However, there are occasions when left and right may join together to defeat the machinations of the centre, and both will, given a chance, cite the same general principles—preservation of the landscape, individual liberty and various other meaningless phrases designed to cover personal interest with a high-sounding mess of platitudes. When one is really furious about something, there is always some principle which one can use to gain the support of all those men and women who regard themselves as right-thinking. For sheer political humbug I don’t think the British can be beaten.
When we’d sat down at a table with our beer, and when Sam had stopped raising his eyebrows at me behind Hobson’s back, I said: ‘It’s a sign of the times, Brigadier.’ He failed to see the joke, so I said: ‘A bad business, Brigadier, a bad business.’ It’s one of my favourite phrases when talking to the protagonist of a particularly ridiculous row.
Hobson looked at me and snorted. ‘Bad? It’s absolutely monstrous!’ Then he lowered his voice and leaned across the table towards me, trailing, I noticed with detached delight, his cuff in a beer puddle. ‘I say, Drysdale,’ he said, ‘do you mind if I ask you rather a ticklish question?’
I felt like saying ‘No’, for the sheer hell of it, and in remembranceof our past differences, but since I was, on the whole, on his side, and in any case wanted to know what kind of question he thought ticklish, I said: ‘Of course, Brigadier, anything you like.’
‘This fellow Solomons—is he—you know?’
‘I don’t quite follow your question, Brigadier.’
He blushed, for which I suppose I ought to give him credit, and then he cleared his throat and said: ‘I mean—is he—you know—one of the tribe?’
‘Do you mean,’ I said, raising my voice, and enjoying myself watching him blush still more, ‘is he Jewish?’
He nodded and coughed.
Now if there’s one thing to which I am unalterably opposed it is racial prejudice of any kind, including any prejudice against my own mongrel breed, and if it had been anyone other than Hobson I might have got extremely angry. But since it was Hobson, and since it gave me yet another argument against him, for which I might later be grateful, I was only moderately angry. I didn’t, you see, expect our alliance to last. However, I held him in suspense for a moment or two, then I shook my head and said: ‘No, Brigadier. Jack Solomons is every bit as British as you or I.’
Hobson winced. He drank his beer and wiped his moustache. ‘Hmm. Name sounds Jewish.’
Well, I don’t know or care about anyone’s antecedents, and how can one be certain about a thing like that? It’s my own private belief that there will be no peace and quiet in the world until every man, woman and child is a complete racial stew, with fair hair, slanted eyes, black skin, hooked nose and aboriginal sin. And I also suspect that anyone who calls himself English is, as likely as not, fortunate not to know who his great-grandparents were. We all, I hope, have a little bit of foreign matter in us somewhere. Way back, perhaps, but somewhere.
So I said: ‘There’s no doubt about it, Brigadier. I knew his father and mother, and two more English people it would be impossible to find.’
‘Pity,’ said Hobson. Then he realized he shouldn’t have said it, and asked me if I’d have another.
So we had another, and this time he spoke at great length about the perfidy, treason, tastelessness and general caddishness of Jack Solomons.
‘It’s not,’ he said, ‘merely that this frightful thing is next to my own property, though I find that particularly offensive. It’s the whole question of saving the English landscape from vandals. I rang up the Council for the Preservation of Rural England this morning. Tommy Doyle has something to do with it. Entirely on my side, of course, entirely. He’s going to look into it. See what he can do. And then these things
When we’d sat down at a table with our beer, and when Sam had stopped raising his eyebrows at me behind Hobson’s back, I said: ‘It’s a sign of the times, Brigadier.’ He failed to see the joke, so I said: ‘A bad business, Brigadier, a bad business.’ It’s one of my favourite phrases when talking to the protagonist of a particularly ridiculous row.
Hobson looked at me and snorted. ‘Bad? It’s absolutely monstrous!’ Then he lowered his voice and leaned across the table towards me, trailing, I noticed with detached delight, his cuff in a beer puddle. ‘I say, Drysdale,’ he said, ‘do you mind if I ask you rather a ticklish question?’
I felt like saying ‘No’, for the sheer hell of it, and in remembranceof our past differences, but since I was, on the whole, on his side, and in any case wanted to know what kind of question he thought ticklish, I said: ‘Of course, Brigadier, anything you like.’
‘This fellow Solomons—is he—you know?’
‘I don’t quite follow your question, Brigadier.’
He blushed, for which I suppose I ought to give him credit, and then he cleared his throat and said: ‘I mean—is he—you know—one of the tribe?’
‘Do you mean,’ I said, raising my voice, and enjoying myself watching him blush still more, ‘is he Jewish?’
He nodded and coughed.
Now if there’s one thing to which I am unalterably opposed it is racial prejudice of any kind, including any prejudice against my own mongrel breed, and if it had been anyone other than Hobson I might have got extremely angry. But since it was Hobson, and since it gave me yet another argument against him, for which I might later be grateful, I was only moderately angry. I didn’t, you see, expect our alliance to last. However, I held him in suspense for a moment or two, then I shook my head and said: ‘No, Brigadier. Jack Solomons is every bit as British as you or I.’
Hobson winced. He drank his beer and wiped his moustache. ‘Hmm. Name sounds Jewish.’
Well, I don’t know or care about anyone’s antecedents, and how can one be certain about a thing like that? It’s my own private belief that there will be no peace and quiet in the world until every man, woman and child is a complete racial stew, with fair hair, slanted eyes, black skin, hooked nose and aboriginal sin. And I also suspect that anyone who calls himself English is, as likely as not, fortunate not to know who his great-grandparents were. We all, I hope, have a little bit of foreign matter in us somewhere. Way back, perhaps, but somewhere.
So I said: ‘There’s no doubt about it, Brigadier. I knew his father and mother, and two more English people it would be impossible to find.’
‘Pity,’ said Hobson. Then he realized he shouldn’t have said it, and asked me if I’d have another.
So we had another, and this time he spoke at great length about the perfidy, treason, tastelessness and general caddishness of Jack Solomons.
‘It’s not,’ he said, ‘merely that this frightful thing is next to my own property, though I find that particularly offensive. It’s the whole question of saving the English landscape from vandals. I rang up the Council for the Preservation of Rural England this morning. Tommy Doyle has something to do with it. Entirely on my side, of course, entirely. He’s going to look into it. See what he can do. And then these things
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