "there may be
+the dickens of a dust-up between these Johnnies, and then we've got 'em
+where the hair's short. See what I mean, you chaps? It's like this. Any
+moment they may start scrapping and chaw each other up, and then we'll
+simply sail in and knock what's left endways."
+
+A shout of applause went up from the assembled scouts.
+
+"What I am anxious to impress upon you men," concluded Clarence, in
+more measured tones, "is that our hour approaches. England looks to us,
+and it is for us to see that she does not look in vain. Sedulously
+feeding the growing flame of animosity between the component parts of
+the invading horde, we may contrive to bring about that actual
+disruption. Till that day, see to it that you prepare yourselves for
+war. Men, I have finished."
+
+"What the Chief Scout means," said Scout-master Wagstaff, "is no
+rotting about and all that sort of rot. Jolly well keep yourselves fit,
+and then, when the time comes, we'll give these Russian and German
+blighters about the biggest hiding they've ever heard of. Follow the
+idea? Very well, then. Mind you don't go mucking the show up."
+
+"Een gonyama-gonyama!" shouted the new thoroughly roused troops.
+"Invooboo! Yah bo! Yah bo! Invooboo!"
+
+The voice of Young England--of Young England alert and at its post!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+AN IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENT
+
+
+Historians, when they come to deal with the opening years of the
+twentieth century, will probably call this the Music-Hall Age. At the
+time of the great invasion the music-halls dominated England. Every
+town and every suburb had its Hall, most of them more than one. The
+public appetite for sight-seeing had to be satisfied somehow, and the
+music-hall provided the easiest way of doing it. The Halls formed a
+common place on which the celebrity and the ordinary man could meet. If
+an impulsive gentleman slew his grandmother with a coal-hammer, only a
+small portion of the public could gaze upon his pleasing features at
+the Old Bailey. To enable the rest to enjoy the intellectual treat, it
+was necessary to engage him, at enormous expense, to appear at a
+music-hall. There, if he happened to be acquitted, he would come on the
+stage, preceded by an asthmatic introducer, and beam affably at the
+public for ten minutes, speaking at intervals in a totally inaudible
+voice, and then retire; to be followed by some enterprising lady who
+had endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to solve the problem of living at the
+rate of ten thousand a year on an income of nothing, or who had
+performed some other similarly brainy feat.
+
+It was not till the middle of September that anyone conceived what one
+would have thought the obvious idea of offering music-hall engagements
+to the invading generals.
+
+The first man to think of it was Solly Quhayne, the rising young agent.
+Solly was the son of Abraham Cohen, an eminent agent of the Victorian
+era. His brothers, Abe Kern, Benjamin Colquhoun, Jack Coyne, and Barney
+Cowan had gravitated to the City; but Solly had carried on the old
+business, and was making a big name for himself. It was Solly who had
+met Blinky Bill Mullins, the prominent sand-bagger, as he emerged from
+his twenty years' retirement at Dartmoor, and booked him solid for a
+thirty-six months' lecturing tour on the McGinnis circuit. It was to
+him, too, that Joe Brown, who could eat eight pounds of raw meat in
+seven and a quarter minutes, owed his first chance of displaying his
+gifts to the wider public of the vaudeville stage.
+
+The idea of securing the services of the invading generals came to him
+in a flash.
+
+"S'elp me!" he cried. "I believe they'd go big; put 'em on where you
+like."
+
+Solly was a man of action. Within a minute he was talking to the
+managing director of the Mammoth Syndicate Halls on the telephone. In
+five minutes the managing director had agreed to pay Prince Otto of
+Saxe-Pfennig five hundred pounds a week, if he could be prevailed upon
+to appear. In ten minutes the Grand Duke Vodkakoff had been engaged,
+subject to his approval, at a weekly four hundred and fifty by the
+Stone-Rafferty circuit. And in a quarter of an hour Solly Quhayne,
+having pushed his way through a mixed crowd of Tricky Serios and
+Versatile Comedians and Patterers who had been waiting to see him for
+the last hour and a half, was bowling off in a taximeter-cab to the
+Russian lines at Hampstead.
+
+General Vodkakoff received his visitor civilly, but at first without
+enthusiasm. There were, it seemed, objections to his becoming an
+artiste. Would he have to wear a properly bald head and sing songs
+about wanting people to see his girl? He didn't think he could. He had
+only sung once in his life, and that was twenty years ago at a
+bump-supper at Moscow University. And even then, he confided to Mr.
+Quhayne, it had taken a decanter and a-half of neat vodka to bring him
+up to the scratch.
+
+The agent ridiculed the idea.
+
+"Why, your Grand Grace," he cried, "there won't be anything of that
+sort. You ain't going to be starred as a _comic_. You're a Refined
+Lecturer and Society Monologue Artist. 'How I Invaded England,' with
+lights down and the cinematograph going. We can easily fake the
+pictures."
+
+The Grand Duke made another objection.
+
+"I understand," he said, "it is etiquette for music-hall artists in
+their spare time to eat--er--fried fish with their fingers. Must I do
+that? I doubt if I could manage it."
+
+Mr Quhayne once more became the human semaphore.
+
+"S'elp me! Of course you needn't! All the leading pros, eat it with a
+spoon. Bless you, you can be the refined gentleman on the Halls same as
+anywhere else. Come now, your Grand Grace, is it a deal? Four hundred
+and fifty chinking o'Goblins a week for one hall a night, and
+press-agented at eight hundred and seventy-five. S'elp me! Lauder
+doesn't get it, not in England."
+
+The Grand Duke reflected. The invasion has proved more expensive than
+he had foreseen. The English are proverbially a nation of shopkeepers,
+and they had put up their prices in all the shops for his special
+benefit. And he was expected to do such a lot of tipping. Four hundred
+and fifty a week would come in uncommonly useful.
+
+"Where do I sign?" he asked, extending his hand for the agreement.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Five minutes later Mr. Quhayne was urging his taxidriver to exceed the
+speed-limit in the direction of Tottenham.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE SITUATION
+
+
+Clarence read the news of the two engagements on the tape at the office
+of his paper, but the first intimation the general public had of it was
+through the medium of headlines:--
+
+    MUSIC-HALL SENSATION
+    INVADING GENERALS' GIGANTIC SALARIES
+    RUMOURED RESENTMENT OF V.A.F.
+    WHAT WILL WATER-RATS DO?
+    INTERVIEW WITH MR. HARRY LAUDER
+
+Clarence chuckled grimly as the tape clicked out the news. The end had
+begun. To sow jealousy between the rival generals would have been easy.
+To sow it between two rival music-hall artistes would be among the
+world's softest jobs.
+
+Among the general public, of course, the announcement created a
+profound sensation. Nothing else was talked about in train and omnibus.
