Part 6

Her wings did not cease their beating till she was out of the haze, breathing again the untroubled air which is, indeed, to men and to fairies, life. Then resting on wings outspread, she hung motionless, an atom of light potential, brooding over the miles of lurid city.

Her heart became heavy and sorry because of the burdens of men. To her sight, London was a ruined wilderness, lit here and there with yellow flares. Where the parks stretched was mere blackness, interspersed with dimly shining slabs of pond and lake as the shrouded moonshine happened to fall on them. The Thames, except for occasional gleams of reflected moonlight, was a grey ribbon, a wedge driven through luridness, a forbidding fact.

The red canopy of haze which in Elfdom had oppressed her stretched underneath. It was a barrier between man and the stars--heavy and palpable. The shining worlds which lend magic to the night are so potent an influence for mind-good, bringing exaltation and the high dreams, that what hindered their contemplation was an evil to be banished and destroyed. So June argued, puzzling how to end it. Fairy cogitation! Yet is it so futile?

She was glad to change her gaze and look above her. There it spread--star dust, the firmament, myriads of worlds and suns supremely magnificent, infinite, uplifting, yet, with all the stir of the soul it occasioned, bringing strengthening humility. If men used their eyes and minds and saw more of the shine of the universe; if they watched the constellations in their annual orbits, knew the unique Sirius as a friend, recognized Arcturus, greeted the Pleiades after their summer absence, would not ideals be nobler, hopes happier, tolerance of meanness in its many shapes impossible?

While the fairy rested in her blissful aerial loneliness, she became aware of a gradual gladness, an added sense of joy--more subtle than had blessed her spirits since her flight from the Violet Valley--visiting her. It roused her from reverie to realities.

Fairies--her own people--were approaching, calling her. Their voices and brilliance were better than pearls and wealth.

"June, our June, come back to us! Come back! Come back!"

The appeal was powerful. With almost the swiftness of light the fairies flew. It was the company of knights, half a century strong, who had been commissioned to conduct June after the crowning home to the Land of Wild Roses. She turned with gladness to greet them. Like was coming to like. Sympathies were drawing together. They were her own people, her comrades; they pleaded with her to leave her crusade in the darkness, and return to delight.

Their presence was welcome, but not even then could she forget the children and those others whose plight required the gifts of the fairies. When the elf-world had helped them, she would go back gladly, but--not yet. She could not leave Sally and her mates of Paradise Court or the other dim millions whose need of beauty and joy and light she knew.

She closed her wings and sank to earth, leaving the knights above the cloud, wheeling and calling to her in vain. They looked through the veil at the world beneath and reluctantly flew back to Fairyland.

She found Bim busy, home-building. He had gathered some "smoke-dried" moss from roofs and chimneys, wondering the while at the angular world he clambered over, and had beaten it into a bed for her, with cobwebs for coverlet. He was coaxing the newly-planted flowers to feel at home, and all the while was singing, croakingly and cheerily, as if a draughty roof over Paradise Court was as near Fairyland as need be. So it was to him then, while working for June.

She did not interrupt him--his activity and happiness were balm and strength to her--but descended the chimney into the room.

Sally was fast asleep, so were the two men and the mother of the babe. The infant was weakly crying. The two other women were awake and working, toiling by the light of a candle. Their eyes were dazed and weak through its flickering uncertainties, but the effort had to be. All the protest they made was to curse and chide the wailing infant. June, heedless of the economies, touched them to sleep, and prudently put out the light.

She gave the sleepers dreams to cheer and comfort them. Sally was back once more in the land of the glorious waterfall. Bill was tramping along a dusty road with the promise of beer ahead. Then June quieted the baby by kissing its eyes, giving the hungry mite the comfort of slumber.

What was to become of that mortal, born to be blighted and doomed? There she touched our heaviest problem. The fact of life meant misery to that mite. The fairy noted with sadness its sunken eyes, pinched cheeks, and limbs no thicker than firewood, and wondered and wondered what to do. If that child was left so, neglected and starved through the innutrition that was all its mother could give it, it would die. Should that be?

