ants of our great-great-great- its origin in a people so grand uncles, who sailed to unwinking as the English America as high-hearted Puri- should be proof enough of tans, pioneers, and merchant absurdity. Nevertheless, your adventurers, should have de- average American, like your veloped that divine quality average Englishman, may until they possessed a higher chuckle at the delicious fandegree of it than any of the tasy of a Barrie play, cheat older nations. At least, that sleep by laughing in bed over is what I had been told by an 'The Lunatio at Large,' and American named Steifelhagen; next day tell the office Caleand who should know better? donian that a steam-driven After much mental wrestling orane is needed to hoist a joke with comparative values, I into a Scotsman's head. Be was forced to admit that my that as it may, if one wants to training in logic and my under- cover a ribald intention with standing of psycho- analysis solemn plausibility, the most were insufficient to conquer effective cloaks for the purpose the problem. They could not are lined with tartan plaid. carry me beyond a humiliating Which brings me to the tale admission that the humour of of Shylook, Macbeth, and 'Punch' was not in the same Captain Ian MacTavish of the olass as the Mutt and Jordan Highlanders. Jeff cartoons; that William Schwenk Gilbert invented no lines or lyrics comparable to those heard on Broadway in such leg-song-and- bedroom shows as "Good Gracious, Annabelle!" and "NightieNight!" and that the British Parliament never enlivened the public with anything so richly comic as the American Senate's resolutions on Sinn Fein Ireland; but hush! the propagandists deprecate irresponsible discussion of AngloAmerican relations in terms of high politics-politics high as a very dead pheasant. Now, many Englishmen, for their part, allow themselves to be convinced by hearsay that Scotsmen are inhumorously inclined. This rumour spread long ago to America, although one would imagine that, to the mind of Broadway, New York New was entering upon the second stage of its career as the City of Dreadful Drought. The first stage, from 30th June to 16th January, had not been so very dreadful. "After the 1st of July, Good-bye, Wine, Women, Good-bye!" was sung no more in the cabarets, but the saloonkeepers refused to be downhearted. The ice continued to rattle in their glasses, for many old-timers were willing to pay 40 cents for a small portion of oily diluted whisky. In some saloons, a teetotal drink was difficult to obtain, for a man who demanded ginger-ale would be given a rye-highball and a wink. A protest that he wanted real ginger-ale would bring more winks and the reply, "I gotcha foist time you said it, bo. That's the reallest ginger-ale Man with the Crooked Brain there ever wasn't." In the trudged through the snow to smaller restaurants, cocktails my Madison Avenue flat in were served in consommé cups. quest of a drink, and became For the rest, it was permissible godfather to Ian MacTavish. to bring one's own liquor when The transient in New York dining in public, so that Man- will often travel far for a late hattan Dollardom trooped into evening stimulant; and an the Ritz-Carlton carrying hour earlier Crookbrain had flasks, and even medicine- seen me leave a mutual friend's bottles. cellar with a cylindrical bulge on my pocket. But after the Supreme Court had upheld the Enforcement Aot, the leash tightened and the second stage arrived. There were fearsome pronunciamentos, which precluded the carriage of a likely-looking bottle from one street to another without danger of a hold-up. There were raids and rumours of raids, prosecutions and hush - money avoidances of prosecutions; and the wealthy laboured under the hardship of having to make inroads on each other's private stocks in each other's private houses, while those who were both improvident and unable to leap from excessive indulgence to excessive abstinence, made shift with bay-rum, eau-de-Cologne, methylated spirits, and strange harmful drinks brewed secretly. Six months later we had merged imperceptibly into the third stage, which was semi-realisation that the machinery designed to maintain extreme teetotalism was both costly and unworkable. New York, I repeat, was entering upon the second stage of its career as the City of Dreadful Drought. My excuse for mentioning the fact is, that it was the sole reason why the Before his arrival I had been cogitating over a conversation at the house in which I had left him. Did we know, asked my table neighbour, a highspirited and voluble actress, "that nice young man named Smith, who is now the Lord Mayor of London, I believe"? She had met him, it appeared, at a distinctly unofficial gathering; but she understood he came to America during the war on an official mission for the British Government. Arrived home, I searched the booklet in which members of the British Mission told each other who was who amongst themselves, but failed to find a Smith important enough for office approximating to the Lord Mayoralty of London. But a recapitulation of the appearance and attributes of the Smith described by the actress led me to the awesome truth. The nice young man named Smith was none other than the very venerable Lord Chancellor ! And then, displaying a thirst and an evening newspaper, there entered the Man with the Crooked Brain. Having dealt suitably with the thirst, he unfolded the newspaper and pointed out a glaring headline ilar action had been taken in half-inch display: "Shake- at Hoboken and elsewhere, speare's Shylook a Slander, and the Anti-Defamation Says Education Board." League intended to continue "Jewry," said my visitor, its campaign until Shylook "has declared war on Stratford-on-Avon." Now the Man with the Crooked Brain, while nearly sane on some matters, is madly over-earnest on the subject of the peril to the human race of Jewish domination, His road to En-Dor leads him through a maze of sinister combinations of financiers, of subversive Sanhedrins, of diabolic secret protocols, of theories on the organised undermining of Christian virtues, of tales of Lenin's alliance with the Tedeschi Ashkenazi, of arguments on how the strings of war and peace were pulled from London, Frankfurt, Rome, and Alexandria by Oriental millionaires. These and other monstrosities he had rammed down my throat until I was siek of the taste of them. Hearing the word "Jewry," therefore, I tried to head him off his obsession by telling the story of the nice young man named