"Ministers of Grace"

"Ministers of Grace" is a collection of short stories by Hector Hugh Munro, better known by his pen name, Saki. Published in 1914, the book features a series of witty and often darkly humorous tales that showcase Saki's sharp satire and keen observations of Edwardian society. The stories explore themes of social norms, human folly, and the absurdities of life, often with a twist ending. Saki's distinctive style combines playful language with biting commentary, making "Ministers of Grace" a compelling read for fans of clever storytelling and acerbic wit.

• Short story

								
Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Scaw was
already marked out as a personality widely differing from others of his
caste and period.  Not in externals; therein he conformed correctly to
type.  His hair was faintly reminiscent of Houbigant, and at the other
end of him his shoes exhaled the right SOUPÇON of harness-room; his
socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect; and his
attitude in repose had just that suggestion of Whistler's mother, so
becoming in the really young.  It was within that the trouble lay, if
trouble it could be accounted, which marked him apart from his fellows.
The Duke was religious.  Not in any of the ordinary senses of the word;
he took small heed of High Church or Evangelical standpoints, he stood
outside of all the movements and missions and cults and crusades of the
day, uncaring and uninterested.  Yet in a mystical-practical way of his
own, which had served him unscathed and unshaken through the fickle
years of boyhood, he was intensely and intensively religious.  His
family were naturally, though unobtrusively, distressed about it.  "I
am so afraid it may affect his bridge," said his mother.

The Duke sat in a pennyworth of chair in St. James's Park, listening to
the pessimisms of Belturbet, who reviewed the existing political
situation from the gloomiest of standpoints.

"Where I think you political spade-workers are so silly," said the
Duke, "is in the misdirection of your efforts.  You spend thousands of
pounds of money, and Heaven knows how much dynamic force of brain power
and personal energy, in trying to elect or displace this or that man,
whereas you could gain your ends so much more simply by making use of
the men as you find them.  If they don't suit your purpose as they are,
transform them into something more satisfactory."

"Do you refer to hypnotic suggestion?" asked Belturbet, with the air of
one who is being trifled with.

"Nothing of the sort.  Do you understand what I mean by the verb to
koepenick?  That is to say, to replace an authority by a spurious
imitation that would carry just as much weight for the moment as the
displaced original; the advantage, of course, being that the koepenick
replica would do what you wanted, whereas the original does what seems
best in its own eyes."

"I suppose every public man has a double, if not two or three," said
Belturbet; "but it would be a pretty hard task to koepenick a whole
bunch of them and keep the originals out of the way."

"There have been instances in European history of highly successful
koepenickery," said the Duke dreamily.

"Oh, of course, there have been False Dimitris and Perkin Warbecks, who
imposed on the world for a time," assented Belturbet, "but they
personated people who were dead or safely out of the way.  That was a
comparatively simple matter.  It would be far easier to pass oneself of
as dead Hannibal than as living Haldane, for instance."

"I was thinking," said the Duke, "of the most famous case of all, the
angel who koepenicked King Robert of Sicily with such brilliant
results.  Just imagine what an advantage it would be to have angels
deputizing, to use a horrible but convenient word, for Quinston and
Lord Hugo Sizzle, for example.  How much smoother the Parliamentary
machine would work than at present!"

"Now you're talking nonsense," said Belturbet; "angels don't exist
nowadays, at least, not in that way, so what is the use of dragging
them into a serious discussion?  It's merely silly."

"If you talk to me like that I shall just DO it," said the Duke.

"Do what?" asked Belturbet.  There were times when his young friend's
uncanny remarks rather frightened him.

"I shall summon angelic forces to take over some of the more
troublesome personalities of our public life, and I shall send the
ousted originals into temporary retirement in suitable animal
organisms.  It's not every one who would have the knowledge or the
power necessary to bring such a thing off--"

"Oh, stop that inane rubbish," said Belturbet angrily; "it's getting
wearisome.  Here's Quinston coming," he added, as there approached
along the almost deserted path the well-known figure of a young Cabinet
Minister, whose personality evoked a curious mixture of public interest
and unpopularity.

"Hurry along, my dear man," said the young Duke to the Minister, who
had given him a condescending nod; "your time is running short," he
continued in a provocative strain; "the whole inept crowd of you will
shortly be swept away into the world's waste-paper basket."

"You poor little strawberry-leafed nonentity," said the Minister,
checking himself for a moment in his stride and rolling out his words
spasmodically; "who is going to sweep us away, I should like to know?
The voting masses are on our side, and all the ability and
administrative talent is on our side too.  No power of earth or Heaven
is going to move us from our place till we choose to quit it.  No power
of earth or--"

Belturbet saw, with bulging eyes, a sudden void where a moment earlier
had been a Cabinet Minister; a void emphasized rather than relieved by
the presence of a puffed-out bewildered-looking sparrow, which hopped
about for a moment in a dazed fashion and then fell to a violent
cheeping and scolding.

"If we could understand sparrow-language," said the Duke serenely, "I
fancy we should hear something infinitely worse than 'strawberry-leafed
nonentity.'"

"But good Heavens, Eugène," said Belturbet hoarsely, "what has become
of--  Why, there he is!  How on earth did he get there?" And he pointed
with a shaking finger towards a semblance of the vanished Minister,
which approached once more along the unfrequented path.

The Duke laughed.

"It is Quinston to all outward appearance," he said composedly, "but I
fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an angel
understudy of the real article."

The Angel-Quinston greeted them with a friendly smile.

"How beastly happy you two look sitting there!" he said wistfully.

"I don't suppose you'd care to change places with poor little us,"
replied the Duke chaffingly.

"How about poor little me?" said the Angel modestly.  "I've got to run
about behind the wheels of popularity, like a spotted dog behind a
carriage, getting all the dust and trying to look as if I was an
important part of the machine.  I must seem a perfect fool to you
onlookers sometimes."

"I think you are a perfect angel," said the Duke.

The Angel-that-had-been-Quinston smiled and passed on his way, pursued
across the breadth of the Horse Guards Parade by a tiresome little
sparrow that cheeped incessantly and furiously at him.

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