She wished that some of the wasted provender from the Lord Mayor's board could be given to the children who needed food, and decided forthwith to fetch some for the many infant victims of Paradise Court.

She passed through the window, waving to it to open and shut as she went, and was away like light on her quest.

She flashed along the silent streets, rose to pass over the City, brushed with her left wing the dragon on Bow Church steeple, fluttered for a contemplative moment over the west door of St. Paul's, came to earth at the Griffin.

She watched omnibuses and cabs go by, and streams of belated people. She looked eagerly into their faces, but found none quite to her liking. So she resumed her flight along the Strand and rested on the railings before Charing Cross.

Two gilded youths came swaggering along, helping and hindering each other, their arms linked. They had white, empty faces, crush-hats were villainously aslant on their heads, their black cape coats were open, showing broad shirt-fronts with shining diamond studs.

They sometimes sang a spasm of chorus, sometimes peevishly quarrelled, sometimes were uncomplimentary to passers-by. They were adopted sons of Silenus, swollen with insolence and wine.

June descended to the junction of their linked arms, and poked each vigorously, thrice, with her wand, putting good purposes into their muzzy brains.

Their ideas became clearer. They stopped, lurched, and with a fine effort stood upright like manly men. One assumed his monocle, and said, "Jove!" They crossed the road, ignoring the rapid traffic as if it were not, and entered a confectioner's shop, which remained open nightly till the fairy hour.

Each planked down two sovereigns.

"Buns," said one.

"Milk," demanded the other.

"Chocolate."

"Cups!"

The weary waitresses thought the youths were making fun of them, but seeing the gold, and glad to be rid of their balance of scones and buns, they piled all they had before these customers, brought great tins of milk, and packets full of chocolate, with all the chipped, cracked cups they could hurriedly find and spare.

One of these unwitting philanthropists stared at the sixpence-halfpenny change which a conscientious cashier had put in his gloved hand; the other gazed through his eyeglass, startled by the quantity of their purchases. June smilingly approved their deeds and intentions.

"We'll have a growler!" they declared together.

A curious crowd of waitresses and passers-by helped them to load the vehicle, repeated their united command to go "That way"--Eastward--and sped them on their journey with a laughing cheer.

"What have we done this for?" said the one to the other.

"Lord knows," was the answer, "but we'll do it."

Lulled by the closeness of the cab, the smell of the buns, the rattle of the cups, and their innate sense of virtuous doing, the happy couple put heads together and slept, till they were wakened by the rattling and clattering of the cab passing over a granite causeway.

The Jehu came to his senses first. June, who had been standing in his chest pocket, where he illegally kept his badge, stopped him by Paradise Court.

"I dunno why I done it, but I did!" he said to a policeman, who, seeing a waiting cab, had sauntered up.

Bim came scurrying down from the roof.

"Sit on his head," June commanded him. The gnome perched on the policeman's helmet. "Make him help!"

The youths dragged at and lifted down their tins of milk. Then the cabman, policeman, and they boldly entered the court, crept into every room of every house--there are few locks in Paradise Court, and bolts are seldom shot there--and put by each sleeping child a cup of milk, a bun and a piece of chocolate--surprises for their awakening.

The good things were just enough for the number needing them, with five buns left over, which the cabman pocketed.

The human quartet eventually emerged from the court, radiant with kindness.

"I could do a drink," said the policeman, darkening his bull's-eye lantern.

"Same 'ere," said the heated charioteer.

"And so say all of us!" chimed the youths.

The policeman gave a peculiar whistle. An upper window of the public-house was quietly opened.

"'Oo goes there?" whispered Bung.

"Us, Tim," said the policeman.

"Right-oh, Alfred! 'arf a mo'."

The wearer of the monocle produced some silver.

"My turn," he said; "four whiskies."

While these givers of goodness rewarded themselves, June went to her nest for sleep.

"This is the beginning of the new Fairyland," she said gratefully to Bim, who beamed.