Smith. was ousted from every school in the United States of America. Moreover, a letter to the Press from one Dr Benjamin Marcus praised the action of the Newark Board of Education, and suggested that a portion of the New Testament should undergo the same censorship as "The Merchant of Venice." very While disagreeing heartily with most of Crookbrain's fantastio beliefs on the subject of a Jewish worldperil, one could not but stagger under a Jewish indiotment of Shakespeare. The Jews have given us Spinoza, Disraeli, and many another great man, head and shoulders above his fellows; but Shakespeare certainly did not invent the attributes of Shylock. As Crookbrain pointed out, if one asked a Russian peasant, an Albanian mountaineer, a Dago sailor, a Bedouin of the desert unlettered people who have never heard of Stratford-onAvon, much less of "The Merchant of Venice"-for his idea of a typical Jew, the reply would suggest the character of Shylook, a virile flea on the back of humanity, a middleman who grows rich on his neighbour's needs and difficulties. But Crookbrain would not be diverted, and began to read what underlay the headline. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League had induced the Board of Education of Newark, New Jersey, to withdraw "The Merchant of Venice" from the school our- But Shylock qua Shylook riculum, 80 that Shylook had little to do either with should no longer prejudice the hallucinations of CrookChristian children against brain or with the views of the their Hebrew brethren, Sim- no-doubt learned members of the Irish are suspected of native wit, and if Irishmen had discovered a grievance against Shakespeare the Englishman, the public might have kept its feet firmly on the ground, so that its leg should not be pulled. the Newark Board of Educa- Ireland are in arms"? But tion; for he was not conceived as a typical Jew, but as the most notable character in a great play, a perfect part of a magnificent mosaic of passion, wit, revenge, friendship, hatred, nobility, drollery, intelligence, trickery, and oharm. It is unnecessary to show how, if Shakespeare slandered Jewry through Shylook, he likewise slandered England, Venice, the Man in the Street, and the National Union of Textile Workers, through Falstaff, Iago, the orowd scene in "Julius Cæsar," and Nick Bottom the Weaver. "The best way to stop this foolishness," commented Crookbrain, "is to carry it further. The Danes were given some nasty whacks in 'Hamlet'; they should be the next to hit back at Shakespeare." And he spoke truer than he knew. "If I were a Dane," said I, "I'd do it and keep the ball rolling." "Let's be Danes," suggested Crookbrain, inspired by 8 second glass of prohibited whisky. And thus was born an idea that caused many a man in many a land to scribble an article or set up type or tap graphic transmitter. the Danes, we decided, The Irish would have "Stands Sootland where it did?"" quoted Crook brain suddenly. "The very thing," I agreed. "Macbeth" shall be the password, and we'll stalk the censors of Shakespeare under cover of Birnam Wood." And, indeed, no better screen for a tongue-in-cheek purpose could have been found, for of all national labels that of the Soot inspires the most confidence in reliability and serious intention. "My name," I announced, "is Ian MacTavish." "Mine's Malcolm MacPherson," said Crookbrain. "And we claim redress for an ancient slander. I believe there's an Hotel MaoAlpin?" Crookbrain said there was. I sat down and wrote the following, which may have been a resolution passed at the Hotel MacAlpin that same evening by the League of Scottish Veterans of the World War, but probably wasn't, since no such League existed : "In view of the action of the Newark Board of Education in barring 'The Merchant of Venice' from the school curriculum because of alleged ivil kerns of slander of the Jewish race 66 pointed out a glaring headline ilar action had been taken in half-inch display: "Shake- at Hoboken and elsewhere, speare's Shylook a Slander, and Says Education Board." "Jewry," said my visitor, "has declared war on Stratford-on-Avon." Now the Man with the Crooked Brain, while nearly sane on some matters, is madly over-earnest on the subject of the peril to the human race of Jewish domination. His road to En-Dor leads him through a maze of sinister combinations of financiers, of subversive Sanhedrins, of diabolic secret protocols, of theories on the organised undermining of Christian virtues, of tales of Lenin's alliance with the Tedeschi - Ashkenazi, of arguments on how the strings of war and peace were pulled from London, Frankfurt, Rome, and Alexandria by Oriental millionaires. These and other monstrosities he had rammed down my throat until I was siek of the taste of them. Hearing the word "Jewry," therefore, I tried to head him off his obsession by telling the story of the nice young man named Smith. But Crookbrain would not be diverted, and began to read what underlay the headline. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League had induced the Board of Education of Newark, New Jersey, to withdraw "The Merchant of Venice from the school ourriculum, 80 that Shylook the Anti-Defamation League intended to continue its campaign until Shylock was ousted from every school in the United States of America. Moreover, a letter to the Press from one Dr Benjamin Marous praised the action of the Newark Board of Education, and suggested that a portion of the New Testament should undergo the same censorship as "The Merchant of Venice." While disagreeing very heartily with most of Crookbrain's fantastic beliefs on the subject of a Jewish worldperil, one could not but stagger under a Jewish indiotment of Shakespeare. The Jews have given us Spinoza, Disraeli, and many another great man, head and shoulders above his fellows; but Shakespeare certainly did not invent the attributes of Shylock. As Crookbrain pointed out, if one asked a Russian peasant, an Albanian mountaineer, a Dago sailor, a Bedouin of the desert unlettered people who have never heard of Stratford-onAvon, much less of "The Merchant of Venice "for his idea of a typical Jew, the reply would suggest the character of Shylock, virile flea on the back of humanity, a middleman who grows rich on his neighbour's needs and difficulties. But Shylock qua Shylook had little to do either with should no longer prejudice the hallucinations of Crookbrain or with the views of the Sim- no-doubt learned members of Christian ohildren against their Hebrew brethren. |