The Vortex

(August 1914)

'Thy Lord spoke by inspiration to the Bee.'

AL KORAN.

I have, to my grief and loss, suppressed several notable stories of my
friend, the Hon. A.M. Penfentenyou[8], once Minister of Woods and
Waysides in De Thouar's first administration; later, Premier in all but
name of one of Our great and growing Dominions; and now, as always, the
idol of his own Province, which is two and one-half the size of England.

[Footnote 8: See 'The Puzzler,' _Actions and Reactions_.]

For this reason I hold myself at liberty to deal with some portion of
the truth concerning Penfentenyou's latest visit to Our shores. He
arrived at my house by car, on a hot summer day, in a white waistcoat
and spats, sweeping black frock-coat and glistening top-hat--a little
rounded, perhaps, at the edges, but agile as ever in mind and body.

'What is the trouble now?' I asked, for the last time we had met,
Penfentenyou was floating a three-million pound loan for his beloved but
unscrupulous Province, and I did not wish to entertain any more of his
financial friends.

'We,' Penfentenyou replied ambassadorially, 'have come to have a Voice
in Your Councils. By the way, the Voice is coming down on the evening
train with my Agent-General. I thought you wouldn't mind if I invited
'em. You know We're going to share Your burdens henceforward. You'd
better get into training.'

'Certainly,' I replied. 'What's the Voice like?'

'He's in earnest,' said Penfentenyou. 'He's got It, and he's got It bad.
He'll give It to you,' he said.

'What's his name?'

'We call him all sorts of names, but I think you'd better call him Mr.
Lingnam. You won't have to do it more than once.'

'What's he suffering from?'

'The Empire. He's pretty nearly cured us all of Imperialism at home.
P'raps he'll cure you.'

'Very good. What am I to do with him?'

'Don't you worry,' said Penfentenyou. 'He'll do it.'

And when Mr. Lingnam appeared half-an-hour later with the Agent-General
for Penfentenyou's Dominion, he did just that.

He advanced across the lawn eloquent as all the tides. He said he had
been observing to the Agent-General that it was both politically immoral
and strategically unsound that forty-four million people should bear the
entire weight of the defences of Our mighty Empire, but, as he had
observed (here the Agent-General evaporated), we stood now upon the
threshold of a new era in which the self-governing _and_ self-respecting
(bis) Dominions would rightly and righteously, as co-partners in Empery,
shoulder their share of any burden which the Pan-Imperial Council of
the Future should allot. The Agent-General was already arranging for
drinks with