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE PROGRESS OF OBERON*

The Lord Mayor's Banquet became history, though in the beginning the newspapers were inclined to pay slight attention to it. If it had happened in the dog-days, when attractive "copy" for holiday idlers is at a premium, it would without any especial effort on the part of the fairies, have been seized by journalists and made the easy rage of a summer season. It would have swamped the sea-serpent, rendered the giant gooseberry an unblown bubble, prevented imaginative pessimists from indulging annual fears of the future of our daughters and the failure of our marriages; would have made the ordinary Silly Season a period of real, recreative, intellectual bliss.

But June, in her decisions, had no concern for any mere editor's convenience, and caught the powers of Fleet Street just at their busiest time. Parliament was still mouthing about the Budget, and adding to the troubles of Tadpole and Taper; a miniature General Election--three by-elections at once--was in progress; the summer worlds of sport were getting into swing; an earthquake had played havoc with the island of Zikki-baboo; the natives of the North-West Frontier of India had been once more at their sniping, inviting a new punitive expedition to be despatched; Gertie Feathergirl of the Gaiety had become romantically engaged to the Hon. Stanley Stallboys, and was making her last appearances--to the delight of a gushing multitude--before she retired to private life and the management of a motor business; the Very Grand Duke of Hotzenbosch had written a postcard, marked private, which necessitated the rapid commissioning of two flying squadrons: in brief, everything that could possibly happen at that crowded time was happening; and news-editors began to wonder why they lived.

Then June came to town, and what had to occur did occur! The Lord Mayor made his speech, the Archdeacon followed suit. A revolution in ideals was blowing up. What was Fleet Street to do? Should the circumstance be made a splash of; or interned in a few facetious paragraphs? What a pity, said they, it had not been kept till the year was in its wilderness!

The facts were too important to be buried and ignored. A Lord Mayor is not original, an Archdeacon not on the heights, for nothing! Editors can do most things; but any attempt on their parts to smother the influence of the fairies is as futile as the broom of Mrs. Partington; it merely demonstrates that they are only human after all.

The banquet and its tendencies had to be reported and commented on, with headlines. So the papers took it up.

Parliament, Gertie Feathergirl, war, actual and diplomatic, with all other matters of passing concern, were compelled to take their proper subordinate places in the daily prints and public interest.

The best of the newspapers, that which you and I support, O reader, began the Press crusade. It gave four columns of description and appeal on its principal page; and this was the heading:

OBERON SHALL BE KING.

And all the while Oberon was in one or other of his castles--in Ireland, in Wales, in Spain, in that dim country where the dreams are made, in Weissnichtwo--living the fairy life, making the birds, flowers, clouds and rivers happier; yet, never for the tithe of an instant, forgetting the madness of June.

The particular newspaper we refuse to have anything to do with, O reader--the newspaper whose opinions we despise and deplore--scoffed at the fairies in its usual cocksure way, as was to be expected! It professed to regard the Lord Mayor's plea as the agreeable sentiment of a well-dined gentleman, and made play with a leaderette in which Titania was called a myth and the fairies fruits of nightmare.

Such conduct on the part of a widely-read journal had to be answered.

June--let it be granted--treated its iconoclastic persiflage with the toleration of contempt. She, too, did not read the newspapers; but Archdeacon Pryde, who recognized that Sir Titus would not condescend to defend himself against such an attack, and remembering that he also was involved in that halfpenny condemnation, called a cab, packed a snuff-box with voice-lozenges, and went with heat and dudgeon to the headquarters of the offending newspaper.

He was welcomed with a military salute by the commissionaire at the gate; snapshotted thrice--when paying the cabman, eating a lozenge, and handing his card to a youth in the enquiry office. When inside the editorial sanctum, he was induced to pose for two flash-light photographs--one showing him engaged in earnest talk with the great man, the other with his hand resting on the tousled head of a printer's devil.

These pictures were to illustrate an "interview"--dictated to a shorthand writer--which explained the Archdeacon's ideas and intentions in connection with his and the Lord Mayor's new determinings, and so gave the Editor an excuse for a _volte-face_.

