The Mouse That Roared Boxed Set

by Leonard Wibberley

“Nobody in Grand Fenwick would ever become a Communist. We all work our own lands. We know how hard it is to make a little profit.

Our forefathers passed liberty on to us with the land we were born in, and it is the part of free men to pass the same liberty on to their children, though we all must live in rags to do it.”

“I don’t like Communism. I don’t like to think that anyone’s my equal. Nobody is. I’m superior to a great number of people and inferior to others, and for that reason I’m not at all sure that I’m in favor of democracy either.

To rob the millionaire is as dishonorable a thing as to rob the widow.

No portion of a nation, which in all its long history had been dedicated to individualism, to the proposition that there should be the least amount of law to govern the greatest number of people, would submit to being arbitrarily and indefinitely shut up in houses and in cellars, in subways and in shelters, forbidden the comforts of radios, of television, of refrigerators and iced drinks, of cups of coffee, and of slugs of whisky or glasses of beer. Risk of death after a while became preferable to this, which was, for such a people, a form of living death.

“I hope,” said Gloriana warily, “that you are not going to suggest that I marry the American minister because I won’t do it. I’ve been reading about the Americans in a women’s magazine and they’re all cruel to their wives.” “Cruel to their wives?” echoed the Count. “Precisely. They treat them as equals. They refuse to make any decisions without consulting them. They load them up with worries they should keep to themselves. And when there isn’t enough money, they send them out to work instead of earning more by their own efforts. Some of them even make their wives work so they can go to college. They are not men at all. They are men-women. And their wives are women-men. If I am to marry, I want a husband who will be a man and let me be a woman. I’ll be able to handle him better that way.”