of it was that he wished to know whether the
appropriate Minister was aware that there had been a grave miscarriage
of justice on such and such a date, at such and such a place, before
such and such justices of the peace, in regard to a case which arose--

I heard one desperate, weary 'damn!' float up from the pit of that
torment. Pallant sawed on--'out of certain events which occurred at the
village of Huckley.'

The House came to attention with a parting of the lips like a hiccough,
and it flashed through my mind.... Pallant repeated, 'Huckley. The
village--'

'That voted the _Earth_ was flat.' A single voice from a back Bench sang
it once like a lone frog in a far pool.

'_Earth_ was flat,' croaked another voice opposite.

'_Earth_ was flat.' There were several. Then several more.

It was, you understand, the collective, overstrained nerve of the House,
snapping, strand by strand to various notes, as the hawser parts from
its moorings.

'The Village that voted the _Earth_ was flat.' The tune was beginning to
shape itself. More voices were raised and feet began to beat time. Even
so it did not occur to me that the thing would--

'The Village that voted the _Earth_ was flat!' It was easier now to see
who were not singing. There were still a few. Of a sudden (and this
proves the fundamental instability of the cross-bench mind) a
cross-bencher leaped on his seat and there played an imaginary
double-bass with tremendous maestro-like wagglings of the elbow.

The last strand parted. The ship of state drifted out helpless on the
rocking tide of melody.

'The Village that voted the _Earth_ was flat!
The Village that voted the _Earth_ was flat!'

The Irish first conceived the idea of using their order-papers as
funnels wherewith to reach the correct '_vroom--vroom_' on '_Earth_.'
Labour, always conservative and respectable at a crisis, stood out
longer than any other section, but when it came in it was howling
syndicalism. Then, without distinction of Party, fear of constituents,
desire for office, or hope of emolument, the House sang at the tops and
at the bottoms of their voices, swaying their stale bodies and
epileptically beating with their swelled feet. They sang 'The Village
that voted the _Earth_ was flat': first, because they wanted to, and
secondly--which is the terror of that song--because they could not stop.
For no consideration could they stop.

Pallant was still standing up. Some one po