Читать книгу Windfalls - Gardiner Alfred George - Страница 7

Yes,” said the man with the big voice, “I’ve seen it coming for years. Years.”

“Have you?” said the man with the timid voice. He had taken his seat on the top of the bus beside the big voice and had spoken of the tube strike that had suddenly paralysed the traffic of London.

“Yes, years,” said big voice, crowding as much modesty into the admission as possible. “I’m a long-sighted man. I see things a long way off. Suppose I’m a bit psychic. That’s what I’m told. A bit psychic.”

“Ah,” said timid voice, doubtful, I thought, as to the meaning of the word, but firm in admiring acceptance of whatever it meant.

“Yes, I saw it coming for years. Lloyd George – that’s the man that up to it before the war with his talk about the dukes and property and things. I said then, ‘You see if this don’t make trouble.’ Why, his speeches got out to Russia and started them there. And now’s it’s come back. I always said it would. I said we should pay for it.”

“Did you, though?” observed timid voice – not questioningly, but as an assurance that he was listening attentively.

“Yes, the same with the war. I see it coming for years – years, I did. And if they’d taken my advice it’ ud have been over in no time. In the first week I said: ‘What we’ve got to do is to build 1000 aeroplanes and train 10,000 pilots and make 2000 torpedo craft.’ That’s what I said. But was it done?”

“Of course not,” said timid voice.

“I saw it all with my long sight. It’s a way I have. I don’t know why, but there it is. I’m not much at the platform business – tub-thumping, I call it – but for seeing things far off – well, I’m a bit psychic, you know.”

“Ah,” said timid voice, mournfully, “it’s a pity some of those talking fellows are not psychic, too.” He’d got the word firmly now.

“Them psychic!” said big voice, with scorn. “We know what they are. You see that Miss Asquith is marrying a Roumanian prince. Mark my word, he’ll turn out to be a German, that’s what he’ll turn out to be. It’s German money all round. Same with these strikes. There’s German money behind them.”

“Shouldn’t wonder at all,” said timid voice.

“I know,” said big voice. “I’ve a way of seeing things. The same in the Boer War. I saw that coming for years.”

“Did you, indeed?” said timid voice.

“Yes. I wrote it down, and showed it to some of my friends. There it was in black and white. They said it was wonderful how it all turned out – two years, I said, 250 millions of money, and 20,000 casualties. That’s what I said, and that’s what it was. I said the Boers would win, and I claim they did win, seeing old Campbell Bannerman gave them all they asked for.”

“You were about right,” assented timid voice.

“And now look at Lloyd George. Why, Wilson is twisting him round his finger – that’s what he’s doing. Just twisting him round his finger. Wants a League of Nations, says Wilson, and then he starts building a fleet as big as ours.”

“Never did like that man,” said timid voice.

“It’s him that has let the Germans escape. That’s what the armistice means. They’ve escaped – and just when we’d got them down.”

“It’s a shame,” said timid voice.

“This war ought to have gone on longer,” continued big voice. “My opinion is that the world wanted thinning out. People are too crowded. That’s what they are – they’re too crowded.”

“I agree there,” said timid voice. “We wanted thinning.”

“I consider we haven’t been thinned out half enough yet. It ought to have gone on, and it would have gone on but for Wilson. I should like to know his little game. ‘Keep your eye on Wilson,’ says John Bull, and that’s what I say. Seems to me he’s one of the artful sort. I saw a case down at Portsmouth. Secretary of a building society – regular chapel-goer, teetotaller, and all that. One day the building society went smash, and Mr Chapel-goer had got off with the lot.”

“I don’t like those goody-goody people,” said timid voice.

“No,” said big voice. “William Shakespeare hit it oh. Wonderful what that man knew. ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women players,’ he said. Strordinary how he knew things.”

“Wonderful,” said timid voice.

“There’s never been a man since who knew half what William Shakespeare knew – not one-half.”

“No doubt about it,” said timid voice.

“I consider that William Shakespeare was the most psychic man that ever lived. I don’t suppose there was ever such a long-sighted man before or since. He could see through anything. He’d have seen through Wilson and he’d have seen this war didn’t stop before the job was done. It’s a pity we haven’t a William Shakespeare now. Lloyd George and Asquith are not in it with him. They’re simply duds beside William Shakespeare. Couldn’t hold a candle to him.”

“Seems to me,” said timid voice, “that there’s nobody, as you might say, worth anything to-day.”

“Nobody,” said big voice. “We’ve gone right off. There used to be men. Old Dizzy, he was a man. So was Joseph Chamberlain. He was right about Tariff Reform. I saw it years before he did. Free Trade I said was all right years ago, when we were manufacturing for the world. But it’s out of date. I saw it was out of date long before Joseph Chamberlain. It’s the result of being long-sighted. I said to my father, ‘If we stick to Free Trade this country is done.’ That’s what I said, and it’s true. We are done. Look at these strikes. We stick to things too long. I believe in looking ahead. When I was in America before the war they wouldn’t believe I came from England. Wouldn’t believe it. ‘But the English are so slow,’ they said, ‘and you – why you want to be getting on in front of us.’ That’s my way. I look ahead and don’t stand still.”

“It’s the best way too,” said timid voice. “We want more of it. We’re too slow.”

And so on. When I came to the end of my journey I rose so that the light of a lamp shone on the speakers as I passed. They were both well-dressed, ordinary-looking men. If I had passed them in the street I should have said they were intelligent men of the well-to-do business class. I have set down their conversation, which I could not help overhearing, and which was carried on by the big voice in a tone meant for publication, as exactly as I can recall it. There was a good deal more of it, all of the same character. You will laugh at it, or weep over it, according to your humour.