Gilbert Chesterton - The Flying Inn

There was a long silence, full of the same sense of submerged mirth in the mob. But the philanthropist had fallen into a naked frenzy in the sunlight, and shaking his fists aloft in a way unknown to all the English around him, he cried out:

“Ach! but I know what you add! I know what you add! It is the Alcohol! And you have no sign and you shall laugh at a magistrate.”

Dalroy, with a bow, retired to the car, removed a number of wrappings and produced the prodigious wooden sign-post of “The Old Ship,” with its blue three-decker and red St. George’s cross conspicuously displayed. This he planted on his narrow territory of turf and looked round serenely.

“In this old oak-panelled inn of mine,” he said, “I will laugh at a million magistrates. Not that there’s anything unhygienic about this inn. No low ceilings or stuffiness here. Windows open everywhere, except in the floor. And as I hear some are saying there ought always to be food sold with fermented liquor, why, my dear Dr. Meadows, I’ve got a cheese here that will make another man of you. At least, we’ll hope so. We can but try.”

But Dr. Meadows was long past being merely angry. The exhibition of the sign had put him into a serious difficulty. Like most sceptics, like even the most genuine sceptics such as Bradlaugh, he was as legal as he was sceptical. He had a profound fear, which also had in it something better than fear, of being ultimately found in the wrong in a police court or a public inquiry. And he also suffered the tragedy of all such men living in modern England; that he must always be certain to respect the law, while never being certain of what it was. He could only remember generally that Lord Ivywood, when introducing or defending the great Ivywood Act on this matter, had dwelt very strongly on the unique and significant nature of the sign. And he could not be certain that if he disregarded it altogether, he might not eventually be cast in heavy damages–or even go to prison, in spite of his success in business. Of course he knew quite well that he had a thousand answers to such nonsense: that a patch of grass in the road couldn’t be an inn; that the sign wasn’t even produced when the Captain began to hand round the rum. But he also knew quite well that in the black peril we call British law that is not the point. He had heard points quite as obvious urged to a judge and urged in vain. At the bottom of his mind he found this fact: rich as he was, Lord Ivywood had made him–and on which side would Lord Ivywood be?

“Captain,” said Humphrey Pump, speaking for the first time, “we’d better be getting away. I feel it in my bones.”

“Inhospitable innkeeper!” cried the Captain, indignantly. “And after I have gone out of the way to license your premises! Why, this is the dawn of peace in the great city of Peaceways. I don’t despair of Dr. Meadows tossing off another bumper before we’ve done. For the moment, Brother Hugby will engage.”

As he spoke, he served out milk and rum at random; and still the Doctor had too much terror of our legal technicalities to make a final interference. But when Mr. Hugby, of Hugby’s Ales, heard his name called, he first of all jumped so as almost to dislodge the silk hat, then he stood quite still. Then he accepted a glass of the new Mountain Milk; and then his very face became full of speech, before he had spoken a word.

“There’s a motor coming along the road from the far hills,” said Humphrey, quietly. “It’ll be across the last bridge down stream in ten minutes and come up on this side.”

“Well,” said the Captain, impatiently, “I suppose you’ve seen a motor before.”

“Not in this valley all this morning,” answered Pump.

“Mr. Chairman,” said Mr. Hugby, feeling a dim disposition to say “Mr. Vice,” in memory of old commercial banquets, “I’m sure we’re all law-abiding people here, and wish to remain friends, especially with our good friend the Doctor; may he never want a friend or a bottle–that is in short, anything he wants, as we go up the hill of prosperity, and so on. But, as our friend here with the sign-board seems to be within his rights, well, I think the time’s come when we can look at these things more broadly, so to speak. Now I know it’s quite true those dirty little pubs do a lot of harm to a property, and you get a lot of ignorant people there who are just like pigs; and I don’t say our friend the Doctor hasn’t done good by clearing ’em away. But a big, well-managed business with plenty of capital behind it is quite another thing. Well, friends, you all know that I was originally in the Trade; though I have, of course, left off selling under the new regulations.” Here the goats looked rather guiltily at their cloven hoofs. “But I’ve got my little bit and I wouldn’t mind putting it into this ‘Old Ship’ here, if our friend would allow it to be run on business lines. And especially if he’d enlarge the premises a bit. Ha! ha! And if our good friend, the Doctor–”

“You rascal fellow!” spluttered Meadows, “your goot friend the doctor will make you dance before a magistrate.”

“Now, don’t be unbusinesslike,” reasoned the brewer. “It won’t hurt your sales. It’s quite a different public, don’t you see? Do talk like a business man.”

“I am not a business man,” said the scientist, with fiery eyes, “I am a servant of humanity.”

“Then,” said Dalroy, “why do you never do what your master tells you?”

“The motor has crossed the river,” said Humphrey Pump.

“You would undo all my works,” cried the Doctor, with sincere passion. “When I have built this town myself, when I have made it sober and healthful myself, when I am awake and about before anyone in the town myself, watching over its interests–you would ruin all to sell your barbaric and fundamentally beastly beer. And then you call me a goot friend. I am not a goot friend!”

“That I can’t say,” growled Hugby, “but if it comes to that–aren’t you trying to sell–”

A motor car drove up with a white explosion of dust, and about six very dusty people got out of it. Even through the densest disguise of the swift motorist, Pump perceived in many of them the peculiar style and bodily carriage of the police. The most evident exception was a long and more slender figure, which, on removing its cap and goggles, disclosed the dark and drooping features of J. Leveson, Secretary. He walked across to the little, old millionaire, who instantly recognized him and shook hands. They confabulated for some little time, turning over some official documents. Dr. Meadows cleared his throat and said to the whole crowd.

“I am very glad to be able to announce to you all that this extraordinary outrage has been too late attempted. Lord Ivywood, with the promptitude he so invariably shows, has immediately communicated to places of importance such as this a most just and right alteration of the law, which exactly meets the present case.

“We shall sleep in jail tonight,” said Humphrey, Pump. “I know it in my bones.”

“It is enough to say,” proceeded the millionaire, “that by the law as it now stands, any innkeeper, even if he display a sign, is subject to imprisonment if he sells alcohol on premises where it has not been previously kept for three days.”

“I thought it would be something like that,” muttered Pump. “Shall we give up, Captain, or shall we try a bolt for it?”

Even the impudence of Dalroy appeared for the instant dazed and stilled. He was staring forlornly up into the abyss of sky above him, as if, like Shelley, he could get inspiration from the last and purest clouds and the perfect hues of the ends of Heaven.

At last he said, in a soft and meditative voice, the single syllable,