Christopher Morley - In The Sweet Dry And Dry

Chuff had commenced ruthless warfare. Enraged beyond control by the perfidy of his daughter, he had sent out the armies of the

Pan-Antis to wreak vengeance on every human enterprise that could be suspected of complicity in the matter of fermentation. Not only had the countryside been laid waste, but the printing press had been abolished and all publishing trades were now a thing of the past. This, of course, had thrown Dunraven Bleak out of a job. He had retrieved his wife and children from the seashore, and in company with Quimbleton and Miss Chuff, and the noble and faithful horse John Barleycorn, they had led a nomad existence for weeks, flying from bands of pursuing chuffs, and bravely preaching their illicit gospel of good cheer in the face of terrible dangers.

The girl, who was indeed the Jeanne d'Arc of their cause, was their sole means of subsistence. It was her psychic powers that made it possible for them, in a furtive way, to give their little entertainments. Their method was, on reaching a village where there were no chuff troops, to distribute certain handbills which

Bleak had been able to get printed by stealth. These read thus:

THE SIX QUIMBLETONS or The Decanterbury Pilgrims In Their Artistic

Revival Of Old and Entertaining Customs, Tableaux Vivants Vanished

Arts, Folklore Games and Conjuring Tricks Such as The Drinking of

Healths, Toasts, Nosepainting, The Lifted Elbow, Let's Match For

It, Say When, Light or Dark? and This One's On Me. COMMUNION WITH

DEPARTED SPIRITS Please Do Not Leave Before the Hat Goes Round

Having taken their station in some not too prominent place, Bleak would mount the wheelbarrow and play Coming Through the Rye on a jew's-harp. This, his sole musical accomplishment, was exceedingly distasteful to him: all his training had been in the anonymity of a newspaper office, and he felt his public humiliation bitterly.

When a crowd had gathered, Quimbleton would ascend the barrow and make a brief speech (of a highly inflammatory and treasonable nature) after which he would set up the small table and the brass rail, produce a white apron and a tumbler from his knapsack, and introduce Theodolinda for an alcoholic trance. It was found that the public entered into the spirit of these seances with great gusto, and often the collection taken up was gratifyingly large.

However, the life was hazardous in the extreme, and they were in perpetual danger of meeting secret service agents. It was only by repeated private trances of their own that they were able to keep up their morale.

Reaching a bend in the way, where a grove of trees cast a grateful shade, the Decanterbury Pilgrims halted to rest. Quimbleton helped

Theodolinda down from her horse, and they all sat sadly by the roadside.

"Theo," said Quimbleton, as he wiped his brow, "do you think, dear, that if I set up the table you could give us a little trance? Upon my soul, I am nearly done in."

"Darling Virgil," said Theodolinda, "I really can't do it. You know I've given you four trances already this morning, and you have communed with the soul of Wurzburger at least a dozen times.

Then, as you know, I have put Mr. Bleak in touch with a julep six or seven times. All that takes it out of me dreadfully. I really must consider my art a bit: I don't want to be a mere psychic bartender, a clairvoyant distiller."

"You are quite right, dear girl," said Quimbleton remorsefully.

"But I couldn't help thinking how agreeable a psychical seidel of dark beer would be just now. You are our little Jeanne Dark, you know," he added, with an atrocious attempt at pleasantry.

"That's all very well," said Bleak (who preferred julep to beer), "but if we don't look out Miss Chuff will go into a permanent trance. I've noticed it has been harder and harder to bring her back from these states of suspended sobriety. You know, if we crowd these phantasms of the grape upon her too fast, she might pass over altogether, and stay behind the bar for good. We are deeply indebted to Miss Chuff for her adorable willingness to act as a kind of bunghole into the spirit world, but we don't want her to slip through the hole and evaporate."

"Safety thirst!" cried Quimbleton, raising his loved one to his lips.

"We can't go on like this indefinitely," continued Bleak. "I don't mind being a mountebank, but mountebanks don't pay much interest.

I'd rather be a safe deposit somewhere out of Chuff's reach.

There's too much drama in this way of living."

"I can stand the drama as long as I get the drams," said the unrepentant Quimbleton.

"Well, _I_ won't stand it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bleak, shrilly. "Look what your insane schemes have brought us to! You and my husband seem to find comfort in your psychical toping, but I don't notice any psychical millinery being draped about for Miss Chuff or myself. And look at the children! They're simply in rags. If you really loved Miss Chuff I should think you'd be ashamed to use her as a spiritual demijohn! You've alienated her from her father, and reduced my husband from managing editor of a leading paper to managing jew's-harpist of a gang of psychic bootleggers." She burst into angry tears.

Quimbleton groaned, and turned a ghastly fade upon Bleak.

"It's quite true," he said.

In the excitement Miss Chuff had turned very pale.

"Virgil," she said faintly, "I believe I feel a trance coming on."

"Great grief!" cried the harassed leader. "Not now, my darling! I

think I see some troops in the distance. Quick, try to concentrate your mind on lemonade, on buttermilk, on beef tea!"

Happily this crisis passed. Theodolinda had presence of mind enough to pull out a little photograph of her father from some secret hiding place, and by putting her mind on it shook off the dominion of the other world.

Quimbleton spoke with anguished remorse.

"Mrs. Bleak is right. I've been trying to hide it from myself, but

I can do so no longer. This monkey business-what we might call this gorilla warfare-must stop. We will only land in front of a firing squad. I have only one idea, which I have been saving in case all else failed."

The Bleaks were too discouraged to comment, but Theodolinda smiled bravely.

"Virgil dear," she said, "your ideas are always so original. What is it?"

Quimbleton stood up, unconsciously putting one foot on the portable brass rail which rested on its six-inch legs by the roadside. His tired eyes shone anew with characteristic enthusiasm. It was plain that he imagined himself before a large and sympathetic audience.

"My friends," he said, "the secret of eloquence is to know your facts-or, as the all-powerful Chuff would amend it, to know your tracts. One fact, I think I may say, is plain. The jig is up, or

(more literally), the jag is up. I can see now that alcohol will never be more than a memory. Principalities and powers are in league against us. If the malt has lost its favor, wherewith shall it be malted?"

He paused a moment, as though expecting a little applause, and

Theodolinda murmured an encouraging "Here, here."

With rekindled eye he resumed.

"Alcohol, I say, will never be more than a memory. Yet even a memory must be kept alive. The great tradition must not die. For the very sake of antiquarian accuracy, for the instruction of posterity, some exact record must be kept of the influence of alcohol upon the human soul. How can this be preserved? Not in books, not in the dead mummies of a museum. No, not in dead mummies, indeed, but in living rummies. That brings me to my great idea, which I have long cherished.

"I propose, my dear friends, that in some appropriate shrine, surrounded by all the authentic trappings and utensils, some chosen individual be maintained at the public charge, to exhibit for the contemplation of a drouthing world the immortal flame of intoxication. He will be known, without soft concealments, as the