Chapter VII.

       A Meccanian Apostle

       Table of Contents

      It was a week or two after my visit to the Mechow Museum that I made the acquaintance of one of the Foreign Observers who was staying at the hotel. A day or two before, I had been sent for by the Hotel Manager, and had been presented with a small certificate authorising me to take my meals in the common dining-room, and to converse with other foreigners whose names I was instructed to enter in my diary. I had previously noticed a certain gentleman from Luniland whose face seemed familiar to me. On this particular evening he came across to my table and introduced himself as Mr. Johnson, a friend of Mr. Yorke, in whose house I had stayed and where he had met me. We soon fell into conversation, and when dinner was over we retired for a long chat to a corner of the smoke-room. It appeared that he had been in Mecco over a year, and had travelled also in various parts of the country. In fact, this was his second visit, he said, his first having been made a few years before. He was a man of about forty-five, tall and slim, with a rather large bony nose and a grave but kindly expression. His manner was quiet and dignified, and at first he spoke with a certain obvious restraint; but afterwards he became more genial and was rather humorous, after the manner of many of his countrymen.

      “I should rather like to ask what you think of this country, but it would hardly be fair, because the chances are that every word we say here is overheard. I always suspect they have one of those beastly contrivances fixed in the walls, to enable the manager or somebody representing the Authorities to listen to everything that goes on. I don’t much mind if they turn me out of their precious country, but I wouldn’t like to get you into trouble. Anyhow, I believe if we were to begin talking in my language, which I remember you speak very well, we should presently have somebody round reminding us that it is against the rules.”

      “Yet you have spent quite a long time in the country apparently,” I remarked. “I have really been wondering whether to stay here much longer, and perhaps you could give me some tips if I decide to stay.”

      “Well,” he replied, “it’s just a matter of taste whether you like the country. I shouldn’t be able to stand it but for one thing.”

      “And what is that?” I asked.

      “It enables me to thank God every hour that I am not a Meccanian.”

      “Yes,” I said, “there’s something in that. I myself object to some of the inconveniences that these numerous regulations about everything entail, but they are nothing, I suppose, compared with what it would feel like if one expected to spend one’s life here.”

      “It’s just possible they really like it. But what sort of ‘tips’ were you thinking of? Perhaps I know the ropes a little better than you, if you have been here only a month or two.”

      “Well, there are two things I would like to know,” I replied. “I am rather tired of being ‘conducted’ about everywhere. That’s the first. And I want to get to know individual people as I did in Luniland. Here, so far, I have met only officials, always on duty. It seems impossible to get into contact with real live people. Until lately, as you know, I was forbidden to talk to the people staying in the hotel; but now that I have got over that difficulty, although, no doubt, I can pick up a certain amount of information from my fellow Foreign Observers and enjoy their conversation, I am no nearer getting to know the Meccanian private citizens themselves.”

      “And do you particularly want to know them?” asked Mr. Johnson.

      “One naturally wants to know what the people of any country are like, and unless one has some fairly intimate intercourse of a social kind with people of different ranks and types, one might almost as well stay at home and read the matter up in books,” I replied.

      “I see. You are a genuine Foreign Observer. Well, to tell the truth, so am I,” he said more confidentially. “I am not here because I like it. I detest the whole lot of them. I came here for the first time five or six years ago. I had heard a lot about the country and its wonderful organisation. Organisation! Blessed word! I had also heard some rather tall stories, and thought the accounts had been exaggerated. I came with an open mind. I rather prided myself on being an impartial observer. I was prepared to allow a lot for the natural differences of taste between one nation and another. At first I was so keenly interested that I didn’t mind the little restrictions, but when the novelty had worn off, and I began to realise what it all meant, I determined to make a more thorough study of the country than I had at first thought would be worth while. So I am here now studying Meccanian education. Now the only way, so far as I know, of getting rid of your everlasting ‘conductors’ is to get permission to study some special subject. I went through just the same experience. I was what they call merely a ‘general’ observer. The Authorities don’t exactly like the ‘general’ observer. They can’t find it in their hearts to let him alone. As they regulate their own people they must keep as close a watch on the foreigner. As he doesn’t fit into their system, they have to invent a system for him. It is troublesome to them, and not very pleasant for the foreigner; but Meccanian principles make it necessary. However, if you can satisfy them that you are a bona fide student of some special subject—it doesn’t matter what it is, you may choose anything from the parasites in the intestines of a beetle to the philosophy of the Absolute—they will treat you quite decently, according to their lights.”

      “How do you account for this difference?” I asked.

      “They are immensely flattered by the notion that if you come here to study anything, it must be because their knowledge is so superior to what can be found elsewhere. However, if you want to get rid of the daily worry of a ‘conductor,’ that is what you must do. But you must be a specialist of some sort, or they won’t admit you to the privilege.”

      “But there is no special subject I want to study,” I said. “I am just a ‘general’ observer, and if I undertake to study a special subject I shall miss seeing what I most want to see.”

      “That is a difficulty. Perhaps you had better go on as you have been doing, and when you have had enough of that, go in for some political institutions; they have got you registered as a National Councillor, so you can pretend to study the working of the Constitution or some such thing.”

      “That’s rather a good idea,” I said; “but, judging from what I have seen, I should doubt whether they will let me see what I want to see.”

      “Why, what do you want to see?”

      “Just what I cannot get from an inspection of the machinery of the State—the effect of the laws and customs on the actual life of the people.”

      “Ah, that you will have to get by the aid of your imagination.”

      “But,” I suggested, “is it not possible to get permission to live in some family, or with several different families in different classes in succession?”

      “Oh yes,” replied Johnson, “quite possible, if you are prepared to go through all the necessary formalities; but I doubt whether you will get much by it. You see, each family is a sort of replica, in miniature, of the State. They will have to report to the Police once a week upon all your doings. Every word you say will be listened to. They will be studying you, just as you will be studying them. I have tried it. There is no natural intercourse in this country. Try it if you like, but I am sure you will come to my opinion in the end.

      “Don’t forget to enter the time of this conversation