+The papers had leaders on the subject. At first the popular impression
+was that the generals were going to do a comedy duo act of the
+Who-Was-It-I-Seen-You-Coming-Down-the-Street-With? type, and there was
+disappointment when it was found that the engagements were for
+different halls. Rumours sprang up. It was said that the Grand Duke had
+for years been an enthusiastic amateur sword-swallower, and had,
+indeed, come to England mainly for the purpose of getting bookings;
+that the Prince had a secure reputation in Potsdam as a singer of songs
+in the George Robey style; that both were expert trick-cyclists.
+
+Then the truth came out. Neither had any specialities; they would
+simply appear and deliver lectures.
+
+The feeling in the music-hall world was strong. The Variety Artists'
+Federation debated the advisability of another strike. The Water Rats,
+meeting in mystic secrecy in a Maiden Lane public-house, passed fifteen
+resolutions in an hour and a quarter. Sir Harry Lauder, interviewed by
+the _Era_, gave it as his opinion that both the Grand Duke and the
+Prince were gowks, who would do well to haud their blether. He himself
+proposed to go straight to America, where genuine artists were cheered
+in the streets and entertained at haggis dinners, and not forced to
+compete with amateur sumphs and gonuphs from other countries.
+
+Clarence, brooding over the situation like a Providence, was glad to
+see that already the new move had weakened the invaders' power. The day
+after the announcement in the press of the approaching _debut_ of
+the other generals, the leader of the army of Monaco had hurried to the
+agents to secure an engagement for himself. He held out the special
+inducement of card-tricks, at which he was highly skilled. The agents
+had received him coldly. Brown and Day had asked him to call again.
+Foster had sent out a message regretting that he was too busy to see
+him. At de Freece's he had been kept waiting in the ante-room for two
+hours in the midst of a bevy of Sparkling Comediennes of pronounced
+peroxidity and blue-chinned men in dusty bowler-hats, who told each
+other how they had gone with a bang at Oakham and John o'Groats, and
+had then gone away in despair.
+
+On the following day, deeply offended, he had withdrawn his troops from
+the country.
+
+The strength of the invaders was melting away little by little.
+
+"How long?" murmured Clarence Chugwater, as he worked at the
+tape-machine. "How long?"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+CLARENCE HEARS IMPORTANT NEWS
+
+
+It was Clarence's custom to leave the office of his newspaper at one
+o'clock each day, and lunch at a neighbouring Aerated Bread shop. He
+did this on the day following the first appearance of the two generals
+at their respective halls. He had brought an early edition of the paper
+with him, and in the intervals of dealing with his glass of milk and
+scone and butter, he read the report of the performances.
+
+Both, it seemed, had met with flattering receptions, though they had
+appeared nervous. The Russian general especially, whose style, said the
+critic, was somewhat reminiscent of Mr. T. E. Dunville, had made
+himself a great favourite with the gallery. The report concluded by
+calling attention once more to the fact that the salaries paid to the
+two--eight hundred and seventy-five pounds a week each--established a
+record in music-hall history on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+Clarence had just finished this when there came to his ear the faint
+note of a tarantula singing to its young.
+
+He looked up. Opposite him, at the next table, was seated a youth of
+fifteen, of a slightly grubby aspect. He was eyeing Clarence closely.
+
+Clarence took off his spectacles, polished them, and replaced them on
+his nose. As he did so, the thin gruffle of the tarantula sounded once
+more. Without changing his expression, Clarence cautiously uttered the
+deep snarl of a sand-eel surprised while bathing.
+
+It was sufficient. The other rose to his feet, holding his right hand
+on a line with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the
+nail of the little finger, and the other three fingers upright.
+
+Clarence seized his hat by the brim at the back, and moved it swiftly
+twice up and down.
+
+The other, hesitating no longer, came over to his table.
+
+"Pip-pip!" he said, in an undertone.
+
+"Toodleoo and God save the King!" whispered Clarence.
+
+The mystic ceremony which always takes place when two Boy Scouts meet
+in public was complete.
+
+"Private Biggs of the Eighteenth Tarantulas, sir," said the boy
+respectfully, for he had recognised Clarence.
+
+Clarence inclined his head.
+
+"You may sit, Private Biggs," he said graciously. "You have news to
+impart?"
+
+"News, sir, that may be of vital importance."
+
+"Say on."
+
+Private Biggs, who had brought his sparkling limado and a bath-bun with
+him from the other table, took a sip of the former, and embarked upon
+his narrative.
+
+"I am employed, sir," he said, "as a sort of junior clerk and
+office-boy by Mr. Solly Quhayne, the music-hall agent."
+
+Clarence tapped his brow thoughtfully; then his face cleared.
+
+"I remember. It was he who secured the engagements of the generals."
+
+"The same, sir."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+The other resumed his story.
+
+"It is my duty to sit in a sort of rabbit-hutch in the outer office,
+take the callers' names, and especially to see that they don't get
+through to Mr. Quhayne till he wishes to receive them. That is the most
+exacting part of my day's work. You wouldn't believe how full of the
+purest swank some of these pros. are. Tell you they've got an
+appointment as soon as look at you. Artful beggars!"
+
+Clarence nodded sympathetically.
+
+"This morning an Acrobat and Society Contortionist made such a fuss
+that in the end I had to take his card in to the private office. Mr.
+Quhayne was there talking to a gentleman whom I recognised as his
+brother, Mr. Colquhoun. They were engrossed in their conversation, and
+did not notice me for a moment. With no wish to play the eavesdropper,
+I could not help but overhear. They were talking about the generals.
+'Yes, I know they're press-agented at eight seventy-five, dear boy,' I
+heard Mr. Quhayne say, 'but between you and me and the door-knob that
+isn't what they're getting. The German feller's drawing five hundred of
+the best, but I could only get four-fifty for the Russian. Can't say
+why. I should have thought, if anything, he'd be the bigger draw. Bit
+of a comic in his way!' And then he saw me. There was some slight
+unpleasantness. In fact, I've got the sack. After it was over I came
+away to try and find you. It seemed to me that the information might be
+of importance."
+
+Clarence's eyes gleamed.
+
+"You have done splendidly, Private--no, _Corporal_ Biggs. Do not
+regret your lost position. The society shall find you work. This news
+you have brought is of the utmost--the most vital importance. Dash it!"
+he cried, unbending in his enthusiasm, "we've got 'em on the hop. If
+they aren't biting pieces out of each other in the next day or two, I'm
+jolly well mistaken."
+
+He rose; then sat down again.
+
+"Corporal--no, dash it, Sergeant Biggs--you must have something with
+me. This is an occasion. The news you have brought me may mean the
+salvation of England. What would you like?"
+
+The other saluted joyfully.
