The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, September 1923
Impertinent Interviews
Impertinent Interviews
I. The Business Manager of The Extravaganza
I climbed the stairs and was ushered into the innermost holy of holies.
Photographs of the Saints and the Early Fathers dotted the walls, and their remains, from locks of hair to nail clippings, were strewn carelessly about in overtumbling confusion.
Hut the chef d'oeuvre hung on the wall over the bed. It was a life-like portrait of the great man himself, seated serenely in a long galley with the figurehead of a cross in its bows. Various infidels were drowning in the water or being pushed off the sides of the galley by the slaves who executed his orders. Youthful wings sprouted from his shoulders, and beneath in large gold lettering ran the legend
"Safe in the Barque of Peter,"
"It makes me feel like Shakespeare," I whispered, "you know where the lily-maid, the Lady of Shalott floats down the river to many-towered Camelot; or like G. K. Chesterton," I thought again, "where he tells about King Arthur, the noblest Roman of them all, and how the dusky barge of the three stately, black-stoled queens bore him away from Sir Bedivere to the island valley of Avilon."
"You like it," said he smilingly.
"I will," I said resolutely, forgetting for the moment, in that atmosphere of sanctity, that I was not in church and at one at my frequent marriage ceremonies.
"I mean, I do," I amended hurriedly, recovering my balance with an effort.
"I'm glad of that," he returned. "I've thought at times that it might be a trifle egotistical—but there, my usual good taste rarely fails me."
"You are an art connoisseur?" I asked humbly.
"I've heard it said so," he admitted.
"Sacred art?" I inquired more humbly still.
"Yes," he expanded, "secular art, you know, bores me stiff. Take the Extravaganza for instance. Do you think I'd have consented to take the business managership if it hadn't been for that scene in the Egyptian temple? Not on your life. Religion makes the world go round, and extravaganzas pay."
"Yes," I said, "Opah was certainly an acquisition compared with our mere temporal sovereigns like Elizabeth. And I agree with yon that religion has an effect of making things swim round—like beer taken in excess. But what is your opinion of school masters?" I interposed adroitly to switch him off before he went off into a fit of religions ecstasy.
He spluttered impotently, words failing him.
The fit of anger passed and dignified grief took its place. "We'd have given him all the money he made out of that tin pot concert and still made a profit on another performance," he said sorrowfully.
"I understand that you are grievously offended at Mr. Potter's attack on your loyalty to y on r church and your country," I angled again, avoiding the sore subject of school teachers.
For answer, he opened a Clipboard and took out a four-inch nail and a hammer, Me shut the door, locked it, drew the blind, and switched on the electric light. Then just as I was meditating crawling under the bed, he approached a curtained wardrobe and drew aside the covering, revealing to my astounded gaze a perfect likeness, a marvellously well-executed effigy in wax of Mr. V. H. Potter, M.P. There was the same lank, well-greased hair, the same thin rakish figure, the same long, lean face. Through the base of the skull was driven a poker which projected out of the back of the neck. Over the lungs and the other vital parts were driven deeply six-inch nails. And a deep gap ill the throat revealed a nail which, on the farther side of the neck, fastened the figure to the wall.
"G-r-r-r-r-r, you, g-r-r-r-r-r, g-r-r-r-r-r, growled the great man fearsomely. Then he affixed the nail in place and began hammering.
He stopped suddenly. "It's an old secret of Mother Church this," he said, "the good old way of torturing an enemy.. Father Gondringer told me about it, and asked me to give my support to his letters to the papers."
"G-r-r-r-r, you." He became absorbed in his task again.
He hammered again. Then he stopped suddenly. "I got an idea from that article of young Baume's in the last 'Spike,' he said, "the one about the Chinese tortures."
He extended the limb to me into which he was hammering the nail.
I looked—it was the hand. From the forefinger he had removed the finger nail before commencing operations.
I shrieked; the wax figure began to quiver, to tremble in abject terror, to writhe in agony. I fled from that ghastly scene in dismay. Ever since it has haunted me in my dreams, in terror-swept nightmares.
I psycho-analyse myself by revealing the matter to "The Spike,' and if I have abused confidences I can plead that the approaching onset of hysteria demanded extreme measures to pre-vent its devastating ravages on my mental health.
