Gilbert Chesterton: The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the Provost’s nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two words.

“What a perfect phrase that is,” he said. “‘Midsummer madness!’”

“The chief point is,” continued Buck, doggedly, “that the only part that is really in question is one dirty little street...Pump Street...a street with nothing in it but a public house and a penny toy-shop, and that sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have accepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump Street. Says he’s Provost of Notting Hill. He’s only Provost of Pump Street.”

“A good thought,” replied Auberon. “I like the idea of a Provost of Pump Street. Why not let him alone?”

“And drop the whole scheme!” cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal spirit. “I’ll be damned if we do. No. I’m for sending in workmen to pull down without more ado.”

“Strike for the purple Eagle,” cried the King, hot with historical associations.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Buck, losing his temper altogether. “If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people with your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the nation...”

The King’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully.

“The situation is not bad,” he said; “the haughty burgher defying the King in his own Palace. The burgher’s head should be thrown back and the right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please.”

Buck’s mouth opened like a dog’s, but before he could speak another herald appeared at the door.

“The Lord High Provost of Bayswater,” he said, “desires an audience.”

“Admit him,” said Auberon. “This is a jolly day.”

The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and the banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green bay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his researches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater.

“It is a fit symbol,” said the King, “your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham may seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of Bayswater care for anything but glory?”

Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and silver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little man with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff shop.

“Our cousin of Bayswater,” said the King, with delight; “what can we get for you?” The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, “Cold beef, cold ’am, cold chicken,” his voice dying into silence.

“I came to see your Majesty,” said the Provost of Bayswater, whose name was Wilson, “about that Pump Street affair.”

“I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty,” said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. “I am not sure, however, whether his Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also.”

“It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was started for the benefit of the ’ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me we put our ’eads together...”

The King clasped his hands.

“Perfect,” he cried in ecstacy. “Your heads together! I can see it! Can’t you do it now? Oh, do do it now.”

A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely diabolical.

“I suppose,” he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him with a gesture of listening.

“Hush,” he said, “I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear another herald, a herald whose boots creak.”

As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway:

“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience.”

“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!” cried the King. “Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? If the tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he wants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?”

Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and whose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue and gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the dresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than the rest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with the slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the old way.

“Your Majesty...pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man at Pump Street. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what is necessary. I...”

The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazed with the trappings of three cities.

“There is one thing necessary,” he said.

“Yes, your Majesty,” said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly. “What does yer Majesty think necessary?”

“A little yellow,” said the King, firmly. “Send for the Provost of West Kensington.”

Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for and arrived with his yellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to say on the matter.

“Welcome, West Kensington,” said the King. “I have long wished to see you, touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of the Rowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost of Hammersmith? You have only to do him homage by putting his left arm in his overcoat and then marching home in state.”

“No, your Majesty; I’d rather not,” said the Provost of West Kensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache and whiskers, who kept a successful dairy.

The King struck him heartily on the shoulder.

“The fierce old West Kensington blood,” he said; “they are not wise who ask it to do homage.”

Tnen he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunset of colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists...the sight of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In the foreground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland colours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, the great purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal and black.

“There is something lacking,” said the King, “something lacking. What can...Ah, there it is!...there it is!”

In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. He cried in a loud but unemotional voice:

“The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires an audience.”

THE King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who carried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely for the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King’s intellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance of their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position with an almost startling dignity, and discipline.