The Archdeacon was in a rapture of enthusiasm white hot. This prominent usefulness, or useful prominence, was gratifying. He promised to send his menu, that the inscribed resolutions might be reproduced in facsimile for the morrow's issue; and ended by asking the Editor to tea.

He went home more conscious than ever of being a man of influence and work.

So even the paper which you and I, O reader, habitually dislike and ignore, came over to the side of light.

The great organs of the Press, with amazing unanimity, rolled their machines, blew trumpets, and beat drums, in the interests of Fairy Reform. It was no sudden affair, that splendid combination; but a gradual all-round awakening to the benefit, delight, and need of preaching the causes of Elfdom.

The sober weeklies followed with such assumption of authority that they seemed to think they were leading. They had no hesitancy. The monthlies and quarterlies also, in due time, continued the chorus. It took about four months to bring this trend of influence to perfection, but then the cause went on like a tidal wave.

Oberon and Titania, strangely unconscious of the new-won rage for fairy goodness, became social factors; they left the select preserve of the Folklorists to become magazine favourites, the darlings of Fashion, high and low.

But this is very like anticipation, that bugbear of the sober historian, so we return to the present, as it was.

Emmanuel Oldstein found the keeping of his ideals a hard business. His midnight enthusiasm had strangely waned by the time of the milkman's chant.

The breakfast-table on the morrow morn was very like a battlefield; there were storms in five tea-cups. His family opposed his good intentions with earnestness, broken English, and some quotation of the Pentateuch, and thereby through the rule of contrariness, kept him to his purpose. Their obstinacy strengthened his. He stuck gamely to his guns, and began his course at once by doubling Ernie Jenkins' wages, enabling that young patriot to enlarge his indulgence in bitter beer, to wear three clean collars a week, and to promise Emily--with a few safeguarding "ifs"--that some day she might be "Mrs. J."

Emmanuel's family yielded to his wishes when he bought them over. He gave Mrs. Oldstein a purple silk dress trimmed with jet, a big bangle, and a gold watch so small that its works could never move. Max, who presumed to strange heights of impudent sarcasm on the subject of "the guvnor's flum," was given a minor partnership in the emporium, provided he was not merely just, but generous, in all his dealings.

He quickly agreed, and became a pompous person, forgetful of old associates.

Keeping the resolutions was certainly a hard and bitter business to the old man; but it did him good. He never lost sight of the promise of tea with the Archdeacon.

The hardest effort came when those pious folk next door took the bait, and approached Jabez Gordon of Jermyn Street for a loan--"to extend their efforts for the Cause."

Emmanuel unwisely informed Hannah of the fact. Her eyes blazed with angry happiness. At last! At last!

"Now squelch 'em, Pa!" she pleaded, in her commanding manner.

"Thertainly, my dear!" he said evasively; and hurriedly put on his hat to commune with himself in a walk round the squares. Here was a pass!

The undying remembrance of persecution, endured through ages by his people, flamed within him. Years of petty trading and the practices of sharp finance had not entirely subdued his inherited racial fire. And of all the Anti-Semite persecutors, none were so exasperating as those infatuated, contemptible sentimentalists--the pin-prick fanatics--who hoped to "convert" him, asking him to exchange the breadths of his own faith, based on centuries of national sacrifice and fighting history, for their traditionless, unimaginative, sapless sectarianism. It was a hard effort to spare those people at that moment of possible revenge.

Shylock had his twentieth-century opportunity.

When Emmanuel reached home again he was still undecided. An ancient battle was furious in his breast. He slept that night with a pile of the offensive mission notices beside his pillow, and turned and dreamed in a troubled way, murmuring Yiddish.

During breakfast he came to a decision, which he kept to himself.

"Father, I am glad you can punish them," said Hannah significantly, as she helped him with his outer coat. That was the only remark passed on the subject. Wisely, he held his peace.

He wrote from his office of finance in Jermyn Street--at first view you would think it a place of sale for strong cigars and strange red wines--to the sanctimonious young man, inviting Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior to call upon Jabez Gordon "to complete the little matter of business about which Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior had written."