II. The Secretary Of The V.U.C.S.A., Etc., Etc.
He swooped down upon me as I neared his portal and seized me by the arm.
"I've been looking for you," he said, dragging me inside and peremptorily indicating a chair. "Sit down there."
His pedagogic aspect stirred in me a feeling which I had often experienced in my schooldays. I sat down.
"The public interest," he commenced, distinctly enunciating each syllable and giving particular emphasis to the sibilants, "the public interest, which I have succeeded in centering upon this College, requires that f be formally interviewed in the pages of 'The Spike ' Now, it is undesirable that such an interview be conducted in the customary haphazard manner, on account of the tendency which that method possesses of leaving the person interviewed at the mercy of the interviewer. I have therefore carefully prepared a suitable account of this interview which I desire you strictly to follow. You will start like this: 'Beyond all doubt the most able and energetic member of the local University College is the student who amalgamates in himself the varied offices of Secretary of the Debating Society, Secretary of the Students' Association, Treasurer of the Central European Students' Relief Movement, Committee 'of the Free Discussions Club——'"
I fanned myself. "Hold on a minute," I protested, "before you claim to be Registrar, Librarian, Senate, and Professorial Board, It is a little too much like Gilbert and Sullivan."
"What do you mean?" he frowned.
"'Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig, "I quoted". There is something in the 'Mikado,' I think, that also applies."
"Don't be silly," he uttered curtly. "I am merely stating facts. As I was saying when you interrupted with your ill-conditioned remark——"
"Cease your regimentation," I said sternly. "The press of this democratic country, as you must know, cannot be made a vehicle of propaganda —except at space rates. Suppose now that the 'Spike' is induced to print your eulogy—'by arrangement'—can you guarantee payment?"
He brightened. "Is that all?" he said, with a relieved air. "It happens that the Debating Society has embarked upon an energetic policy of publicity and i am in a position, therefore, to pass a resolution, here and now, that your account, whatever it is, be approved. To proceed then——"
"Wait another minute," I again interposed. "What will the committee say to this extraordinary procedure?"
"Never mind that,' he said, testily."I am the committee. I am the Debating Society. It involves no immodest claim for me to say that the proud position which that organisation holds in the public estimation to-day is entirely due to my energy and progressiveness. Who was it, may I ask, that aroused the Society from I he moribund condition into which it had relapsed through the discussion of such idle questions as 'Should Bachelors be Single-Taxed?' 'Js Honesty the Best Polities?' and so on, and gave it a Parliamentary, not to mention an International, importance? In this connection let me quote——
He turned to a cabinet wherein was a number of cards, mainly of a red colour. I seized my chance.
"Then you're the bold, bad Bolshie that they're all trying to catch?" I twitted.
He whipped round with a menacing glare in his eyes.
"An unscrupulous canard," he hurled at me, "due probably to the circumstance that the Society contains a sprinkling of ideologists who are foolish enough to place principle before politics. I would have you know that I personally possess the confidence of such diverse bodies as the Women's National Reserve and the Labour Party, not to mention innumerable members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister himself, in defense of whom I have had the honour of contributing to the Press."
"Why these autographed pictures of Lenin and Trotsky then?" I queried, pointing to the wall.
He hastily reversed them, and lo! excellent representations of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition appeared on the other sides.
"It is essential for a man of my interests to be prepared for all manner of emergencies," he comfortably explained.
"You are completely exonerated,' I said."Tell me of your other activities."
"I was coming to that," he assured me, ticking off the first paragraph of his brochure and selecting some papers from a pigeonhole. "I have here in my hand proposals for reconstructing the life of the University and placing the communal affairs of students upon an organised basis."
"Firstly, I propose to effect the abolition of the present shiftless system of College Clubs. These institutions should not be left to struggle along in meek dependence upon the wanton choice or individual whims of study-engrossed people. I propose to obtain the Council's approval of a multiple subscription which all entering the College shall be compelled to pay along with their College fee. The amount must necessarily at first be merely sufficient to provide for the present standard of requirements, but, as in the case of the College fees, it will be increased as soon as the student body has become accustomed to it."
"That will allow of some extensive advertising," I commented.
"Pre-cisely," he said. "A more important effect will be to centralise College activities in the hands of a single body, which of course must be the Stud. Ass., with myself as Secretary. The success of this arrangement will, by judicious publicity, be impressed upon the other 'Varsities, until in due course a union will be effected of all the central student bodies in the Dominion under the leadership of the initiating body."
