Four Just Men | Page 7

the babble of
statistics.
"Ramon? Not he--he'd sooner die."
"It's a most unusual circumstance," said Aldgate East; and three
boroughs, a London suburb, and a midland town nodded and 'thought it
was'.
"In the old days, when old Bascoe was a young member"--Aldgate East
indicated an aged senator bent and white of beard and hair, who was
walking painfully toward a seat--"in the old days----"
"Thought old Bascoe had paired?" remarked an irrelevant listener.
"In the old days," continued the member for the East End, "before the
Fenian trouble----"
"----talk of civilisation," went on the enthusiastic Scott. "Rheinbaken
said last month in the Lower House, 'Germany had reached that point
where----' "
"If I were Ramon," resumed Aldgate East profoundly, "I know exactly
what I should do. I should go to the police and say 'Look here----' "
A bell rang furiously and continuously, and the members went
scampering along the corridor. "Division-- 'vision."
Clause Nine of the Medway Improvement Bill having been
satisfactorily settled and the words 'Or as may hereafter be determined'
added by a triumphant majority of twenty-four, the faithful Commons
returned to the interrupted discussion.

"What I say, and what I've always said about a man in the Cabinet,"
maintained an important individual, "is that he must, if he is a true
statesman, drop all consideration for his own personal feelings."
"Hear!" applauded somebody.
"His own personal feelings," repeated the orator. "He must put his duty
to the state before all other--er--considerations. You remember what I
said to Barrington the other night when we were talking out the
Estimates? I said, 'The right honourable gentleman has not, cannot have,
allowed for the strong and almost unanimous desires of the great body
of the electorate. The action of a Minister of the Crown must primarily
be governed by the intelligent judgment of the great body of the
electorate, whose fine, feelings'--no--'whose higher instincts'-- no--that
wasn't it--at any rate I made it very clear what the duty of a Minister
was," concluded the oracle lamely.
"Now I----" commenced Aldgate East, when an attendant approached
with a tray on which lay a greenish-grey envelope.
"Has any gentleman dropped this?" he inquired, and, picking up the
letter, the member fumbled for his eyeglasses.
"To the Members of the House of Commons," he read, and looked over
his pince-nez at the circle of men about him.
"Company prospectus," said the stout member for West Brondesbury,
who had joined the party; "I get hundreds. Only the other day----"
"Too thin for a prospectus," said Aldgate East, weighing the letter in
his hand.
"Patent medicine, then," persisted the light of Brondesbury. "I get one
every morning--'Don't burn the candle at both ends', and all that sort of
rot. Last week a feller sent me----"
"Open it," someone suggested, and the member obeyed. He read a few
lines and turned red.

"Well, I'm damned!" he gasped, and read aloud:
Citizens,The Government is about to pass into law a measure which
will place in the hands of the most evil Government of modern times
men who are patriots and who are destined to be the saviours of their
countries. We have informed the Minister in charge of this measure, the
title of which appears in the margin, that unless he withdraws this Bill
we will surely slay him.
We are loath to take this extreme step, knowing that otherwise he is an
honest and brave gentleman, and it is with a desire to avoid fulfilling
our promise that we ask the members of the Mother of Parliaments to
use their every influence to force the withdrawal of this Bill.
Were we common murderers or clumsy anarchists we could with ease
wreak a blind and indiscriminate vengeance on the members of this
assembly, and in proof thereof, and as an earnest that our threat is no
idle one, we beg you to search beneath the table near the recess in this
room. There you will find a machine sufficiently charged to destroy the
greater portion of this building.
(Signed) Four Just Men
Postscript.--We have not placed either detonator or fuse in the machine,
which may therefore be handled with impunity.
As the reading of the letter proceeded the faces of the listeners grew
pallid.
There was something very convincing about the tone of the letter, and
instinctively all eyes sought the table near the recess.
Yes, there was something, a square black something, and the crowd of
legislators shrank back. For a moment they stood spellbound--and then
there was a mad rush for the door.
"Was it a hoax?" asked the Prime Minister anxiously, but the hastily
summoned expert from Scotland Yard shook his head.

"Just as the letter described it," he said gravely, "even to the absence of
fuses."
"Was it really----"
"Enough to wreck the House, sir,"