Gilbert Chesterton - The Flying Inn

“Citizens,” he roared, saying anything that came into his head, “try the only original unadulterated Mountain Milk, for which alone Mahomet came to the mountain. The original milk of the land flowing with milk and honey; the high quality of which could alone have popularised so unappetising a combination. Try our milk! None others are genuine! Who can do without milk. Even whales can’t do without milk. If any lady or gentleman keeps a favourite whale at home, now’s their chance! The early whale catches the milk. Just look at our milk! If you say you can’t look at the milk, because it’s in the can–well, look at the can! You must look at the can! You simply must! When Duty whispers low ‘Thou Must!’” he bellowed at the top of his voice in a highly impromptu peroration, “When Duty whispers low ‘Thou Must,’ the Youth replies, ‘I can!’” And with the word “Can” he hit the can with a shocking and shattering noise, like a peal of demoniac bells of steel.

This introductory speech is open to criticism from those who regard it as intended for the study rather than the stage. The present chronicler (who has no aim save truth) is bound to record that for its own unscrupulous purpose it was extremely successful: a great mass of the citizens of Peaceways having been attracted by the noise of one man shouting like a crowd. There are crowds who do not care to revolt; but there are no crowds who do not like someone else to do it for them; a fact which the safest oligarchs may be wise to learn.

But Dalroy’s ultimate triumph (I regret to say) consisted in actually handing to a few of the foremost of his audience some samples of his blameless beverage. The fact was certainly striking. Some were paralysed with surprise. Some were abruptly broken double with laughter. Many chuckled. Some cheered. All looked radiantly toward the eccentric orator.

And yet the radiance died quietly and suddenly from their faces. And only because one little old man had joined the group; a little old man in white linen with a white pointed beard and a white powder-puff of hair like thistledown: a man whom almost every man present could have killed with the left arm.

DR. MOSES MEADOWS, whether that was his name or an Anglicised version of it, had certainly come in the first instance from a little town in Germany and his first two books were written in German. His first two books were his best, for he began with a genuine enthusiasm for physical science, and this was adulterated with nothing worse than a hatred of what he thought was superstition, and what many of us think is the soul of the state. The first enthusiasm was most notable in the first book, which was concerned to show that “in the female not upsprouting of the whiskers was from the therewith increasing arrested mentality derived.” In his second book he came more to grips with delusions, and for some time he was held to have proved (to everyone who agreed with him already) that the Time Ghost had been walking particularly “rapidly, lately; and that the Christus Mythus was by the alcoholic mind’s trouble explained.” Then, unfortunately, he came across the institution called Death, and began to argue with it. Not seeing any rational explanation of this custom of dying, so prevalent among his fellow-citizens, he concluded that it was merely traditional (which he thought meant “effete”), and began to think of nothing but ways of evading or delaying it. This had a rather narrowing effect on him, and he lost much of that acrid ardour which had humanised the atheism of his youth, when he would almost have committed suicide for the pleasure of taunting God with not being there. His later idealism grew more and more into materialism and consisted of his changing hypotheses and discoveries about the healthiest foods. There is no need to detain the reader over what has been called his Oil Period; his Sea-weed Period has been authoritatively expounded in Professor Nym’s valuable little work; and on the events of his Glue Period it is, perhaps, not very generous to dwell. It was during his prolonged stay in England that he chanced on the instance of the longevity of milk consumers, and built on it a theory which was, at the beginning at least, sincere. Unfortunately it was also successful: wealth flowed in to the inventor and proprietor of Mountain Milk, and he began to feel a fourth and last enthusiasm, which, also, can come late in life and have a narrowing effect on the mind.

In the altercation which naturally followed on his discovery of the antics of Mr. Patrick Dalroy, he was very dignified, but naturally not very tolerant; for he was quite unused to anything happening in spite of him, or anything important even happening without him, in the land that lay around. At first he hinted severely that the Captain had stolen the milk can from the milk-producing premises, and sent several workmen to count the cans in each shed; but Dalroy soon put him right about that.

“I bought it in a shop at Wyddington,” he said, “and since then I have used no other. You’ll hardly believe me” he said, with some truth, “but when I went into that shop I was quite a little man. I had one glass of your Mountain Milk; and look at me now.”

“You have no right to sell the milk here,” said Dr. Meadows, with the faintest trace of a German accent. “You are not in my employment; I am not responsible for your methods. You are not a representative of the business.”

“I’m an Advertisement,” said the Captain. “We advertise you all over England. You see that lean, skimpy, little man over there,” pointing to the indignant Mr. Pump, “He’s Before Taking Meadows’s Mountain Milk. I’m After,” added Mr. Dalroy, with satisfaction.

“You shall laugh at the magistrate,” said the other, with a thickening accent.

“I shall,” agreed Patrick. “Well, I’ll make a clean breast of it, sir. The truth is it isn’t your milk at all. It has quite a different taste. These gentlemen will tell you so.”

A smothered giggle sent all the blood to the eminent capitalist’s face.

“Then, either you have stolen my can and are a thief,” he said, stamping, “or you have introduced inferior substances into my discovery and are an adulterer–er–”

“Try adulteratist,” said Dalroy, kindly. “Prince Albert always said ‘adulteratarian.’ Dear old Albert! It seems like yesterday! But it is, of course, today. And it’s as true as daylight that this stuff tastes different. I can’t tell you what the taste is” (subdued guffaws from the outskirts of the crowd). “It’s something between the taste of your first sugar-stick and the fag-end of your father’s cigar. It’s as innocent as Heaven and as hot as hell. It tastes like a paradox. It tastes like a prehistoric inconsistency–I trust I make myself clear. The men who taste it most are the simplest men that God has made, and it always reminds them of the salt, because it is made out of sugar. Have some!”

And with a gesture of staggering hospitality, he shot out his long arm with the little glass at the end of it. The despotic curiosity in the Prussian overcame even his despotic dignity. He took a sip of the liquid, and his eyes stood out from his face.

“You’ve been mixing something with the milk,” were the first words that came to him.

“Yes,” answered Dalroy, “and so have you, unless you’re a swindler. Why is your milk advertised as different from everyone else’s milk, if you haven’t made the difference? Why does a glass of your milk cost threepence, and a glass of ordinary milk, a penny, if you haven’t put twopennorth of something into it? Now, look here, Dr. Meadows. The Public Analyst who would judge this, happens to be an honest man. I have a list of the twenty-one and a half honest men still employed in such posts. I make you a fair offer. He shall decide what it is I add to the milk, if you let him decide what it is you add to the milk. You must add something to the milk, or what can all these wheels and pumps and pulleys be for? Will you tell me, here and now, what you add to the milk which makes it so exceedingly Mountain?”