six committees at once and so coaxed the rich man to become quite
poor. By simply repeating, in a whisper, that there are "wheels within
wheels," this talented man managed to take away the millionaire's
motor car, one wheel at a time, till the millionaire had quite
forgotten that he ever had one. It was very clever of him to do this,
only he has not done it. There is not a screw loose in the
millionaire's motor, which is capable of running over the Fabian and
leaving him a flat corpse in the road at a moment's notice. All these
stories are very fascinating stories to be told by the Individualist
and Socialist in turn to the great Sultan of Capitalism, because if
they left off amusing him for an instant he would cut off their heads.
But if they once began to tell the true story of the Sultan to the
Sultan, he would boil them in oil; and this they wish to avoid.

The true story of the sin of the Sultan he is always trying, by
listening to these stories, to forget. As we have said before in this
chapter, he would prefer not to remember, because he has made up his
mind not to repent. It is a curious story, and I shall try to tell it
truly in the two chapters that follow. In all ages the tyrant is hard
because he is soft. If his car crashes over bleeding and accusing
crowds, it is because he has chosen the path of least resistance. It
is because it is much easier to ride down a human race than ride up a
moderately steep hill. The fight of the oppressor is always a
pillow-fight; commonly a war with cushions--always a war for cushions.
Saladin, the great Sultan, if I remember rightly, accounted it the
greatest feat of swordsmanship to cut a cushion. And so indeed it is,
as all of us can attest who have been for years past trying to cut
into the swollen and windy corpulence of the modern compromise, that
is at once cosy and cruel. For there is really in our world to-day the
colour and silence of the cushioned divan; and that sense of palace
within palace and garden within garden which makes the rich
irresponsibility of the East. Have we not already the wordless dance,
the wineless banquet, and all that strange unchristian conception of
luxury without laughter? Are we not already in an evil Arabian Nights,
and walking the nightmare cities of an invisible despot? Does not our
hangman strangle secretly, the bearer of the bow string? Are we not
already eugenists--that is, eunuch-makers? Do we not see the bright
eyes, the motionles