NORTH of London stretches a country called ‘The Midlands,’ filled with brick cities, all absolutely alike, but populated by natives who, through heredity, have learned not only to distinguish between them but even between the different houses; so that at meals and at evening multitudes return, without confusion or scandal, each to the proper place.

Last summer, desperate need forced me to cross that area, and I fell into a motor-licence ‘control’ which began in a market-town filled with unherded beeves carrying red numbered tickets on their rumps. An English-speaking policeman inspected my licence on a bridge, while the cattle blundered and blew round the car. A native in plain clothes lolled out an enormous mulberry-coloured tongue, with which he licked a numbered label, precisely like one of those on the behinds of the bullocks, and made to dab it on my wind-screen. I protested. ‘But it will save you trouble,’ he said. ‘You’re liable to be held up for your licence from now on. This is your protection. Everybody does it.’

‘Oh! If that’s the case —’ I began weakly.

He slapped it on the glass and I went forward — the man was right — all the cars I met were ‘protected’ as mine was — till I reached some county or other which marked the limit of the witch-doctoring, and entered, at twilight, a large-featured land where the Great North Road ran, bordered by wide way-wastes, between clumps of old timber.

Here the car, without warning, sobbed and stopped. One does not expect the make-and-break of the magneto — that tiny two-inch spring of finest steel — to fracture; and by the time we had found the trouble, night shut down on us. A rounded pile of woods ahead took one sudden star to its forehead and faded out; the way-waste melted into the darker velvet of the hedge; another star reflected itself in the glassy black of the bitumened road; and a weak moon struggled up out of a mist-patch from a valley. Our lights painted the grass unearthly greens, and the treeboles bone-white. A church clock struck eleven, as I curled up in the front seat and awaited the progress of Time and Things, with some notion of picking up a tow towards morning. It was long since I had spent a night in the open, and the hour worked on me. Time was when such nights, and the winds that heralded their dawns, had been fortunate and blessed; but those Gates, I thought, were for ever shut . . .

I diagnosed it as a baker’s van on a Ford chassis, lit with unusual extravagance. It pulled up and asked what the trouble might be. The first sentence sufficed, even had my lights not revealed the full hairless face, the horn-rimmed spectacles, the hooded boots below, and the soft hat, fashioned on no block known to the Eastern trade, above, the yellow raincoat. I explained the situation. The resources of Mr. Henry Ford’s machines did not run to spare parts of my car’s type, but — it was a beautiful night for camping-out. He himself was independent of hotels. His outfit was a caravan hired these months past for tours of Great Britain. He had been alone since his wife died, of duodenal ulcer, five years ago. Comparative Ethnology was his present study. No, not a professor, nor, indeed, ever at any College, but a ‘realtor’— a dealer in real estate in a suburb of the great and cultured centre of Omaha, Nebraska. Had I ever heard of it? I had once visited the very place and there had met an unforgettable funeral-furnisher; but I found myself (under influence of the night and my Demon) denying all knowledge of the United States. I had, I said, never left my native land; but the passion of my life had ever been the study of the fortunes and future of the U.S.A.; and to this end I had joined three Societies, each of which regularly sent me all its publications.

He jerked her on to the grass beside my car, where our mingled lights slashed across the trunks of a little wood; and I was invited into his pitch-pine-lined caravan, with its overpowering electric installation, its flap-table, typewriter, drawers and lockers below the bunk. Then he spoke, every word well-relished between massy dentures; the inky-rimmed spectacles obscuring the eyes, and the face as expressionless as the unrelated voice.

He spoke in capital letters, a few of which I have preserved, on our National Spirit, which, he had sensed, was Homogeneous and in Ethical Contact throughout — Unconscious but Vitally Existent. That was his Estimate of our Racial Complex. It was an Asset, but a Democracy postulating genuine Ideals should be more multitudinously-minded and diverse in Outlook. I assented to everything in a voice that would have drawn confidences from pillar-boxes.

He next touched on the Collective Outlook of Democracy, and thence glanced at Herd Impulse, and the counter-balancing necessity for Individual Self–Expression. Here he began to search his pockets, sighing heavily from time to time.

‘Before my wife died, sir, I was rated a one-hundred-per-cent. American. I am now — but . . . Have you ever in Our Literature read a book called The Man Without a Country? I’m him!’ He still rummaged, but there was a sawing noise behind the face.

