The Comedians Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘that so much courage and skill can be spent in killing our fellow-men.’
    â€˜As Presidential Candidate,’ Mrs Smith said, ‘my husband had the support of conscientious objectors throughout the state.’
    â€˜Were none of them meat-eaters?’ I asked, and it was the turn now of Mrs Smith to regard me with disappointment.
    â€˜No laughing matter,’ she said.
    â€˜It’s a fair question, dear,’ Mr Smith gently reproved her. ‘But it isn’t so strange, Mr Brown, when you think of it, that vegetarianism and conscientious objection should go together. I was telling you the other day about acidity and what effect it has on the passions. Eliminate acidity and you give a kind of elbow-room to the conscience. And the conscience, well, it wants to grow and grow and grow. So one day you refuse to have an innocent animal butchered for your pleasure, and the next – it takes you by surprise, perhaps, but you turn away in horror from killing a fellow-man. And then comes the colour question and Cuba . . . I can tell you I had the support of many theosophist groups as well.’
    â€˜The Anti-Blood Sports League too,’ Mrs Smith said. ‘Not officially, of course, as a League. But many members voted for Mr Smith.’
    â€˜With so much support . . .’ I began, ‘I’m surprised . . .’
    â€˜The progressives will always be in a minority,’ Mrs Smith said, ‘in our lifetime, but at least we made our protest.’
    And then of course the usual wearisome wrangle began. The traveller in pharmaceutical products started it – I would like to give him capital initials like those of the Presidential Candidate, for he seemed truly representative, but in his case of a baser world. As a former air-raid warden he regarded himself as a combatant. Besides, he had a grievance; his bomb reminiscences had been interrupted. ‘I can’t understand pacifists,’ he said, ‘they consent to be protected by men like us . . .’
    â€˜You do not consult us,’ Mr Smith gently corrected him.
    â€˜It’s hard for most of us to distinguish between a conscientious objector and a shirker.’
    â€˜At least they do not shirk prison,’ Mr Smith said.
    Jones came unexpectedly to his support. ‘Many served very gallantly in the Red Cross,’ he said. ‘Some of us owe our lives to them.’
    â€˜You won’t find many pacifists where you are going,’ the purser said.
    The chemist persisted, his voice high with his own grievance, ‘And what if someone attacks your wife, what then?’
    The Presidential Candidate stared down the length of the table at the stout pale unhealthy traveller and addressed him as though he were a heckler at a political meeting, with weight and gravity. ‘I have never claimed, sir, that with removal of acidity we remove all passion. If Mrs Smith were attacked and I had a weapon in my hand, I cannot promise that I would not use it. We have standards to which we do not always rise.’
    â€˜Bravo, Mr Smith,’ Jones cried.
    â€˜But I would deplore my passion, sir. I would deplore it.’
    V
    That evening I went to the purser’s cabin before dinner, I forget on what errand. I found him seated at his desk. He was blowing up a French letter till it was the size of a policeman’s truncheon. He tied the end up with ribbon and removed it from his mouth. His desk was littered with great swollen phalluses. It was like a massacre of pigs.
    â€˜Tomorrow is the ship’s concert,’ he explained to me, ‘and we have no balloons. It was Mr Jones’s idea that we should use these.’ I saw that he had decorated some of the sheaths with comic faces in coloured ink. ‘We have only one lady on board,’ he said, ‘and I do not think she will realize the nature . . .’
    â€˜You forget she is a