Then Oldstein went on to the City, and got from Max a list of the workers--the sweated workers--who gave their lives to the making of his wealth. He would visit them all, and investigate their condition, doing whatever he could--be it little or much--to modify their wants and sufferings. The last on that list of mean, poor ones, was Sally Wilkins of Paradise Court. Already he had arranged or made purposes to pay every one of his employees a living wage, whatever the result might be in the increase of prices and consequent possible loss of customers. It was a bold policy. To Emmanuel Oldstein, even still more to Max, it was very like inexcusable sin. To pay more than need be for anything was to blaspheme against the gods of Economics. But he insisted on doing it, and did it. To anticipate for the last time, the policy paid.

Emmanuel's blood was up. He kept his written resolutions before him wherever he went. They and the menu reminded him of the Lord Mayor's appeal, of his own pledges, of his hopes of civic advancement, of the Archdeacon's invitation to tea. Again that night a battle raged in his breast. Hannah kept watchful eyes upon him.

On the following morning money-lender and victim emerged from their front-doors simultaneously. Neither appeared to notice the other--according to the canons of the unwritten law which rules the no-relation of next-door neighbours. None so far away as at the other side of a party wall!

The heir of the Buskins was less beautiful than good. His nose was the index to his mind. It pointed heavenwards. His thoughts were built of texts and depression. He had a saddened soul, but was never bankrupt of pious hope. He yearned that sinners should walk with him on the pearly pathways, and knew the naughty when he met them. So, in any case, it was not to be expected he should notice Oldstein, who in every respect offended and roused his religious antipathies. Lemuel was one of those whose thoughts reach the heights of the chimney-pots; they soar, yet are smothered with smuts.

Emmanuel noticed him. The Jew's keen eyes with a glance read the story told by the other's clothes. Lemuel was in blacks--his Sunday best. The coat had a tail; the hat was silken. He carried brown gloves and his mother's umbrella nicely rolled. His little sleek yellow moustache had upward twists; the whiskerettes which roused Hannah's ire and contempt were carefully trimmed. He wore a tartan necktie--to gratify that Scotsman, Jabez Gordon.

Oldstein grunted--there was joy in his nose--as they climbed into an omnibus together. The merchant took out his notebook and soon was controlling figures, while Lemuel stared at the advertisements or table of fares, stroked the careful crease in his trousers, and nervously fingered the points of his collar.

The omnibus stopped at Piccadilly Circus; they alighted. Lemuel had to ask the way to Jermyn Street; Oldstein knew it, and was soon in his office eagerly attacking a pile of letters. Five minutes later his one clerk--a magnificent creature whose greatest asset was a capacity for being stylish on very little--brought in Buskin's name.

"He must wait," said the master gruffly, "while I dictate letters. Hurry!"

He solemnly put the pile of mission notices on the desk before him, and closely attended to his correspondence.

Lemuel was waiting with the pitiful patience of a deserted lamb. His little heart was excitedly fluttering. He felt strangely fearful. He was not used to business. He would have given sixpence to have seen himself in a looking-glass, to be sure his hair was tidy, his tie straight. He eyed the dingy furniture of the stuffy room, and felt his courage going. He had expected to see more adornment than this; but he had read that the truly wealthy make the least display.

He fixed his gaze steadily on the door through which the clerk had gone, regarding it with mingled dread and longing. "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate" might well have been written above it.

Twenty minutes passed--Father Time, to spite his impatience, grossly enlarged every one of the twelve hundred seconds--before the splendid clerk reopened the door, ostentatiously closed an untidy shorthand book, and said: "Will ye go in?"

Lemuel Buskin rose trembling. His knees seemed to have forgotten their strength. But he remembered his mother's counsel, plucked up courage, and repeated mentally the stimulating chorus of a hymn. He was, as he entered the private office and took the offered seat, in such a whirl of confusion that he did not at once recognize the person of the financier.

Suddenly he was aware of Oldstein's identity, and blushed hotly.