+
+"I think I'll have another sparkling limado, thanks, awfully," he said.
+
+The beverage arrived. They raised their glasses.
+
+"To England," said Clarence simply.
+
+"To England," echoed his subordinate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Clarence left the shop with swift strides, and hurried, deep in
+thought, to the offices of the _Encore_ in Wellington Street.
+
+"Yus?" said the office-boy interrogatively.
+
+Clarence gave the Scout's Siquand, the pass-word. The boy's demeanour
+changed instantly. He saluted with the utmost respect.
+
+"I wish to see the Editor," said Clarence.
+
+A short speech, but one that meant salvation for the motherland.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+SEEDS OF DISCORD
+
+
+The days following Clarence's visit to the offices of the _Encore_
+were marked by a growing feeling of unrest, alike among invaded and
+invaders. The first novelty and excitement of the foreign occupation of
+the country was beginning to wear off, and in its place the sturdy
+independence so typical of the British character was reasserting
+itself. Deep down in his heart the genuine Englishman has a rugged
+distaste for seeing his country invaded by a foreign army. People were
+asking themselves by what right these aliens had overrun British soil.
+An ever-growing feeling of annoyance had begun to lay hold of the
+nation.
+
+It is probable that the departure of Sir Harry Lauder first brought
+home to England what this invasion might mean. The great comedian, in
+his manifesto in the _Times_, had not minced his words. Plainly
+and crisply he had stated that he was leaving the country because the
+music-hall stage was given over to alien gowks. He was sorry for
+England. He liked England. But now, all he could say was, "God bless
+you." England shuddered, remembering that last time he had said, "God
+bless you till I come back."
+
+Ominous mutterings began to make themselves heard.
+
+Other causes contributed to swell the discontent. A regiment of
+Russians, out route-marching, had walked across the bowling-screen at
+Kennington Oval during the Surrey _v._ Lancashire match, causing
+Hayward to be bowled for a duck's-egg. A band of German sappers had dug
+a trench right across the turf at Queen's Club.
+
+The mutterings increased.
+
+Nor were the invaders satisfied and happy. The late English summer had
+set in with all its usual severity, and the Cossacks, reared in the
+kindlier climate of Siberia, were feeling it terribly. Colds were the
+rule rather than the exception in the Russian lines. The coughing of
+the Germans at Tottenham could be heard in Oxford Street.
+
+The attitude of the British public, too, was getting on their nerves.
+They had been prepared for fierce resistance. They had pictured the
+invasion as a series of brisk battles--painful perhaps, but exciting.
+They had anticipated that when they had conquered the country they
+might meet with the Glare of Hatred as they patrolled the streets. The
+Supercilious Stare unnerved them. There is nothing so terrible to the
+highly-strung foreigner as the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of
+the Englishman. It gave the invaders a perpetual feeling of doing the
+wrong thing. They felt like men who had been found travelling in a
+first-class carriage with a third-class ticket. They became conscious
+of the size of their hands and feet. As they marched through the
+Metropolis they felt their ears growing hot and red. Beneath the chilly
+stare of the populace they experienced all the sensations of a man who
+has come to a strange dinner-party in a tweed suit when everybody else
+has dressed. They felt warm and prickly.
+
+It was dull for them, too. London is never at its best in early
+September, even for the _habitue_. There was nothing to do. Most
+of the theatres were shut. The streets were damp and dirty. It was all
+very well for the generals, appearing every night in the glare and
+glitter of the footlights; but for the rank and file the occupation of
+London spelt pure boredom.
+
+London was, in fact, a human powder-magazine. And it was Clarence
+Chugwater who with a firm hand applied the match that was to set it in
+a blaze.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+THE BOMB-SHELL
+
+
+Clarence had called at the offices of the _Encore_ on a Friday.
+The paper's publishing day is Thursday. The _Encore_ is the Times
+of the music-hall world. It casts its curses here, bestows its
+benedictions (sparely) there. The _Encore_ criticising the latest
+action of the Variety Artists' Federation is the nearest modern
+approach to Jove hurling the thunderbolt. Its motto is, "Cry havoc, and
+let loose the performing dogs of war."
+
+It so happened that on the Thursday following his momentous visit to
+Wellington Street, there was need of someone on the staff of Clarence's
+evening paper to go and obtain an interview from the Russian general.
+Mr. Hubert Wales had just published a novel so fruity in theme and
+treatment that it had been publicly denounced from the pulpit by no
+less a person than the Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, D.D., Sub-Dean
+of His Majesty's Chapels Royal, Deputy Clerk of the Closet and
+Sub-Almoner to the King. A morning paper had started the question,
+"Should there be a Censor of Fiction?" and, in accordance with custom,
+editors were collecting the views of celebrities, preferably of those
+whose opinion on the subject was absolutely valueless.
+
+All the other reporters being away on their duties, the editor was at a
+loss.
+
+"Isn't there anybody else?" he demanded.
+
+The chief sub-editor pondered.
+
+"There is young blooming Chugwater," he said.
+
+(It was thus that England's deliverer was habitually spoken of in the
+office.)
+
+"Then send him," said the editor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grand Duke Vodkakoff's turn at the Magnum Palace of Varieties started
+every evening at ten sharp. He topped the bill. Clarence, having been
+detained by a review of the Scouts, did not reach the hall till five
+minutes to the hour. He got to the dressing-room as the general was
+going on to the stage.
+
+The Grand Duke dressed in the large room with the other male turns.
+There were no private dressing-rooms at the Magnum. Clarence sat down
+on a basket-trunk belonging to the Premier Troupe of Bounding Zouaves
+of the Desert, and waited. The four athletic young gentlemen who
+composed the troupe were dressing after their turn. They took no notice
+of Clarence.
+
+Presently one Zouave spoke.
+
+"Bit off to-night, Bill. Cold house."
+
+"Not 'arf," replied his colleague. "Gave me the shivers."
+
+"Wonder how his nibs'll go."
+
+Evidently he referred to the Grand Duke.
+
+"Oh, _'e's_ all right. They eat his sort of swank. Seems to me the
+profession's going to the dogs, what with these bloomin' amytoors an'
+all. Got the 'airbrush, 'Arry?"
+
+Harry, a tall, silent Zouave, handed over the hairbrush.
+
+Bill continued.
+
+"I'd like to see him go on of a Monday night at the old Mogul. They'd
+soon show him. It gives me the fair 'ump, it does, these toffs coming
+in and taking the bread out of our mouths. Why can't he give us chaps a
+chance? Fair makes me rasp, him and his bloomin' eight hundred and
+seventy-five o' goblins a week."
+
+"Not so much of your eight hundred and seventy-five, young feller me
+lad," said the Zouave who had spoken first. "Ain't you seen the rag
+this week?"