"Glorious!" I enthused. "One Big Union!"
"I don't like the expression," he remarked, disapprovingly. "It savours too much of the democratic."
"But surely," I said, "you will not stop there. Such an influential combination should be entitled to elect a member of Parliament."
"Undoubtedly," he agreed, with a beaming smile ".As with Oxford. I am quite prepared for that inevitability. In fact, I have been assiduously preparing for some time."
"You leave nothing to chance," I suggested, admiringly.
"Nothing whatever," he said. "] have it all set out in my card indexes. This cabinet contains my proposals for next year. The larger cabinet contains my programme for the following year, and so on with the larger remaining cabinets, until a larger Cabinet still shall contain myself."
"You will not stop there?" I inquired enthusiastically. "Why not follow the example of the Y.M.C.A. and have a World Secretary."
"I am prepared for that also," he said, beaming again. "Here is my proposed itinerary. As Treasurer of the Student Relief .Movement, I shall be in an uncommonly excellent position to fulfil the duties of that office."
"Then—the League of Nations," I ventured joyously.
He maintained a modest silence.
"But how will you manage to combine duties which call for your presence in so many different parts of the world?' I thought to ask.
"The .Right Honourable the present Prime Minister achieves a certain amount of omnipresence," he enlightened me. "I shall make a special point of improving upon that rudimentary condition of things. To pass on to the next matter. . . ."
I reverently let him pass.
". . . . A certain amount of criticism will have to be encountered, of course," he said. "Now that the critical ability of the College has been awakened, measures will have to be taken to suppress it. I will not tolerate any Bolshevism. Accordingly, therefore, I propose to establish a censorship of expression in the College with a view to achieving harmony of purpose. The 'Spike' first of all must undergo restraint."
"The 'Spike'?" I murmured, with a sinking feeling.
"Of what earthly use is it at present?" he demanded. "Does it ever concern itself with the larger issues of life—such issues, for instance, as will commend it to the respectful attention of members of Parliament?"
"The Labour members read it eagerly," I mentioned feebly.
"Bah!" he ejaculated. "I mean, yes, of course. But I want it to be a mentor to the whole of our noble Legislature. It must contain political biographies, commencing with those of present Ministers of the Crown, as well as carefully-chosen extracts from Hansard. It must include original statistics—everything, in fact, which will endear it to, and create the excited support of, the Powers That Be. I have the whole of the details here on card X23/47 (6) a, and will put them into execution so soon as I obtain complete control of the journal."
"Let me out of this," I moaned, suddenly feeling faint. "Oh, child of my intellect, flower of my imagination—that I should live to see thee dragged upon the ignominious hurdle of politics! Give me some air."
"All right, but take this interview," he said, thrusting a large bundle of closely-typed sheets at me.
"No, no!" I cried, waving it away. "I did not come here for any interview. I thought I smelt gas, and I wanted to see where it was escaping."
I retreated, and he advanced upon me, pushing the book-like bundle towards my hand. ... It touched me, and I shrieked. A sternly deliberate voice smote upon my ear.
"There is no rule forbidding a student to sleep in the Library," it said, "but we strongly discourage anything in the nature of disorder. You are requested to leave the room immediately."
My heart suddenly flooded with relief, and I turned one apologetic glance upon the dear old scholar who stood over me—then dived madly for the door.
III. The Editor of "The Spike"
As might be expected, the office of the "Spike" was situated in a remote corner of the basement. Evading a couple of sinister-looking individuals who were obviously watching the College on behalf of the Police Department, I penetrated to the sanctum sanctorum. The furnishing was poor: it consisted of a chair and a table, the latter quite empty save for the feet of a diminutive fellow occupying the chair. The table impressed me as being symbolic of the "Spike"; why, I could not tell. I interrupted the boy in his meditations.
"Boss in" I queried.
"Meaning?" he countered, nonchalantly.
"His Puissance the Editor," I informed him.
"I am it—I mean, him," he said, drawing himself up. . . . Well, well, I had expected a Wallace, or a McRae, perhaps even a Bobby Martin-Smith—but a Napoleon! I recovered myself and sat humbly upon the portion of the floor he indicated to me.
