I looked at my friend the brigadier for an explanation. After running his eye over the articles in the journals, the latter smiled, and cast a look of commiseration at our colleague.

"You have certainly committed a grave fault here, my friend," he said, "and one that is seldom forgiven in Leaplow--perhaps I might say never, during the occultation of the great moral postulate, as happens to be the case at present."

"Tell me my sins at once, brigadier," cried Noah, with the look of a martyr, "and put me out of pain."

"You have forgotten to display a motive for your stand during the late hot discussion; and, as a matter of course, the community ascribes the worst that monikin ingenuity can devise. Such an oversight would ruin even a G.o.d-like!"

"But, my dear Mr. Downright," I kindly interposed, "our colleague, in this instance, is supposed to have acted on principle."

The brigadier looked up, turning his nose into the air, like a pup that has not yet opened its eyes, and then intimated that he could not see the quality I had named, it being obscured by the pa.s.sage of the orb of Pecuniary Interest before its disc. I now began to comprehend the case, which really was much more grave than, at first, I could have believed possible. Noah himself seemed staggered; for, I believe, he had fallen on the simple and natural expedient of inquiring what he himself would have thought of the conduct of a colleague who had given a vote on a subject so weighty, without exposing a motive.

"Had the captain owned but a foot square of earth, at the end of the causeway," observed the brigadier, mournfully, "the matter might be cleared up; but as things are, it is beyond dispute, a most unfortunate occurrence."

"But Sir John voted with me, and he is no more a free-holder in Leaplow, than I am myself."

"True; but Sir John voted with the bulk of his political friends."

"All the Horizontals were not in the majority; for at least twenty went, on this occasion, with the minority."

"Undeniable--yet every monikin of them had a visible motive. This owned a lot by the wayside; that had houses on the island, and another was the heir of a great proprietor at the same point of the road. Each and all had their distinct and positive interests at stake, and not one of them was guilty of so great a weakness as to leave his cause to be defended by the extravagant pretension of mere principle!"

"My G.o.d-like, the greatest of all the Riddles, absented himself, and did not vote at all."

"Simply because he had no good ground to justify any course he might take. No public monikin can expect to escape censure, if he fail to put his friends, in the way of citing some plausible and intelligible motive for his conduct."

"How, sir! cannot a man, once in his life, do an act without being bought like a horse or a dog, and escape with an inch of character?"

"I shall not take upon myself to say what MEN can do," returned the brigadier; "no doubt they manage this affair better than it is managed here; but, so far as monikins are concerned, there is no course more certain to involve a total loss of character--I may say so destructive to reputation even for intellect--as to act without a good, apparent, and substantial MOTIVE."

"In the name of G.o.d, what is to be done, brigadier?"

"I see no other course than to resign. Your const.i.tuents must very naturally have lost all confidence in you; for one who so very obviously neglects his own interests, it cannot be supposed will be very tenacious about protecting the interests of others. If you would escape with the little character that is left, you will forthwith resign. I do not perceive the smallest chance for you by going through gyration No. 4, both public opinions uniformly condemning the monikin who acts without a pretty obvious, as well as a pretty weighty motive."

Noah made a merit of necessity; and, after some further deliberation between us, he signed his name to the following letter to the speaker, which was drawn up on the spot, by the brigadier.

"Mr. Speaker:--The state of my health obliges me to return the high political trust which has been confided to me by the citizens of Bivouac, into the hands from which it was received. In tendering my resignation, I wish to express the great regret with which I part from colleagues so every way worthy of profound respect and esteem, and I beg you to a.s.sure them, that wherever fate may hereafter lead me, I shall ever retain the deepest regard for every honorable member with whom it has been my good fortune to serve. The emigrant interest, in particular, will ever be the nearest and dearest to my heart." Signed,

"NOAH POKE."

The captain did not affix his name to this letter without many heavy sighs, and divers throes of ambition; for even a mistaken politician yields to necessity with regret. Having changed the word emigrant to that of "immigrunt," however, he put as good a face as possible on the matter, and wrote the fatal signature. He then left the house, declaring he didn't so much begrudge his successor the pay, as nothing but nuts were to be had with the money; and that, as for himself, he felt as sneaking as he believed was the case with Nebuchadnezzar, when he was compelled to get down on all-fours, and eat gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XXIX. SOME EXPLANATIONS--A HUMAN APPEt.i.tE--A DINNER AND A BONNE BOUCHE.

The brigadier and myself remained behind to discuss the general bearings of this unexpected event.

"Your rigid demand for motives, my good sir," I remarked, "reduces the Leaplow political morality very much, after all, to the level of the social-stake system of our part of the world."

"They both depend on the crutch of personal Interests, it is true; though there is, between them, the difference of the interests of a part and of the interests of the whole."

"And could a part act less commendably than the whole appear to have acted in this instance?"

"You forget that Leaplow, just at this moment, is under a moral eclipse.

I shall not say that these eclipses do not occur often, but they occur quite as frequently in other parts of the region, as they occur here.

We have three great modes of controlling monikin affairs, viz., the one, the few, and the many--"

"Precisely the same cla.s.sification exists among men!" I interrupted.