+
+"Naow. What's in it? How does our advert, look?"
+
+"Ow, that's all right, never mind that. You look at 'What the
+_Encore_ Would Like to Know.' That's what'll touch his nibs up."
+
+He produced a copy of the paper from the pocket of his great-coat which
+hung from the door, and passed it to his bounding brother.
+
+"Read it out, old sort," he said.
+
+The other took it to the light and began to read slowly and cautiously,
+as one who is no expert at the art.
+
+"'What the _Encore_ would like to know:--Whether Prince Otto of
+Saxe-Pfennig didn't go particularly big at the Lobelia last week? And
+Whether his success hasn't compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a
+larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn't a fact that, though they are
+press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week
+more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird
+has assured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and
+the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether
+the Prince isn't worth fifty a week more than his Russian friend?'
+Lumme!"
+
+An awed silence fell upon the group. To Clarence, who had dictated the
+matter (though the style was the editor's), the paragraph did not come
+as a surprise. His only feeling was one of relief that the editor had
+served up his material so well. He felt that he had been justified in
+leaving the more delicate literary work to that master-hand.
+
+"That'll be one in the eye," said the Zouave Harry. "'Ere, I'll stick
+it up opposite of him when he comes back to dress. Got a pin and a
+pencil, some of you?"
+
+He marked the quarter column heavily, and pinned it up beside the
+looking-glass. Then he turned to his companions.
+
+"'Ow about not waiting, chaps?" he suggested. "I shouldn't 'arf wonder,
+from the look of him, if he wasn't the 'aughty kind of a feller who'd
+cleave you to the bazooka for tuppence with his bloomin' falchion. I'm
+goin' to 'urry through with my dressing and wait till to-morrow night
+to see how he looks. No risks for Willie!"
+
+The suggestion seemed thoughtful and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with
+one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door
+just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the
+conclusion of the Grand Duke's turn.
+
+General Vodkakoff strutted into the room, listening complacently to the
+applause which was still going on. He had gone well. He felt pleased
+with himself.
+
+It was not for a moment that he noticed Clarence.
+
+"Ah," he said, "the interviewer, eh? You wish to--"
+
+Clarence began to explain his mission. While he was doing so the Grand
+Duke strolled to the basin and began to remove his make-up. He
+favoured, when on the stage, a touch of the Raven Gipsy No. 3
+grease-paint. It added a picturesque swarthiness to his appearance, and
+made him look more like what he felt to be the popular ideal of a
+Russian general.
+
+The looking-glass hung just over the basin.
+
+Clarence, watching him in the glass, saw him start as he read the first
+paragraph. A dark flush, almost rivalling the Raven Gipsy No. 3, spread
+over his face. He trembled with rage.
+
+"Who put that paper there?" he roared, turning.
+
+"With reference, then, to Mr. Hubert Wales's novel," said Clarence.
+
+The Grand Duke cursed Mr. Hubert Wales, his novel, and Clarence in one
+sentence.
+
+"You may possibly," continued Clarence, sticking to his point like a
+good interviewer, "have read the trenchant, but some say justifiable
+remarks of the Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, D.D., Sub-Dean of His
+Majesty's Chapels Royal, Deputy Clerk of the Closet, and Sub-Almoner to
+the King."
+
+The Grand Duke swiftly added that eminent cleric to the list.
+
+"Did you put that paper on this looking-glass?" he shouted.
+
+"I did not put that paper on that looking-glass," replied Clarence
+precisely.
+
+"Ah," said the Grand Duke, "if you had, I'd have come and wrung your
+neck like a chicken, and scattered you to the four corners of this
+dressing-room."
+
+"I'm glad I didn't," said Clarence.
+
+"Have you read this paper on the looking-glass?"
+
+"I have not read that paper on the looking-glass," replied Clarence,
+whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a
+shade too Ollendorfian. "But I know its contents."
+
+"It's a lie!" roared the Grand Duke. "An infamous lie! I've a good mind
+to have him up for libel. I know very well he got them to put those
+paragraphs in, if he didn't write them himself."
+
+"Professional jealousy," said Clarence, with a sigh, "is a very sad
+thing."
+
+"I'll professional jealousy him!"
+
+"I hear," said Clarence casually, "that he _has_ been going very
+well at the Lobelia. A friend of mine who was there last night told me
+he took eleven calls."
+
+For a moment the Russian General's face swelled apoplectically. Then he
+recovered himself with a tremendous effort.
+
+"Wait!" he said, with awful calm. "Wait till to-morrow night! I'll show
+him! Went very well, did he? Ha! Took eleven calls, did he? Oh, ha, ha!
+And he'll take them to-morrow night, too! Only"--and here his voice
+took on a note of fiendish purpose so terrible that, hardened scout as
+he was, Clarence felt his flesh creep--"only this time they'll be
+catcalls!"
+
+And, with a shout of almost maniac laughter, the jealous artiste flung
+himself into a chair, and began to pull off his boots.
+
+Clarence silently withdrew. The hour was very near.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+THE BIRD
+
+
+The Grand Duke Vodkakoff was not the man to let the grass grow under
+his feet. He was no lobster, no flat-fish. He did it now--swift,
+secret, deadly--a typical Muscovite. By midnight his staff had their
+orders.
+
+Those orders were for the stalls at the Lobelia.
+
+Price of entrance to the gallery and pit was served out at daybreak to
+the Eighth and Fifteenth Cossacks of the Don, those fierce,
+semi-civilised fighting-machines who know no fear.
+
+Grand Duke Vodkakoff's preparations were ready.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Few more fortunate events have occurred in the history of English
+literature than the quite accidental visit of Mr. Bart Kennedy to the
+Lobelia on that historic night. He happened to turn in there casually
+after dinner, and was thus enabled to see the whole thing from start to
+finish. At a quarter to eleven a wild-eyed man charged in at the main
+entrance of Carmelite House, and, too impatient to use the lift, dashed
+up the stairs, shouting for pens, ink and paper.
+
+Next morning the _Daily Mail_ was one riot of headlines. The whole
+of page five was given up to the topic. The headlines were not elusive.
+They flung the facts at the reader:--
+
+    SCENE AT THE LOBELIA
+    PRINCE OTTO OF SAXE-PFENNIG
+    GIVEN THE BIRD BY
+    RUSSIAN SOLDIERS
+    WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME?
+
+There were about seventeen more, and then came Mr. Bart Kennedy's
+special report.
+
+He wrote as follows:--
+
+"A night to remember. A marvellous night. A night such as few will see
+again. A night of fear and wonder. The night of September the eleventh.
+Last night.
+
+"Nine-thirty. I had dined. I had eaten my dinner. My dinner! So
+inextricably are the prose and romance of life blended. My dinner! I
+had eaten my dinner on this night. This wonderful night. This night of
+September the eleventh. Last night!
