Gilbert Chesterton: The Flying Inn

“DEAR HUMP–

“I’m so bothered that I simply must call you by the old name again. You understand I’ve got to keep in with my people. Lord Ivywood is a sort of cousin of mine, and for that and some other reasons, my poor old mother would just die if I offended him. You know her heart is weak; you know everything there is to know in this county. Well, I only write to warn you that something is going to be done against your dear old inn. I don’t know what this Country’s coming to. Only a month or two ago I saw a shabby old pantaloon on the beach with a green gamp, talking the craziest stuff you ever heard in your life. Three weeks ago I heard he was lecturing at Ethical Societies–whatever they are–for a handsome salary. Well, when I was last at Ivywood–I must go because Mamma likes it–there was the living lunatic again, in evening dress, and talked about by people who really know . I mean who know better.

“Lord Ivywood is entirely under his influence and thinks him the greatest prophet the world has ever seen. And Lord Ivywood is not a fool; one can’t help admiring him. Mamma, I think, wants me to do more than admire him. I am telling you everything, Hump, because I think perhaps this is the last honest letter I shall ever write in the world. And I warn you seriously that Lord Ivywood is sincere , which is perfectly terrible. He will be the biggest English statesman, and he does really mean to ruin–the old ships. If ever you see me here again taking part in such work, I hope you may forgive me.

“Somebody we mentioned, whom I shall never see again, I leave to your friendship. It is the second best thing I can give, and I am not sure it may not be better than the first would have been. Goodbye.

J. B.”

This letter seemed to distress Mr. Pump rather than puzzle him. It ran as follows:

“SIR–

“The Committee of the Imperial Commission of Liquor Control is directed to draw your attention to the fact you have disregarded the Committee’s communications under section 5A of the Act for the Regulation of Places of Public Entertainment; and that you are now under Section 47C of the Act amending the Act for the Regulation of Places of Public Entertainment aforesaid. The charges on which prosecution will be founded are as follows:

“(1) Violation of sub-section 23 f of the Act, which enacts that no pictorial signs shall be exhibited before premises of less than the ratable value of Ј2000 per annum.

“(2) Violation of sub-section 113 d of the Act, which enacts that no liquor containing alcohol shall be sold in any inn, hotel, tavern or public-house, except when demanded under a medical certificate from one of the doctors licensed by the State Medical Council, or in the specially excepted cases of Claridge’s Hotel and the Criterion Bar, where urgency has already been proved.

“As you have failed to acknowledge previous communications on this subject, this is to warn you that legal steps will be taken immediately,

“We are yours truly,

“IVYWOOD, President. J. LEVESON, Secretary.”

Mr. Humphrey Pump sat down at the table outside his inn and whistled in a way which, combined with his little whiskers made him for the moment seem literally like an ostler. Then, the very real wit and learning he had returned slowly into his face and with his warm, brown eyes he considered the cold, grey sea. There was not much to be got out of the sea. Humphrey Pump might drown himself in the sea; which would be better for Humphrey Pump than being finally separated from “The Old Ship.” England might be sunk under the sea; which would be better for England than never again having such places as “The Old Ship.” But these were not serious remedies nor rationally attainable; and Pump could only feel that the sea had simply warped him as it had warped his apple trees. The sea was a dreary business altogether. There was only one figure walking on the sands. It was only when the figure drew nearer and nearer and grew to more than human size, that he sprang to his feet with a cry. Also the level light of morning lit the man’s hair, and it was red.

The late King of Ithaca came casually and slowly up the slope of the beach that led to “The Old Ship.” He had landed in a boat from a battleship that could still be seen near the horizon, and he still wore the astounding uniform of apple-green and silver which he had himself invented as that of a navy that had never existed very much, and which now did not exist at all. He had a straight naval sword at his side; for the terms of his capitulation had never required him to surrender it; and inside the uniform and beside the sword there was what there always had been, a big and rather bewildered man with rough red hair, whose misfortune was that he had good brains, but that his bodily strength and bodily passions were a little too strong for his brains.

He had flung his crashing weight on the chair outside the inn before the innkeeper could find words to express his astounded pleasure in seeing him. His first words were “have you got any rum?”

Then, as if feeling that his attitude needed explanation, he added, “I suppose I shall never be a sailor again after tonight. So I must have rum.”

Humphrey Pump had a talent for friendship, and understood his old friend. He went into the inn without a word; and came back idly pushing or rolling with an alternate foot (as if he were playing football with two footballs at once) two objects that rolled very easily. One was a big keg or barrel of rum and the other a great solid drum of a cheese. Among his thousand other technical tricks he had a way of tapping a cask without a tap, or anything that could impair its revolutionary or revolving qualities. He was feeling in his pocket for the instrument with which he solved such questions, when his Irish friend suddenly sat bolt upright, as one startled out of sleep, and spoke with his strongest and most unusual brogue.

“Oh thank ye, Hump, a thousand times; and I don’t think I really want something to drink at arl. Now I know I can have it, I don’t seem to want it at arl. But hwhat I do want–” and he suddenly dashed his big fist on the little table so that one of its legs leapt and nearly snapped–“hwhat I do want is some sort of account of what’s happening in this England of yours that shan’t be just obviously rubbish.”

“Ah,” said Pump, fingering the two letters thoughtfully. “And what do you mean by rubbish?”

“I carl it rubbish” cried Patrick Dalroy, “when ye put the Koran into the Bible and not the Apocrypha; and I carl it rubbish when a mad parson’s allowed to propose to put a crescent on St. Paul’s Cathedral. I know the Turks are our allies now, but they often were before, and I never heard that Palmerston or Colin Campbell had any truck with such trash.”

“Lord Ivywood is very enthusiastic, I know,” said Pump, with a restrained amusement. “He was saying only the other day at the Flower Show here that the time had come for a full unity between Christianity and Islam.”

“Something called Chrislam perhaps,” said the Irishman, with a moody eye. He was gazing across the grey and purple woodlands that stretched below them at the back of the inn; and into which the steep, white road swept downwards and disappeared. The steep road looked like the beginning of an adventure; and he was an adventurer.

“But you exaggerate, you know,” went on Pump, polishing his gun, “about the crescent on St. Paul’s. It wasn’t exactly that. What Dr. Moole suggested, I think, was some sort of double emblem, you know, combining cross and crescent.”

“And carled the Crescent,” muttered Dalroy.

“And you can’t call Dr. Moole a parson either,” went on Mr. Humphrey Pump, polishing industriously. “Why, they say he’s a sort of atheist, or what they call an agnostic, like Squire Brunton who used to bite elm trees by Marley. The grand folks have these fashions, Captain, but they’ve never lasted long that I know of.”

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