"Some of our improvements are reflected backward; twilight following as well as preceding the pa.s.sage of the sun," quite coolly returned the brigadier. "We think that the many come nearest to balancing the evil, although we are far from believing even them to be immaculate. Admitting that the tendencies to wrong are equal in the three systems (which we do not, however, for we think our own has the least), it is contended that the many escape one great source of oppression and injustice, by escaping the onerous provisions which physical weakness is compelled to make, in order to protect itself against physical strength."

"This is reversing a very prevalent opinion among men, sir, who usually maintain that the tyranny of the many is the worst sort of all tyrannies."

"This opinion has got abroad simply because the lion has not been permitted to draw his own picture. As cruelty is commonly the concomitant of cowardice, so is oppression nine times out of ten the result of weakness. It is natural for the few to dread the many, while it is not natural for the many to dread the few. Then, under inst.i.tutions in which the many rule, certain great principles that are founded on natural justice, as a matter of course, are openly recognized; and it is rare, indeed, that they do not, more or less, influence the public acts. On the other hand, the control of a few requires that these same truths should be either mystified or entirely smothered: and the consequence is injustice."

"But, admitting all your maxims, brigadier, as regards the few and the many, you must yourself allow that here, in your beloved Leaplow itself, monikins consult their own interests; and this, after all, is acting on the fundamental principle of the great European social-stake system."

"Meaning that the goods of the world ought to be the test of political power. By the sad confusion which exists among us, at this moment, Sir John, you must perceive that we are not exactly under the most salutary of all possible influences. I take it that the great desideratum of society is to be governed by certain great moral truths. The inferences and corollaries of these truths are principles, which come of heaven.

Now, agreeably to the monikin dogmas, the love of money is 'of the earth, earthy'; and, at the first blush, it would not seem to be quite safe to receive such an inducement as the governing motive of one monikin, and, by a pretty fair induction, it would seem to be equally unwise to admit it for a good many. You will remember, also, that when none but the rich have authority, they control not only their own property, but that of others who have less. Your principle supposes, that in taking care of his own, the elector of wealth must take care of what belongs to the rest of the community; but our experience shows that a monikin can be particularly careful of himself, and singularly negligent of his neighbor. Therefore do we hold that money is a bad foundation for power."

"You unsettle everything, brigadier, without finding a subst.i.tute."

"Simply because it is easy to unsettle everything and very difficult to find subst.i.tutes. But, as respects the base of society, I merely doubt the wisdom of setting up a qualification that we all know depends on an unsound principle. I much fear, Sir John, that, so long as monikins are monikins, we shall never be quite perfect; and as to your social-stake system, I am of opinion that as society is composed of all, it may be well to hear what all have to say about its management."

"Many men, and, I dare say, many monikins, are not to be trusted even with the management of their own concerns."

"Very true; but it does not follow that other men, or other monikins, will lose sight of their own interests on this account, if vested with the right to act as their subst.i.tutes. You have been long enough a legislator, now, to have got some idea how difficult it is to make even a direct and responsible representative respect entirely the interests and wishes of his const.i.tuents; and the fact will show you how little he will be likely to think of others, who believes that he acts as their master and not as their servant."

"The amount of all this, brigadier, is that you have little faith in monikin disinterestedness, in any shape; that you believe he who is intrusted with power will abuse it; and therefore, you choose to divide the trust, in order to divide the abuses; that the love of money is an 'earthy' quality, and not to be confided in as the controlling power of a state; and, finally, that the social-stake system is radically wrong, inasmuch as it is no more than carrying out a principle that is in itself defective."

My companion gaped, like one content to leave the matter there. I wished him a good morning, and walked upstairs in quest of Noah, whose carnivorous looks had given me considerable uneasiness. The captain was out; and, after searching for him in the streets for an hour or two, I returned to our abode fatigued and hungry.

At no great distance from our own door, I met Judge People's Friend, shorn and dejected, and I stopped to say a kind word, before going up the ladder. It was quite impossible to see a gentleman, whom one had met in good society and in better fortunes, with every hair shaved from his body, his apology for a tail still sore from its recent amputation, and his entire mien expressive of republican humility, without a desire to condole with him. I expressed my regrets, therefore, as succinctly as possible, encouraging him with the hope of seeing a new covering of down before long, but delicately abstaining from any allusion to the cauda, whose loss I knew was irretrievable. To my great surprise, however, the judge answered cheerfully; discarding, for the moment, every appearance of self-abas.e.m.e.nt and mortification.

"How is this?" I cried; "you are not then miserable?"

"Very far from it, Sir John--I never was in better spirits, or had better prospects, in my life."

I remembered the extraordinary manner in which the brigadier had saved Noah's head, and was fully resolved not to be astonished at any manifestation of monikin ingenuity. Still I could not forbear demanding an explanation.

"Why, it may seem odd to you, Sir John, to find a politician, who is apparently in the depths of despair, really on the eve of a glorious preferment. Such, however, is in fact my case. In Leaplow, humility is everything. The monikin who will take care and repeat sufficiently often that he is just the poorest devil going, that he is absolutely unfit for even the meanest employment in the land, and in other respects ought to be hooted out of society, may very safely consider himself in a fair way to be elevated to some of the dignities he declares himself the least fitted to fill."

"In such a case, all he will have to do then, will be to make his choice, and denounce himself loudest touching his especial disqualifications for that very station?"

"You are apt, Sir John, and would succeed, if you would only consent to remain among us!" said the judge, winking.