+
+"I had dined at the club. A chop. A boiled potato. Mushrooms on toast.
+A touch of Stilton. Half-a-bottle of Beaune. I lay back in my chair. I
+debated within myself. A Hall? A theatre? A book in the library? That
+night, the night of September the eleventh, I as near as a toucher
+spent in the library of my club with a book. That night! The night of
+September the eleventh. Last night!
+
+"Fate took me to the Lobelia. Fate! We are its toys. Its footballs. We
+are the footballs of Fate. Fate might have sent me to the Gaiety. Fate
+took me to the Lobelia. This Fate which rules us.
+
+"I sent in my card to the manager. He let me through. Ever courteous.
+He let me through on my face. This manager. This genial and courteous
+manager.
+
+"I was in the Lobelia. A dead-head. I was in the Lobelia as a
+dead-head!"
+
+Here, in the original draft of the article, there are reflections, at
+some length, on the interior decorations of the Hall, and an excursus
+on music-hall performances in general. It is not till he comes to
+examine the audience that Mr. Kennedy returns to the main issue.
+
+"And what manner of audience was it that had gathered together to view
+the entertainment provided by the genial and courteous manager of the
+Lobelia? The audience. Beyond whom there is no appeal. The Caesars of
+the music-hall. The audience."
+
+At this point the author has a few extremely interesting and thoughtful
+remarks on the subject of audiences. These may be omitted. "In the
+stalls I noted a solid body of Russian officers. These soldiers from
+the Steppes. These bearded men. These Russians. They sat silent and
+watchful. They applauded little. The programme left them cold. The
+Trick Cyclist. The Dashing Soubrette and Idol of Belgravia. The
+Argumentative College Chums. The Swell Comedian. The Man with the
+Performing Canaries. None of these could rouse them. They were waiting.
+Waiting. Waiting tensely. Every muscle taut. Husbanding their strength.
+Waiting. For what?
+
+"A man at my side told a friend that a fellow had told him that he had
+been told by a commissionaire that the pit and gallery were full of
+Russians. Russians. Russians everywhere. Why? Were they genuine patrons
+of the Halls? Or were they there from some ulterior motive? There was
+an air of suspense. We were all waiting. Waiting. For what?
+
+"The atmosphere is summed up in a word. One word. Sinister. The
+atmosphere was sinister.
+
+"AA! A stir in the crowded house. The ruffling of the face of the sea
+before a storm. The Sisters Sigsbee, Coon Delineators and Unrivalled
+Burlesque Artists, have finished their dance, smiled, blown kisses,
+skipped off, skipped on again, smiled, blown more kisses, and
+disappeared. A long chord from the orchestra. A chord that is almost a
+wail. A wail of regret for that which is past. Two liveried menials
+appear. They carry sheets of cardboard. These menials carry sheets of
+cardboard. But not blank sheets. On each sheet is a number.
+
+"The number 15.
+
+"Who is number 15?
+
+"Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig. Prince Otto, General of the German Army.
+Prince Otto is Number 15.
+
+"A burst of applause from the house. But not from the Russians. They
+are silent. They are waiting. For what?
+
+"The orchestra plays a lively air. The massive curtains part. A tall,
+handsome military figure strides on to the stage. He bows. This tall,
+handsome, military man bows. He is Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig, General
+of the Army of Germany. One of our conquerors.
+
+"He begins to speak. 'Ladies and gentlemen.' This man, this general,
+says, 'Ladies and gentlemen.'
+
+"But no more. No more. No more. Nothing more. No more. He says, 'Ladies
+and Gentlemen,' but no more.
+
+"And why does he say no more? Has he finished his turn? Is that all he
+does? Are his eight hundred and seventy-five pounds a week paid him for
+saying, 'Ladies and Gentlemen'?
+
+"No!
+
+"He would say more. He has more to say. This is only the beginning.
+This tall, handsome man has all his music still within him.
+
+"Why, then, does he say no more? Why does he say 'Ladies and
+Gentlemen,' but no more? No more. Only that. No more. Nothing more. No
+more.
+
+"Because from the stalls a solid, vast, crushing 'Boo!' is hurled at
+him. From the Russians in the stalls comes this vast, crushing 'Boo!'
+It is for this that they have been waiting. It is for this that they
+have been waiting so tensely. For this. They have been waiting for this
+colossal 'Boo!'
+
+"The General retreats a step. He is amazed. Startled. Perhaps
+frightened. He waves his hands.
+
+"From gallery and pit comes a hideous whistling and howling. The noise
+of wild beasts. The noise of exploding boilers. The noise of a
+music-hall audience giving a performer the bird.
+
+"Everyone is standing on his feet. Some on mine. Everyone is shouting.
+This vast audience is shouting.
+
+"Words begin to emerge from the babel.
+
+"'Get offski! Rotten turnovitch!' These bearded Russians, these stern
+critics, shout, 'Rotten turnovitch!'
+
+"Fire shoots from the eyes of the German. This strong man's eyes.
+
+"'Get offski! Swankietoff! Rotten turnovitch!'
+
+"The fury of this audience is terrible. This audience. This last court
+of appeal. This audience in its fury is terrible.
+
+"What will happen? The German stands his ground. This man of blood and
+iron stands his ground. He means to go on. This strong man. He means to
+go on if it snows.
+
+"The audience is pulling up the benches. A tomato shatters itself on
+the Prince's right eye. An over-ripe tomato.
+
+"'Get offski!' Three eggs and a cat sail through the air. Falling
+short, they drop on to the orchestra. These eggs! This cat! They fall
+on the conductor and the second trombone. They fall like the gentle dew
+from Heaven upon the place beneath. That cat! Those eggs!
+
+"AA! At last the stage-manager--keen, alert, resourceful--saves the
+situation. This man. This stage-manager. This man with the big brain.
+Slowly, inevitably, the fireproof curtain falls. It is half-way down.
+It is down. Before it, the audience. The audience. Behind it, the
+Prince. The Prince. That general. That man of iron. That performer who
+has just got the bird.
+
+"The Russian National Anthem rings through the hall. Thunderous!
+Triumphant! The Russian National Anthem. A paean of joy.
+
+"The menials reappear. Those calm, passionless menials. They remove the
+number fifteen. They insert the number sixteen. They are like Destiny--
+Pitiless, Unmoved, Purposeful, Silent. Those menials.
+
+"A crash from the orchestra. Turn number sixteen has begun...."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+
+THE MEETING AT THE SCOTCH STORES
+
+
+Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig stood in the wings, shaking in every limb.
