Some weeks after the conviction of the seven hundred Pyrotists, a little,
gruff, hairy, short-sighted man left his house one morning with a paste-pot, a
ladder, and a bundle of posters and went about the streets pasting placards to
the walls on which might be read in large letters: Pyrot is innocent, Maubec
is guilty. He was not a bill-poster; his name was Colomban, and as the author
of sixty volumes on Penguin sociology he was numbered among the most laborious
and respected writers in Alca. Having given sufficient thought to the matter
and no longer doubting Pyrot's innocence, he proclaimed it in the manner which
he thought would be most sensational. He met with no hindrance while posting
his bills in the quiet streets, but when he came to the populous quarters,
every time he mounted his ladder, inquisitive people crowded round him and,
dumbfounded with surprise and indignation, threw at him threatening looks
which he received with the calm that comes from courage and short-sightedness.
Whilst caretakers and tradespeople tore down the bills he had posted, he kept
on zealously placarding, carrying his tools and followed by little boys who,
with their baskets under their arms or their satchels on their backs, were in
no hurry to reach school. To the mute indignation against him, protests and
murmurs were now added. But Colomban did not condescend to see or hear
anything. As, at the entrance to the Rue St. Orberosia, he was posting one of
his squares of paper bearing the words: Pyrot is innocent, Maubec is guilty,
the riotous crowd showed signs of the most violent anger. They called after
him, "Traitor, thief, rascal, scoundrel." A woman opened a window and emptied
a vase full of filth over his head, a cabby sent his hat flying from one end
of the street to the other by a blow of his whip amid the cheers of the crowd
who now felt themselves avenged. A butcher's boy knocked Colomban with his
paste-pot, his brush, and his posters, from the top of his ladder into the
gutter, and the proud Penguins then felt the greatness of their country.
Colomban stood up,, covered with filth, lame, and with his elbow injured, but
tranquil and resolute.
"Low brutes," he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.
Then he went down on all-fours in the gutter to look for his glasses which he
had lost in his fall. t was then seen that his coat was split from the collar
to the tails and that his trousers were in rags. The rancour of the crowd grew
stronger.
On the other side of the street stretched the big St. Orberosian Stores. The
patriots seized whatever they could lay their hands on from the shop front,
and hurled at Colomban oranges, lemons, pots of jam, pieces of chocolate,
bottles of liqueurs, boxes of sardines, pots of foie gras, hams, fowls, flasks
of oil, and bags of haricots. Covered with the debris of the food, bruised,
tattered, lame, and blind, he took to flight, followed by the shop-boys,
bakers, loafers, citizens, and hooligans whose number increased each moment
and who kept shouting: "Duck him! Death to the traitor! Duck him!" This
torrent of vulgar humanity swept along the streets and rushed into the Rue St.
Mael. The police did their duty. From all the adjacent streets constables
proceeded and, holding their scabbards with their left hands, they went at
full speed in front of the pursuers. They were on the point of grabbing
Colomban in their huge hands when he suddenly escaped them by falling through
an open man-hole to the bottom of a sewer.
He spent the night there in the darkness, sitting close by the dirty water
amidst the fat and slimy rats. He thought of his task, and his swelling heart
filled with courage and pity. And when the dawn threw a pale ray of light into
the air-hole he got up and said, speaking to himself:
"I see that the fight will be a stiff one."
Forthwith he composed a memorandum in which he clearly showed that Pyrot could
not have stolen from the Ministry of War the eighty thousand trusses of hay
which it had never received, for the reason that Maubec had never delivered
them, though he had received the money. Colomban caused this statement to be
distributed in the streets of Alca. The people refused to read it and tore it
up in anger. The shop-keepers shook their fists at the distributers, who made
off, chased by angry women armed with brooms. Feelings grew warm and the
ferment lasted the whole day. In the evening bands of wild and ragged men went
about the streets yelling: "Death to Colomban!" The patriots snatched whole
bundles of the memorandum from the newsboys and burned them in the public
squares, dancing wildly round these bon-fires with girls whose petticoats were
tied up to their waists.
Some of the more enthusiastic among them went and broke the windows of the
house in which Colomban had lived in perfect tranquillity during his forty
years of work.
Parliament was roused and asked the Chief of the Government what measures he
proposed to take in order to repel the odious attacks made by Colomban upon
the honour of the National Arm and the safety of Penguinia. Robin Mielleux
denounced Colomban's impious audacity and proclaimed amid the cheers of the
legislators that the man would be summoned before the Courts to answer for his
infamous libel.
The Minister of War was called to the tribune and appeared in it transfigured.
He had no longer the air, as in former days, of one of the sacred geese of the
Penguin citadels. Now, bristling, with outstretched neck and hooked beak, he
seemed the symbolical vulture fastened to the livers of his country's enemies.
In the august silence of the assembly he pronounced these words only:
"I swear that Pyrot is a rascal."
This speech of Greatauk was reported all over Penguinia and satisfied the
public conscience.
Read next: BOOK VI - MODERN TIMES#CHAPTER V - THE REVEREND FATHERS AGARIC AND CORNEMUSE
Read previous: BOOK VI - MODERN TIMES#CHAPTER III - COUNT DE MAUBEC DE LA DENTDULYNX
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