Free The Complete Simon Iff by Aleister Crowley Page B

he had first set foot on the ladder that was to lead him to one of the highest positions in the financial world.
    When the waiter presented the bill, Iff marked a 19 in front of a printed item at its foot; the waiter filled in £95, and made the addition. Iff scribbled his name. The figure caught the trained eye of the banker. “Excuse me!” he cried; “it’s the rudest thing possible, but I would like to see that bit o’ paper. I’m just that curious, where there’s money.” Iff could not refuse; he passed the bill across the table.
    “Nineteen Shakespeares!” exclaimed the Scot. “Ninety-five pounds sterling! what ’ll that mean, whateffer?”
    “Well, I didn’t mean to tell you, Mr. Macpherson; it’s not very charming of me, but you oblige me. There is a fine of five pounds for every Shakespeare quotation made in this club — and of course, as your host, I’m responsible. Besides, it was well worth the money. The men at the next table have not had such a lovely time for years. Simple Simon, as they call me, won’t hear the last of it for a while!” But the Scot was stunned. He could only keep on repeating in a dazed way, “Ninety-five pounds! Ninety-five pounds! Ninety-five pounds!”
    “Don’t think of it, I beg of you!” cried Iff. “I see that it distresses you. I am a rich man, and an old one; I shall never miss it. Besides, the fine goes to a most worthy object; the Society for Destroying Parliamentary Institutions.”
    “I never heard of it.”
    “Indeed! it is very powerful, I assure you. It carried through Payment of Members; it has greatly enlarged the Franchise, and is now working to have it extended to women.”
    “I thought ye said Destroying Parliament.”
    “Just so. These measures are directed towards reducing the whole thing to a farce. Already the power of Parliament is a thing of the past; authority is concentrated in the cabinet — nay, in a Camarilla within the cabinet, and even this Camarilla is very much in the hands of permanent officials whose names the public never hears.”
    “D’ye ken, I can hardly believe my ain ears.”
    “When the public demands a law which those in authority don’t like, they either block it in the Commons, or throw it out in the Lords, or get the Judges to interpret it so as to mean nothing at all, or the opposite of what it was intended to mean.”
    “Losh!”
    “You’re a banker. Would you submit your bank to popular management, interference by people who don’t know the first principles of the business?”
    “It wad be the shutters up in just one se’nnight!”
    “Nor will we intrust our country to people who know neither law, nor history, nor geography, nor commerce — except in their own petty trade — nor foreign affairs, not so much as whether our interests lie with those of our neighbors or clash with them; nor any other of the arts necessary to government.”
    “Weel, weel, but these are strange sayings. But I doot ye’re richt.”
    “Let us have our coffee in the lounge, and you shall tell me all about your troubles. I feel I’ve bored you with all my talk about the club.”
    They walked into the lounge and took a seat in the low window which overlooks St. James Park. “See the palace!” said Simon Iff. “The Foreign Secretary is with the King to-night. His Majesty was anxious about the Ultimatum to Russia.”
    “Russia! She’s our ally!”
    “Last night war was thought a certainty. This morning a way out was found. How would it do to let that cat out of the bag, with the press howling for blood? The price of Democracy is eternal Hypocrisy!” Macpherson was by this time completely overwhelmed. He felt himself among the Powers. He thought of Paul caught up into the seventh heaven, and hearing things not lawful for men to speak.
    “Now, then, your little private grief,” said Simon, when the waiter had brought the coffee, a box of Upmanns, and two great Venetian glasses, milky with threads of gold, in which was