+German oaths of indescribable vigour poured from his lips. In a group
+some feet away stood six muscular, short-sleeved stage-hands. It was
+they who had flung themselves on the general at the fall of the iron
+curtain and prevented him dashing round to attack the stalls with his
+sabre. At a sign from the stage-manager they were ready to do it again.
+
+The stage-manager was endeavouring to administer balm.
+
+"Bless you, your Highness," he was saying, "it's nothing. It's what
+happens to everyone some time. Ask any of the top-notch pros. Ask 'em
+whether they never got the bird when they were starting. Why, even now
+some of the biggest stars can't go to some towns because they always
+cop it there. Bless you, it----"
+
+A stage-hand came up with a piece of paper in his hand.
+
+"Young feller in spectacles and a rum sort o' suit give me this for
+your 'Ighness."
+
+The Prince snatched it from his hand.
+
+The note was written in a round, boyish hand. It was signed, "A
+Friend." It ran:--"The men who booed you to-night were sent for that
+purpose by General Vodkakoff, who is jealous of you because of the
+paragraphs in the _Encore_ this week."
+
+Prince Otto became suddenly calm.
+
+"Excuse me, your Highness," said the stage-manager anxiously, as he
+moved, "you can't go round to the front. Stand by, Bill."
+
+"Right, sir!" said the stage-hands.
+
+Prince Otto smiled pleasantly.
+
+"There is no danger. I do not intend to go to the front. I am going to
+look in at the Scotch Stores for a moment."
+
+"Oh, in that case, your Highness, good-night, your Highness! Better
+luck to-morrow, your Highness!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It had been the custom of the two generals, since they had joined the
+music-hall profession, to go, after their turn, to the Scotch Stores,
+where they stood talking and blocking the gangway, as etiquette demands
+that a successful artiste shall.
+
+The Prince had little doubt but that he would find Vodkakoff there
+to-night.
+
+He was right. The Russian general was there, chatting affably across
+the counter about the weather.
+
+He nodded at the Prince with a well-assumed carelessness.
+
+"Go well to-night?" he inquired casually.
+
+Prince Otto clenched his fists; but he had had a rigorously diplomatic
+up-bringing, and knew how to keep a hold on himself. When he spoke it
+was in the familiar language of diplomacy.
+
+"The rain has stopped," he said, "but the pavements are still wet
+underfoot. Has your grace taken the precaution to come out in a good
+stout pair of boots?"
+
+The shaft plainly went home, but the Grand Duke's manner, as he
+replied, was unruffled.
+
+"Rain," he said, sipping his vermouth, "is always wet; but sometimes it
+is cold as well."
+
+"But it never falls upwards," said the Prince, pointedly.
+
+"Rarely, I understand. Your powers of observation are keen, my dear
+Prince."
+
+There was a silence; then the Prince, momentarily baffled, returned to
+the attack.
+
+"The quickest way to get from Charing Cross to Hammersmith Broadway,"
+he said, "is to go by Underground."
+
+"Men have died in Hammersmith Broadway," replied the Grand Duke
+suavely.
+
+The Prince gritted his teeth. He was no match for his slippery
+adversary in a diplomatic dialogue, and he knew it.
+
+"The sun rises in the East," he cried, half-choking, "but it sets--it
+sets!"
+
+"So does a hen," was the cynical reply.
+
+The last remnants of the Prince's self-control were slipping away. This
+elusive, diplomatic conversation is a terrible strain if one is not in
+the mood for it. Its proper setting is the gay, glittering ball-room at
+some frivolous court. To a man who has just got the bird at a
+music-hall, and who is trying to induce another man to confess that the
+thing was his doing, it is little short of maddening.
+
+"Hen!" he echoed, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Have you
+studied the habits of hens?"
+
+The truth seemed very near to him now, but the master-diplomat before
+him was used to extracting himself from awkward corners.
+
+"Pullets with a southern exposure," he drawled, "have yellow legs and
+ripen quickest."
+
+The Prince was nonplussed. He had no answer.
+
+The girl behind the bar spoke.
+
+"You do talk silly, you two!" she said.
+
+It was enough. Trivial as the remark was, it was the last straw. The
+Prince brought his fist down with a crash on the counter.
+
+"Yes," he shouted, "you are right. We do talk silly; but we shall do so
+no longer. I am tired of this verbal fencing. A plain answer to a plain
+question. Did you or did you not send your troops to give me the bird
+to-night?"
+
+"My dear Prince!"
+
+The Grand Duke raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Did you or did you not?"
+
+"The wise man," said the Russian, still determined on evasion, "never
+takes sides, unless they are sides of bacon."
+
+The Prince smashed a glass.
+
+"You did!" he roared. "I know you did! Listen to me! I'll give you one
+chance. I'll give you and your precious soldiers twenty-four hours from
+midnight to-night to leave this country. If you are still here
+then----"
+
+He paused dramatically.
+
+The Grand Duke slowly drained his vermouth.
+
+"Have you seen my professional advertisement in the _Era_, my dear
+Prince?" he asked.
+
+"I have. What of it?"
+
+"You noticed nothing about it?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"Ah. If you had looked more closely, you would have seen the words,
+'Permanent address, Hampstead.'"
+
+"You mean----"
+
+"I mean that I see no occasion to alter that advertisement in any way."
+
+There was another tense silence. The two men looked hard at each other.
+
+"That is your final decision?" said the German.
+
+The Russian bowed.
+
+"So be it," said the Prince, turning to the door. "I have the honour to
+wish you a very good night."
+
+"The same to you," said the Grand Duke. "Mind the step."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+
+THE GREAT BATTLE
+
+
+The news that an open rupture had occurred between the Generals of the
+two invading armies was not slow in circulating. The early editions of
+the evening papers were full of it. A symposium of the opinions of Dr.
+Emil Reich, Dr. Saleeby, Sandow, Mr. Chiozza Money, and Lady Grove was
+hastily collected. Young men with knobbly and bulging foreheads were
+turned on by their editors to write character-sketches of the two
+generals. All was stir and activity.
+
+Meanwhile, those who look after London's public amusements were busy
+with telephone and telegraph. The quarrel had taken place on Friday
+night. It was probable that, unless steps were taken, the battle would
+begin early on Saturday. Which, it did not require a man of unusual
+intelligence to see, would mean a heavy financial loss to those who
+supplied London with its Saturday afternoon amusements. The matinees
+would suffer. The battle might not affect the stalls and dress-circle,
+perhaps, but there could be no possible doubt that the pit and gallery
+receipts would fall off terribly. To the public which supports the pit
+and gallery of a theatre there is an irresistible attraction about a
+fight on anything like a large scale. When one considers that a quite
+ordinary street-fight will attract hundreds of spectators, it will be
+plainly seen that no theatrical entertainment could hope to compete
+against so strong a counter-attraction as a battle between the German
+and Russian armies.
