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A Fable for the Times

How the Socialist Club Lost Its Head

"What About Me ?"

With acknowledgements to the "Evening Post."

Once upon a time there was a Socialist Club at the big green house at the top of the tennis court. It began one night in a little room in the house, called "Salient Room" they thought it would be jolly to have a club, and it was called the Socialist Club. And when they had a club they wanted a "Patron" to put at the top to make it look pretty like a candle oh a birthday cake. So they made Mr. Skinner from the big greyhouse called Parl-ia-ment the Patron.

It wasn't much good having a club unless they had lots of fun, so first of all they started to pass all sort of re-o-lut-ions. But this teas a hard word to spell all the time, and one day they had a crocodile intead like the bigger children at boarding school. This crocodle went along the street just like the Brownies, except they were mostly out of step. This they called the Ind-on-esia Dem-onst-rat-ion which is very important in history. Some bad had tried to get them put out of other clubs in the big green wooden house, but a clever man made a very important speech about liberty, and they were allowed to say.

Then Mr. Skinner said something they didn't like—it wasn't a naughty word but it just wasn't what they liked to hear. So they threw him away just like an old candle off the birthday cake.

So they went back to the little room in the big green house and thought of who they could have instead. And someone thought of Mr. Combs who teas a read old man who was very much liked and re-spect-ed. So they made Mr. Combs the Patron. For a long time after this they were happy, especially with a new word called "Peace" which teas a lot easier to spell than "Re-so-lu-tion."

Time went by and one day they met in the big green house and thought about the Patron, and how it would be good to have a Pres-i-dent instead. This would make Mr. Combs like a very big fancy candle 'cos then people mightn't see how small and crumbly the birthday cake had not. 'Cos year by year lots had found that the club wasn't so friendly after if, if you didn't like what Russia did, you weren't wel-come at all.

So they made Mr. Combs pres-i-dent and put it in the paper. And Mr. Combs wrote to the paper and said he didn't like being the president (being an M.A. he didn't spell it pres-i-dent) 'cos no one had asked him about it and he didn't want the job.

Moral—Make sure the cake is worthy of the candle.