"You have come to interview me," he observed, placing the tips of his fingers together in a characteristically parsonical manner and beaming benevolence upon me. "They all do. The Prof. Board interviews me. The Stud. Ass. interviews me. And why not, may I ask ? None are too old to learn—or too young. So fire away."
"You are very busy?" I commenced.
"Exceptionally so," he stated without a blush, comprehending the table with a sweep of his arm. Now, what was it about that table that so suggested the "Spike"? Its emptiness.?
"Literary inspiration," he explained, "is always at its peak about the time when coming exams cast their shadows before. I am entirely submerged then."
"I don't see it," I murmured.
"Very likely not," he conceded. "But you must know that in the darkest hour men yearn most for the light. The intellectual energy which oversleeps itself well into the second term is 'startled into hideous life,' as the poet expresses it, in the third, and then seeks to overleap itself. Mil the spring of a young man's fancy'— how does the dear old hymn go? I remember reading' it quite recently in the pages of a Sydney Varsity journal. 'Fondly turns to thoughts of—'"
"Tramping Clubs," I supplied. "But you fail to appreciate the direction of my doubt. Let me explain. In my youth I studied Evidence; indeed, I studied it under a master, no less than your predecessor, lesser-Professor Wiren...."
At the sound of that name he sprang to his feet. I followed Suit, and we stood in reverent silence for the space of two minutes. Great Arch! Keystone of Sapience and Erudition! What thought, however taking, could add one cubit to that stature? Solemnly we reseated ourselves.
". . . . and," I went on, after a decent interval, "the incredibly exhaustive acquaintance you may be sure I gained with the intricacies of that serried subject fails to recall to me any principle whatever which will give probative value to the association of an exceptionally busy editor with in absolutely empty table."
I passed to recharge my lungs. When one has lost touch with the Debating Society, one quickly loses the ability to speak lengthily upon an empty lung (to mention lungs only). Looking at the table again, I was reminded of the "Spike" more than ever. The Editor gazed upon it with a sombre flicker in his eye.
"This; table," he said morosely, "is reserved for the use of members of the staff only. That is to say, it is not for use at all. Its destiny, I fear, is, as with certain other famous tables, to be broken before it is given to the world. It is an holy table."
His brooding manner as suddenly left him, and a Bolshevik light glowed in his eyes.
"What are tables to us who know?" he passionately demanded, "who scorn dependence upon adventitious materialities and live in a realm of pure thought—aye, even of pure verse? We are the thinkers, the dreamers! Ours not the world of four-legged conveniences or of two-legged inconveniences; ours rather a world of ideal constructions, of millenial designs—a world reconstituted by intellection, a universe dragged from the darkness of night into the brightness of day...."
"Not to mention a University," I interposed.
"You are only too right," he acknowledged with sadness. "The night may be filled with laughter, but it is the laughter of a linnet singing upon a blackened bough in hell."
("Holy -Moses!" I murmured to the table.)
"This battered caravanserai, this fly-by-night Victoria, this ignis fatuus which we pursue in evening glooms—where does it lead us but into the sloughs and wildernesses of carnal commercialism? We must pierce a way through the deadly murk and flood the future with the sun's effulgence, where under to garner wisdom in happy leisure instead of breathlessly and broken-windedly in the flickering; glimmer of a glorified night-school!"
"Where have you been hearing it glorified?" I desired to know, for I am not only a reader of newspapers but an observer of the modern student as well.
"When the great desideratum has come to pass," he continued, quelling me with a frightful look, "that day shall see our idol no longer a dull, drab, red-eyed thing sprawled upon a clogging clay, but a giant awakened from sleep and working while it is yet day, a scarlet city set upon a golden hill, for all men to lift their eyes to and not merely look askance at. Then shall it truly be a hive of lore and learning, wherein innumerable B.A.'s shall work like bees to stove the comb of scholarship with the honey of all the ages instead of all the money of this. The library shall be a wing the laboratory shall hum with life...."
"And not with dog fish," I yawned. It was wearying stuff to listen to. "Do you really believe the Bolshies will do all that?"
He came to earth. "What organisation are you spying for?" he demanded, truculently.
"The Debating Society, perhaps," I said. "You know its motto, to try all things...."