‘And you may say, first and last, drink did it!’ he added. The noise resumed. Evidently he was laughing, so I laughed too. After all, if a man must drink, what better lair than a caravan? At his next words I repented.

‘On my return back home after her burial, I first received my Primal Urge towards Self–Expression. Till then I had never realised myself . . . Ah!’

He had found it at last in a breast pocket — a lank and knotty cigar.

‘And what, sir, is your genuine Opinion of Prohibition?’ he asked when the butt had been moistened to his liking.

‘Oh!— er! It’s a — a gallant adventure!’ I babbled, for somehow I had tuned myself to listen-in to tales of other things. He turned towards me slowly.

‘The Revelation qua Prohibition that came to me on my return back home from her funeral was not along those lines. This is the Platform I stood on.’ I became, thenceforward, one of vast crowds being addressed from that Platform.

‘There are Races, sir, which have been secluded since their origin from the microbes — the necessary and beneficent microbes — of Civ’lisation. Once those microbes are introdooced to ’em, those races re-act precisely in proportion to their previous immunity or Racial Virginity. Measles, which I’ve had twice and never laid by for, are as fatal to the Papuan as pneumonic plague to the White. Alcohol, for them, is disaster, degeneration, and death. Why? You can’t get ahead of Cause and Effect. Protect any race from its natural and God-given bacteria and you automatically create the culture for its decay, when that protection is removed. That, sir, is my Thesis.’

The unlit cigar between his lips circled slowly, but I had no desire to laugh.

‘The virgin Red Indian fell for the Firewater of the Paleface as soon as it was presented to him. For Firewater, sir, he parted with his lands, his integrity, an’ his future. What is he now? An Ethnological Survival under State Protection. You get me? Immunise, or virg’nise, the Cit’zen of the United States to alcohol, an’ you as surely redooce him to the mental status an’ outlook of that Redskin. That is the Ne-mee-sis of Prohibition. And the Process has begun, sir. Haven’t you noticed it already’— he gulped —‘among Our People?’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Men don’t always act as they preach, of course.’

‘You won’t abrade my National Complex. What’s the worst you’ve seen in connection with Our People — and Rum?’ The round lenses were full on me. I chanced it.

‘I’ve seen one of ’em on a cross-Channel boat, talking Prohibition in the bar — pretty full. He had three drinks while I listened.’

‘I thought you said you’d never quit England?’ he replied.

‘Oh, we don’t count France,’ I amended hastily.

‘Then was you ever at Monte Carlo? No? Well, I was — this spring. One of our tourist steamers unloaded three hundred of ’em at the port o’ Veel Franshe; and they went off to Monte Carlo to dine. I saw ’em, sir, come out of the dinner-hall of that vast Hotel opp’site the Cassino there, not drunk, but all — all havin’ drink taken. In that hotel lounge after that meal, I saw an elderly cit’zen up an’ kiss eight women, none of ’em specially young, sittin’ in a circle on the settees; the rest of his crowd applaudin’. Folk just shrugged their shoulders, and the French nigger on the door, I heard him say: “It’s only the Yanks tankin’ up.” It galled me. As a one-hundred-per-cent. American, it galled me unspeakably. And you’ve observed the same thing durin’ the last few years?’

I nodded. The face was working now in the yellow lights reflected from the close-buttoned raincoat. He dropped his hand on his knee and struck it again and again, before he steadied himself with the usual snap and grind of his superb dentist-work.

‘My Rev’lation qua the Peril of Prohibition was laid on me on my return back home in the hour of my affliction. I’d been discussin’ Prohibition with Mrs. Tarworth only the week before. Her best friend, sir, a neighbour of ours, had filled one of the vases in our parlour with chrysanthemums out of a bust wreath. I can’t ever smell to those flowers now ‘thout it all comin’ back. Yes, sir, in my hour of woe it was laid on me to warn my land of the Ne-mee-sis of Presumption. There’s only one Sin in the world — and that is Presumption. Without strong Presumption, sir, we’d never have fixed Prohibition the way we did . . . An’ when I retired that night I reasoned it out that there was but one weapon for me to work with to convey my message to my native land. That, sir, was the Movies. So I reasoned it. I reasoned it so-oo! Now the Movies wasn’t a business I’d ever been interested in, though a regular attendant . . . Well, sir, within ten days after I had realised the Scope an’ Imperativeness of my Rev’lation, I’d sold out an’ re-invested so’s everything was available. I quit Omaha, sir, the freest — the happiest — man in the United States.’

