The Tale of Eldorado — Part Two (Vol. 1, Issue 17)

(Editor’s Note: The Commentator takes pleasure in presenting the following installment of the priceless manuscript discovered by a Commentator reporter in the wilds of Asia during the summer of 1935.—A continuation from the previous issue.)

Although a complete change in attitude from arrogance and callous aloofness to feigned personal interest in the problems of the people might dupe the citizens of Yeldorado, Silas realized that the issuance of The Concommidor, a parchment publication of the Nationalist Senate, would effectively reveal his cunning plans to the nation.

He, therefore, proceeded to King Roger where he demanded that The Concommidor be outlawed and that the publishers be immediately exiled from the country.

To the amazement of Silas, he proceeded to appoint a commission of the most prominent members of the cabinet to thoroughly investigate all the charges leveled by the Nationalist Senate against the prime minister. King Roger, however, warned the leaders of the Senate at a joint session of the cabinet commission and the Senate representatives in his palace that unless the charges were substantiated, it would go badly with the leaders, and the rights of the Senate too.

Instead of objecting, the leaders replied gravely that even exile would be too light a sentence if the charges, on whose veracity they would stake their career, were not substantiated from every aspect. At the same time, the Senate representatives bound themselves not to publish any further reports concerning any phase of the issue, after the insistance of King Roger and the cabinet commission that no action would begin until this promise was forthcoming. 

For the next few weeks all was quiet again in Yeldorado. Gradually the interest of the population diverted itself into other channels, and the more cynical of the people began to despair of any results in the investigation. It was not long before the entire nation turned to skepticism, fearing that the silence of the Senate publication, The Concommidor, signified that King Roger had sided with Silas.

It was therefore a very grave group of senators that gathered at a special session of the Nationalist Senate to decide on what steps to take in regard to the growing spirit of pessimism spreading throughout the nation.

As brought out during the discussion, the problem was to keep the population informed as to the progress of events, for it was due to the support of the people only that so much had been accomplished until now. A bill was finally passed stating that The Concommidor should dedicate a part of its editorial columns to some kind of a fairy tale, whose story should be analogous to the issue of Prime Minister Silas.

And so it was. The very next issue of The Concommidor contained a fairy tale which was exactly analogous to the state of affairs in regard to the Silas affair;

Again Silas waxed furious, vowing that unless something drastic were done, he would take matters into his own hands. Those to whom he ranted only smiled cynically at the presumptuousness of a man who was as guilty as he. To the demand that King Roger suppress the publication because the promise of the nationalist leaders had been broken, the former turned a deaf ear. Silas finally returned to his chambers, greatly deflated.

In the meantime, a rather peculiar situation developed. It was reported to the publishers of The Concommidor that all the issues referring directly or indirectly to Prime Minister Silas were consistently confiscated from the letter receptacles of the various members of the cabinet. In the supreme confidence of his power to dupe the world, Silas hoped, that by confiscating The Concommidor issues he would keep the cabinet from being won over to the side of the nationalists.

This, the publishers of The Concommidor realized, was merely an example of hopeless optimism on the part of Silas, for no sooner did news of the specific confiscation reach the publishers than they immediately despatched the parchments through the mailing system of the government to the homes of the various cabinet members.

(To be continued.)