+
+The various football-grounds would be heavily hit, too. And there was
+to be a monster roller-skating carnival at Olympia. That also would be
+spoiled.
+
+A deputation of amusement-caterers hurried to the two camps within an
+hour of the appearance of the first evening paper. They put their case
+plainly and well. The Generals were obviously impressed. Messages
+passed and repassed between the two armies, and in the end it was
+decided to put off the outbreak of hostilities till Monday morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Satisfactory as this undoubtedly was for the theatre-managers and
+directors of football clubs, it was in some ways a pity. From the
+standpoint of the historian it spoiled the whole affair. But for the
+postponement, readers of this history might--nay, would--have been able
+to absorb a vivid and masterly account of the great struggle, with a
+careful description of the tactics by which victory was achieved. They
+would have been told the disposition of the various regiments, the
+stratagems, the dashing advances, the skilful retreats, and the Lessons
+of the War.
+
+As it is, owing to the mistaken good-nature of the rival generals, the
+date of the fixture was changed, and practically all that a historian
+can do is to record the result.
+
+A slight mist had risen as early as four o'clock on Saturday. By
+night-fall the atmosphere was a little dense, but the lamp-posts were
+still clearly visible at a distance of some feet, and nobody,
+accustomed to living in London, would have noticed anything much out of
+the common. It was not till Sunday morning that the fog proper really
+began.
+
+London awoke on Sunday to find the world blanketed in the densest,
+yellowest London particular that had been experienced for years. It was
+the sort of day when the City clerk has the exhilarating certainty that
+at last he has an excuse for lateness which cannot possibly be received
+with harsh disbelief. People spent the day indoors and hoped it would
+clear up by tomorrow.
+
+"They can't possibly fight if it's like this," they told each other.
+
+But on the Monday morning the fog was, if possible, denser. It wrapped
+London about as with a garment. People shook their heads.
+
+"They'll have to put it off," they were saying, when of a
+sudden--_Boom!_ And, again, _Boom!_
+
+It was the sound of heavy guns.
+
+The battle had begun!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One does not wish to grumble or make a fuss, but still it does seem a
+little hard that a battle of such importance, a battle so outstanding
+in the history of the world, should have been fought under such
+conditions. London at that moment was richer than ever before in
+descriptive reporters. It was the age of descriptive reporters, of
+vivid pen-pictures. In every newspaper office there were men who could
+have hauled up their slacks about that battle in a way that would have
+made a Y.M.C.A. lecturer want to get at somebody with a bayonet; men
+who could have handed out the adjectives and exclamation-marks till you
+almost heard the roar of the guns. And there they were--idle,
+supine--like careened battleships. They were helpless. Bart Kennedy did
+start an article which began, "Fog. Black fog. And the roar of guns.
+Two nations fighting in the fog," but it never came to anything. It was
+promising for a while, but it died of inanition in the middle of the
+second stick.
+
+It was hard.
+
+The lot of the actual war-correspondents was still worse. It was
+useless for them to explain that the fog was too thick to give them a
+chance. "If it's light enough for them to fight," said their editors
+remorselessly, "it's light enough for you to watch them." And out they
+had to go.
+
+They had a perfectly miserable time. Edgar Wallace seems to have lost
+his way almost at once. He was found two days later in an almost
+starving condition at Steeple Bumpstead. How he got there nobody knows.
+He said he had set out to walk to where the noise of the guns seemed to
+be, and had gone on walking. Bennett Burleigh, that crafty old
+campaigner, had the sagacity to go by Tube. This brought him to
+Hampstead, the scene, it turned out later, of the fiercest operations,
+and with any luck he might have had a story to tell. But the lift stuck
+half-way up, owing to a German shell bursting in its neighbourhood, and
+it was not till the following evening that a search-party heard and
+rescued him.
+
+The rest--A. G. Hales, Frederick Villiers, Charles Hands, and the
+others--met, on a smaller scale, the same fate as Edgar Wallace. Hales,
+starting for Tottenham, arrived in Croydon, very tired, with a nail in
+his boot. Villiers, equally unlucky, fetched up at Richmond. The most
+curious fate of all was reserved for Charles Hands. As far as can be
+gathered, he got on all right till he reached Leicester Square. There
+he lost his bearings, and seems to have walked round and round
+Shakespeare's statue, under the impression that he was going straight
+to Tottenham. After a day and a-half of this he sat down to rest, and
+was there found, when the fog had cleared, by a passing policeman.
+
+And all the while the unseen guns boomed and thundered, and strange,
+thin shoutings came faintly through the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+
+THE TRIUMPH OF ENGLAND
+
+
+It was the afternoon of Wednesday, September the Sixteenth. The battle
+had been over for twenty-four hours. The fog had thinned to a light
+lemon colour. It was raining.
+
+By now the country was in possession of the main facts. Full details
+were not to be expected, though it is to the credit of the newspapers
+that, with keen enterprise, they had at once set to work to invent
+them, and on the whole had not done badly.
+
+Broadly, the facts were that the Russian army, outmanoeuvered, had been
+practically annihilated. Of the vast force which had entered England
+with the other invaders there remained but a handful. These, the Grand
+Duke Vodkakoff among them, were prisoners in the German lines at
+Tottenham.
+
+The victory had not been gained bloodlessly. Not a fifth of the German
+army remained. It is estimated that quite two-thirds of each army must
+have perished in that last charge of the Germans up the Hampstead
+heights, which ended in the storming of Jack Straw's Castle and the
+capture of the Russian general.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig lay sleeping in his tent at Tottenham. He
+was worn out. In addition to the strain of the battle, there had been
+the heavy work of seeing the interviewers, signing autograph-books,
+sitting to photographers, writing testimonials for patent medicines,
+and the thousand and one other tasks, burdensome but unavoidable, of
+the man who is in the public eye. Also he had caught a bad cold during
+the battle. A bottle of ammoniated quinine lay on the table beside him
+now as he slept.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he lay there the flap of the tent was pulled softly aside. Two
+figures entered. Each was dressed in a flat-brimmed hat, a coloured
+handkerchief, a flannel shirt, football shorts, stockings, brown boots,
+and a whistle. Each carried a hockey-stick. One, however, wore
+spectacles and a look of quiet command which showed that he was the
+leader.
+
+They stood looking at the prostrate general for some moments. Then the
+spectacled leader spoke.
+
+"Scout-Master Wagstaff."
+
+The other saluted.
+
+"Wake him!"
+
+Scout-Master Wagstaff walked to the side of the bed, and shook the
+sleeper's shoulder. The Prince grunted, and rolled over on to his other
+side. The Scout-Master shook him again. He sat up, blinking.
+
+As his eyes fell on the quiet, stern, spectacled figure, he leaped from
+the bed.