A puff of air from the woods licked through the open door of the caravan, trailing a wreath of mist with it. He pushed home the door.

‘So you started in on Anti–Prohibition films?’ I suggested.

‘Sir?— More! It was laid on me to feature the Murder of Immunised America by the Microbe of Modern Civ’lisation which she had presumptuously defied. That text inspired all the titling. Before I arrived at the concept of the Appeal, I was months studyin’ the Movie business in every State of Our Union, in labour and trava-il. The Complete Concept, sir, with its Potential’ties, came to me of a Sunday afternoon in Rand Park, Keokuk, Iowa — the centre of our native pearl-button industry. As a boy, sir, I used to go shell-tongin’ after mussels, in a shanty-boat on the Cumberland River, Tennessee, always hopin’ to find a thousand dollar pearl. (The shell goes to Keokuk for manufacture.) I found my pearl in Keokuk — where my Concept came to me! Excuse me!’

He pulled out a drawer of card-indexed photographs beneath the bunk, ran his long fingers down the edges, and drew out three.

The first showed the head of an elderly Red Indian chief in full war-paint, the lined lips compressed to a thread, eyes wrinkled, nostrils aflare, and the whole face lit by so naked a passion of hate that I started.

‘That,’ said Mr. Tarworth, ‘is the Spirit of the Tragedy — both of the Red Indians who initially, and of our Whites who subsequently, sold ‘emselves and their heritage for the Firewater of the Paleface. The Captions run in diapason with that note throughout. But for a Film Appeal, you must have a balanced leet-motif interwoven with the footage. Now this close-up of the Red Man I’m showin’ you, punctuates the action of the dramma. He recurs, sir, watchin’ the progressive degradation of his own people, from the advent of the Paleface with liquor, up to the extinction of his race. After that, you see him, again, more and more dominant, broodin’ over an’ rejoicin’ in the downfall of the White American artificially virg’nised against Alcohol — the identical cycle repeated. I got this shot of Him in Oklahoma, one of our Western States, where there’s a crowd of the richest Red Indians (drawin’ oil-royalties) on earth. But they’ve got a Historical Society that chases ’em into paint and feathers to keep up their race-pride, and for the Movies. He was an Episcopalian and owns a Cadillac, I was told. The sun in his eyes makes him look that way. He’s indexed as “Rum-in-the-Cup” (that’s the element of Popular Appeal), but, say ‘— the voice softened with the pride of artistry —‘ain’t He just it for my purposes?’

He passed me the second photo. The cigar rolled again and he held on:

‘Now in every Film Appeal, you must balance your leet-motif by balancin’ the Sexes. The American Women, sir, handed Prohibition to Us while our boys were away savin’ you. I know the type —‘born an’ bred with it. She watches throughout the film what She’s brought about — watches an’ watches till the final Catastrophe. She’s Woman Triumphant, balanced against Rum-in-the-Cup — the Degraded Male. I hunted the whole of the Middle West for Her in vain, ‘fore I remembered — not Jordan, but Abanna and Parphar–Mrs. Tarworth’s best friend at home. I was then in Texarkhana, Arkansas, fixin’ up a deal I’ll tell you about; but I broke for Omaha that evenin’ to get a shot of Her. When I arrived so sudden she — she — thought, I guess, I meant to make her Number Two. That’s Her. You wouldn’t realise the Type, but it’s it.’

I looked; saw the trained sweetness and unction in the otherwise hardish, ignorant eyes; the slightly open, slightly flaccid mouth; the immense unconscious arrogance, the immovable certitude of mind, and the other warning signs in the poise of the broad-cheeked head. He was fingering the third photo.

‘And when the American Woman realises the Scope an’ the Impact an’ the Irrevocability of the Catastrophe which she has created by Her Presumption, She–She registers Despair. That’s Her — at the finale.’

It was cruelty beyond justification to have pinned down any living creature in such agony of shame, anger, and impotence among life’s wreckage. And this was a well-favoured woman, her torment new-launched on her as she stood gripping the back of a stamped-velvet chair.

‘And so you went back to Texarkhana without proposing,’ I began.

‘Why, yes. There was only forty-seven minutes between trains. I told her so. But I got both shots.’

I must have caught my breath, for, as he took the photo back again, he explained: ‘In the Movie business we don’t employ the actool. ............