1894

1. The Colonial Office

Even as I passed through the doorway I wondered if I had entered the right place.

It was a rather large chamber with a high ceiling and an oversized fireplace with a dying bed of coals. Above the fireplace hung an oversized flag. At first I thought it was the Union Jack. It had the same blue cross bars on a field of red. Closer inspection showed stars within the bars. This was the flag of the American Confederacy.

An officer in a rumpled gray uniform sat at a nearby table. I couldn’t quite make out the rank. A colonel as a receptionist? I wondered. The Patent Office must really be an important place!

He held a small glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. He stood as I entered. “Come in, suh, come in! You’re just in time to join me in a toast to the second-greatest man who ever lived. Here, I’ll pour you a glass.” He spoke with an accent, definitely un-British, yet soft and pleasant, and as he spoke an odd thing happened to his face. A bulge in his right cheek vanished and reappeared in his left cheek.

I stared at this phenomenon for a moment, then held up my hands quickly. “Thanks just the same,” I said. “A bit early in the morning for me. But tell me, who is this second-greatest man?”

He looked at me in amazement. “You don’t know?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t.”

He lifted his head proudly. “Today, suh, we celebrate the birthday of Jefferson Davis, our first president, born on the third of June, eighty-six years ago.” (He pronounced “born” as “bawn.”)

That didn’t sound quite right. “But today is June 6. June 3 was last Sunday.”

“My point exactly, suh. It goes on all week, you know.”

I noticed then a dozen empty bottles in and around his desk. “So if I may ask, who was the greatest man who ever lived?”

He looked at me in a rumpled mixture of wonder and sorrow, then replied with measured reverence and, “Robert E. Lee, who else?” His eyes seemed to look far away. “Oh, you should have been with us at Gettysburg, when we beat Meade, and swept on to Washington. You come around in January, suh, when we celebrate Bobby’s birthday. Last year they had to call out the Home Guard. Nothing like back in Richmond, though.” His cheek bulge shifted again. He sighed. “Well, I guess you’d like to get down to business. Your name, suh?”

“Wells,” I said hurriedly. “Herbert G. Wells.” By now I was certain I was in the wrong place.

He pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer under the table and examined it thoughtfully. “Wells? Hmm. Don’t seem to see it.” He cocked a curious eye at me. “You have an appointment, Mr. Wells?”

“Yes, sir.” I handed over my telegram. He examined it briefly, then gave it back. “Oh ho! Well dang my hide, suh. You’re looking for the Patent Office. They’s next door.” (He pronounced “door” as “dough”.) He pointed. “People always comin’ in heah’ tryin’ to get a patent. I tell ’em, the S’uthrun Colonies are now part of the British Commonwealth and covered by British patents. Son, you don’t want to see Mr. Mason. You go next door, they’ll help you.”

I glanced toward the door behind him that evidently led to an inner office. On it was painted the legend, J.M. Mason, Jr., H.M. Resident Deputy, Southern Colonies.

I knew now where I was. When the American Confederacy established their independence with British help in 1863, they accepted Dominion Status and had their own resident representative in London—in the same building with the Patent Office.

I backed out with mumbled apologies. I had inadvertently run headlong into a bit of history, for the Mason in question was his excellency Mr. James Murray Mason, Jr., son of the famous Mason of the pair of Mason and Slidell, who had persuaded England to recognize the American Confederacy and to back up the recognition with the British navy, arms, and money, lots and lots of money. It didn’t end there, of course. While we were thus happily ensuring a continuing supply of cotton for our Lancashire mills, Napoleon III had stepped in. When the dust settled, a lot of maps required extensive revision. The French had annexed Quebec and Mexico. We got the American South—and slavery. The American North survived and prospered.

I was in the act of leaving Mr. Mason’s suite when I was given a dramatic explanation of the bulge in the colonel’s cheek.

He spat. The target was a gleaming brass spittoon the size of a chamber pot, sitting beside the fireplace, four yards away. It was like striking a gong.

And drinking at the same time? I was awed. I closed the door quietly behind me.

Macauley had once argued that the British government had made only two really serious blunders since 1066: Number One, driving the American colonies away in 1776; and Number Two, taking back the southern half in 1863.

And so on down the hall, and this time through the portals of the genuine Her Majesty’s Great Seal Patent Office.