Possum-in-the-box

That strutting player whom many a Pole admires, Dictator-Marshal Josef Pilsudski, played again last week the now famous role which he enacts whenever the Sejm (Parliament) attempts to disobey him.

This time it was a matter of the budget. At the bill's first two readings the Deputies had cut, slashed and patched it--over-riding the demands of the Government a dozen times. Vice Premier Bartel, twittering, rushed out to Marshal Pilsudski's suburban home for advice.

"The Marshal is ill and will see no one," said a servant, closing the door firmly in the Vice Premier's face. As usual, Josef Pilsudski, sly possum, was playing dead. Five minutes later he received an old friend, Minister of Posts Medzinski. Together they arranged the morrow's little melodrama. . . .

The Sejm assembles. Only Minister of Interior Slawoi Skladkowski sits, alone and forlorn, upon the Government bench. Opposition deputies stroke their beards in satisfaction, twirl confident mustaches, whisper that the Budget Bill will never pass. Once again they tear it to tatters in a furious debate. At last the President of the Sejm calls for the final vote.

Suddenly--like the door of a jack-in-the-box--the heavy portal of the Sejm flies open. The Josef-in-the-box stands there, surrounded by his Cabinet. They are in formal dress, ablaze with orders. The Marshal, towering and black-browed, wears only his field uniform, wrinkled, unadorned. . . .

There he stands, arms folded. Suddenly the Deputies remember that he stands, after all, for Poland. His lion courage, his dramatic posturing, even his dynamic fickleness, are their own. In a flash the Deputies have changed their minds about the Budget Bill. A few moments, and it is voted through in its original form amid a dazed, hypnotic silence.

Even then the Marshal does not deign to speak. Sombre, followed by the glittering Cabinet, he strides back into his jack-in-the-box, and the great door whips shut behind. . . .

When this scene had played to its end last week, pandemonium broke loose. Opposition Deputies cursed one another for not voting down the bill. Beards bristled, tongues wagged. How ever had it all happened, asked the Deputies, amazed at themselves? The explanation seemed to be that Josef Pilsudski knows his Poland. From the new budget he will derive alarmingly great sums to spend upon his special toy, the army.