".... and hold fast to that which pays," he added, sardonically. "Well, it doesn't pay.] was talking to the Well fired League only the other day, and he told me that he had carefully examined the constitution of the Debating Society and was convinced that it aimed at nothing less than the subversion of everything that was fundamental—the League of Nations, the Boy Scouts, the Faseisti, the Yellow Peril, the Rotary Club, and many other organisations too numerous to mention but all qualified for admittance to participation in the process of subversion."
"Horrible," I murmured sympathetically. "Did he offer to explain what he meant by subversion?"
"He'd forgotten for the moment what shade of meaning it was to bear in this case," explained the Editor, "but he assured me that the Society must be pretty bad to merit the application of such a term. For my part, all I can say is that if those terrible infants would only give up their annoying determination to right the world and write the 'Spike' instead, the 'Spike' would be read."
"I'm sure of it," I said. "But why not reduce the price?"
"What would you have me charge?" he inquired, cautiously.
"The 'Worker' charges three pence," I suggested.
"The 'Worker' is worth that," he responded gloomily. "Let us change the subject."
"Well, then," I said, preparing to fix my attention upon that intriguing table, "suppose you tell the world something about the features of the forthcoming issue."
"With all my heart," said he, brightening. "Allowing for adventitious misprints, which occur only when the ignorance of the compositor equals that of the contributor, you may expect the following:
"First, the well-known List of Contents which cunningly conceals the character and quality of the issue and sends the lazy purchaser to the interior of the journal for enlightenment. Next, a thirty-page editorial upon the subject of 'The Ornamental Character of a Divine Discontent,' written and composed wholly by myself, commencing with an anthology of quotations from authorities unknown to the ignorant multitude, and ending similarly—a novel extension to the editorial of the principle underlying that great work, 'Half-hours with the Best Authors.'"
"This will be followed by such of my poetic efforts as can be spared by the 'Bulletin,' 'London Mercury,' etc., etc. I am able to guarantee that it will be ample in quantity, however. The themes will be provocative and amorous—some even imaginative."
"After this there will be some convulsively amusing compositions of my own which I warrant will capture the thrilled attention of the most case-hardened Professorial Board. A novel feature will be a list of the tines imposed by that august body in pursuance of its recently-introduced and ingenious Scheme for Combining the Suppression of Disorder among Students with the Improvement of College Finances. If practicable, the issue will be rounded off with a few Club notes and reports of College activities (which of course do not include anything of a scholastic nature). There is nothing of either literary or artistic value in these last, but one must concede something to the vast body of students whose interests are purely physical. I refuse, however, to publish any Answers to Correspondents, The 'Spike' is not the 'Ladies' Mirror1! That is all, I think."
"You have not mentioned any contributors to the 'Spike' besides yourself," I hinted.
"There are none,' he said. "Well, if you insist—a few. but of doubtful genius, if I may say so. For instance, there is G. G. G. Watson, who submits a piece of sickly sentimentality to which he attaches the ludicrous title 'The Poetry of Procedure.' I could swallow what he terms his 'soul-expressions,' but his Procedure! . . . He is young yet, however, which is more than can be said of S. E, Baume and his 'Opium Pipes of Pan Van.' It makes my head rock to think where on earth he manages to collect all this Chinese junk! K. M. Griffin's tramping sketch 'Roaming with Borneo' would be almost comic relief if it were not so unconvincing. W. J. G. Davidson's 'War— What Ho!' does not suffer from that fault, for the simple reason that it is avowedly flippant. But the author is a man of very indefinite ideas and much addicted to rail-sitting. 'The Parish Pump,' by F Height, now, is a very thoughtful piece, as one might expect, but it is ruined by the spirit of diffidence which is its prevailing note. Charles Pope on 'Don Q.' shows promise. His second attempt at literary work should be quite readable. . . . But I will not weary you with any more of these painful amateurs."
"Whatever their faults, they should help to pad out the issue," I opined.
"They one and all went into the w.p.b.," he said shortly. "As I explained, there was matter enough. If however, you would care to. ..." He eyed me expectantly.
"Thanks," I said, feeling hurt by the suggestion, "but I send all my stuff to the 'Free Lance.'"
"I should have guessed that," he returned. "Well, good day to you. I am very busy. Don't bang the door."
He put his feet back on the table as I went out. . . . That table? I know now why it so reminded me of the "Spike."
It was wooden, of course.