Geneva

The only thing that is widely known about the League of Nations is that in Geneva it holds meetings where the nations that make up it communicate with each other from time to time. But there's more to it than that. There is a Committee on International Cooperation that is so little-known, so neglected and hungry that almost no one knew of its existence before Mr. Shaw's vote was revealed; and even now they believe it was Mr. Shaw's invention. But it's quite true: Mr. Shaw moved his office from Paris to Geneva; and in this office opens a game in which no one is responsible for it, except for a young typewriter from Camberwell, who has a significant opinion of himself as the winner of the District Council fellowship. Since no one visited the office or knew of its existence, he is surprised to receive a call by five people in a row that same morning, each of whom has a complaint that they expect to correct as a representative of intellectual cooperation in Europe. He has no weak idea of how to do this until the first visitor, a persecuted Jew, invites him to apply to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for an order against his followers. The second visitor is a British Democrat who was blocked from the colonial legislature to which he was elected. The third is the widow of the President of Central America, who was shot dead. Also by etiquette, she was forced to shoot her best friend, as she won the love of her husband.

• Read Now