The Comedians by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online

unfortunate duck,’ Mrs Smith replied. Her passions had not been perceptibly weakened by the removal of acidity.
    â€˜Very nicely sung, wasn’t it, Mr Fernandez?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Mr Fernandez and sucked the end of his pencil.
    The pharmaceutical traveller entered wearing a steel helmet – he had not gone to bed, but had changed into a pair of blue jeans and had a whistle clenched between his teeth.
    â€˜So that’s Mr Baxter,’ Mrs Smith said in a tone of relief. I think she disliked mysteries; she wanted all ingredients of the human comedy marked as precisely as one of Mr Baxter’s drugs or the label on the bottle of Barmene. The pharmaceutical traveller could easily have borrowed the blue jeans from a member of the crew, but I wondered how he had obtained his steel helmet.
    Now he gave a blast of his whistle to silence us, though only Mrs Smith had spoken, and announced: ‘A Dramatic Monologue entitled “The Warden’s Patrol”.’ To his obvious dismay a member of the orchestra reproduced an air-raid siren.
    â€˜Bravo,’ Jones said.
    â€˜You should have warned me,’ Mr Baxter said. ‘Now I’m off my cue.’
    He was interrupted again by a roll of distant gunfire produced on the bottom of a frying-pan.
    â€˜What’s that supposed to be?’ Mr Baxter demanded angrily.
    â€˜The guns in the estuary.’
    â€˜You are interfering with my script, Mr Jones.’
    â€˜Proceed,’ Jones said. ‘The overture is over. The atmosphere is set. London 1940.’ Mr Baxter gave him a sad hurt look and announced again, ‘A Dramatic Monologue entitled “The Warden’s Patrol” composed by Post Warden X.’ Holding his palm over his eyes, as though to ward off falling glass, he began to recite.
    â€˜The flares came down over Euston, St Pancras,
    And dear old Tottenham Road,
    And the warden walking his lonely beat
    Saw his shadow like a cloud.
    â€˜Guns in Hyde Park were blasting away
    When the cry of the first bomb came,
    And the warden shook his fist at the sky
    As he mocked at Hitler’s fame.
    â€˜London will stand, St Paul’s will stand,
    And for every death we have here,
    A curse will arise from a German heart
    Against their devilish Fuhrer.
    â€˜Maples is hit, Gower Street’s a ghost,
    Piccadilly’s alight – but all’s well.
    We’ll use our ration of bread for toast,
    For the blitzkrieg’s dead in Pall Mall.’
    Mr Baxter gave a blast on his whistle, came sharply to attention, and said, ‘The all-clear has sounded.’
    â€˜And none too soon,’ Mrs Smith replied.
    Mr Fernandez cried excitedly, ‘No, no. Oh no, sir,’ and I think with the exception of Mrs Smith there was general agreement that anything coming afterwards would be in the nature of an anti-climax.
    â€˜That calls for more champagne,’ Jones said. ‘Steward!’
    The orchestra went back to the kitchen except for the conductor who stayed at Jones’s request. ‘The champagne’s on me,’ Jones said. ‘You deserve a glass if any man did.’
    Mr Baxter sat down suddenly beside me and began to tremble all over. His hand beat nervously on the table. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said, ‘it’s always been this way. I get my stage-fright afterwards. Would you say that I was well received?’
    â€˜Very,’ I said. ‘Where did you find the steel helmet?’
    â€˜It’s just one of those things I carry around in the bottom of my trunk. Somehow I’ve never parted with it. I expect it’s the same with you – there are things you keep . . .’
    It was true enough: they were more portable objects than a steel helmet, but they were just as useless – photographs, an old postcard, a membership receipt long out of date for a nightclub off Regent Street, an entrance-ticket for one day to the casino at Monte Carlo. I was