+
+"What--what--what," he stammered. "What's the beadig of this?"
+
+He sneezed as he spoke, and, turning to the table, poured out and
+drained a bumper of ammoniated quinine.
+
+"I told the sedtry pardicularly not to let adybody id. Who are you?"
+
+The intruder smiled quietly.
+
+"My name is Clarence Chugwater," he said simply.
+
+"Jugwater? Dod't doe you frob Adab. What do you want? If you're forb
+sub paper, I cad't see you now. Cub to-borrow bordig."
+
+"I am from no paper."
+
+"Thed you're wud of these photographers. I tell you, I cad't see you."
+
+"I am no photographer."
+
+"Thed what are you?"
+
+The other drew himself up.
+
+"I am England," he said with a sublime gesture.
+
+"Igglud! How do you bead you're Igglud? Talk seds."
+
+Clarence silenced him with a frown.
+
+"I say I am England. I am the Chief Scout, and the Scouts are England.
+Prince Otto, you thought this England of ours lay prone and helpless.
+You were wrong. The Boy Scouts were watching and waiting. And now their
+time has come. Scout-Master Wagstaff, do your duty."
+
+The Scout-Master moved forward. The Prince, bounding to the bed, thrust
+his hand under the pillow. Clarence's voice rang out like a trumpet.
+
+"Cover that man!"
+
+The Prince looked up. Two feet away Scout-Master Wagstaff was standing,
+catapult in hand, ready to shoot.
+
+"He is never known to miss," said Clarence warningly.
+
+The Prince wavered.
+
+"He has broken more windows than any other boy of his age in South
+London."
+
+The Prince sullenly withdrew his hand--empty.
+
+"Well, whad do you wad?" he snarled.
+
+"Resistance is useless," said Clarence. "The moment I have plotted and
+planned for has come. Your troops, worn out with fighting, mere shadows
+of themselves, have fallen an easy prey. An hour ago your camp was
+silently surrounded by patrols of Boy Scouts, armed with catapults and
+hockey-sticks. One rush and the battle was over. Your entire army, like
+yourself, are prisoners."
+
+"The diggids they are!" said the Prince blankly.
+
+"England, my England!" cried Clarence, his face shining with a holy
+patriotism. "England, thou art free! Thou hast risen from the ashes of
+the dead self. Let the nations learn from this that it is when
+apparently crushed that the Briton is to more than ever be feared."
+
+"Thad's bad grabbar," said the Prince critically.
+
+"It isn't," said Clarence with warmth.
+
+"It _is_, I tell you. Id's a splid idfididive."
+
+Clarence's eyes flashed fire.
+
+"I don't want any of your beastly cheek," he said. "Scout-Master
+Wagstaff, remove your prisoner."
+
+"All the sabe," said the Prince, "id _is_ a splid idfididive."
+
+Clarence pointed silently to the door.
+
+"And you doe id is," persisted the Prince. "And id's spoiled your big
+sbeech. Id--"
+
+"Come on, can't you," interrupted Scout-Master Wagstaff.
+
+"I _ab_ cubbing, aren't I? I was odly saying--"
+
+"I'll give you such a whack over the shin with this hockey-stick in a
+minute!" said the Scout-Master warningly. "Come _on_!"
+
+The Prince went.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+
+CLARENCE--THE LAST PHASE
+
+
+The brilliantly-lighted auditorium of the Palace Theatre.
+
+Everywhere a murmur and stir. The orchestra is playing a selection. In
+the stalls fair women and brave men converse in excited whispers. One
+catches sentences here and there.
+
+"Quite a boy, I believe!"
+
+"How perfectly sweet!"
+
+"'Pon honour, Lady Gussie, I couldn't say. Bertie Bertison, of the
+Bachelors', says a feller told him it was a clear thousand."
+
+"Do you hear that? Mr. Bertison says that this boy is getting a
+thousand a week."
+
+"Why, that's more than either of those horrid generals got."
+
+"It's a lot of money, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course, he did save the country, didn't he?"
+
+"You may depend they wouldn't give it him if he wasn't worth it."
+
+"Met him last night at the Duchess's hop. Seems a decent little chap.
+No side and that, if you know what I mean. Hullo, there's his number!"
+
+The orchestra stops. The number 7 is displayed. A burst of applause,
+swelling into a roar as the curtain rises.
+
+A stout man in crinkled evening-dress walks on to the stage.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "I 'ave the 'onour to-night to
+introduce to you one whose name is, as the saying goes, a nouse'old
+word. It is thanks to 'im, to this 'ero whom I 'ave the 'onour to
+introduce to you to-night, that our beloved England no longer writhes
+beneath the ruthless 'eel of the alien oppressor. It was this 'ero's
+genius--and, I may say--er--I may say genius--that, unaided, 'it upon
+the only way for removing the cruel conqueror from our beloved 'earths
+and 'omes. It was this 'ero who, 'aving first allowed the invaders to
+claw each other to 'ash (if I may be permitted the expression) after
+the well-known precedent of the Kilkenny cats, thereupon firmly and
+without flinching, stepped bravely in with his fellow-'eros--need I say
+I allude to our gallant Boy Scouts?--and dexterously gave what-for in
+no uncertain manner to the few survivors who remained."
+
+Here the orator bowed, and took advantage of the applause to replenish
+his stock of breath. When his face had begun to lose the purple tinge,
+he raised his hand.
+
+"I 'ave only to add," he resumed, "that this 'ero is engaged
+exclusively by the management of the Palace Theatre of Varieties, at a
+figure previously undreamed of in the annals of the music-hall stage.
+He is in receipt of the magnificent weekly salary of no less than one
+thousand one 'undred and fifty pounds a week."
+
+Thunderous applause.
+
+"I 'ave little more to add. This 'ero will first perform a few of those
+physical exercises which have made our Boy Scouts what they are, such
+as deep breathing, twisting the right leg firmly round the neck, and
+hopping on one foot across the stage. He will then give an exhibition
+of the various calls and cries of the Boy Scouts--all, as you doubtless
+know, skilful imitations of real living animals. In this connection I
+'ave to assure you that he 'as nothing whatsoever in 'is mouth, as it
+'as been sometimes suggested. In conclusion he will deliver a short
+address on the subject of 'is great exploits. Ladies and gentlemen, I
+have finished, and it only now remains for me to retire, 'aving duly
+announced to you England's Darling Son, the Country's 'Ero, the
+Nation's Proudest Possession--Clarence Chugwater."
+
+A moment's breathless suspense, a crash from the orchestra, and the
+audience are standing on their seats, cheering, shouting, stamping.
+
+A small sturdy, spectacled figure is on the stage.
+
+It is Clarence, the Boy of Destiny.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved
+England, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWOOP ***
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