of the new French and German field guns. Wrassleton joined in and a

little drunken shrivelled Oxford don of some sort with a black-

splashed shirt front who presently silenced them all by the

immensity and particularity of his knowledge of field artillery.

Then the talk drifted to Sedan and the effect of dead horses upon

drinking-water, which brought Wrassleton and Weston Massinghay into

a dispute of great vigour and emphasis. "The trouble in South

Africa," said Weston Massinghay, "wasn't that we didn't boil our

water. It was that we didn't boil our men. The Boers drank the

same stuff we did. THEY didn't get dysentery."

That argument went on for some time. I was attacked across the

table by a man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood

schemes, but in the gaps of that debate I could still hear Weston

Massinghay at intervals repeat in a rather thickened voice: "THEY

didn't get dysentery."

I think Evesham went early. The rest of us clustered more and more

closely towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed

along, and the area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned

to a tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and

baths. Everybody was now disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say

startling and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer

clamour to a listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to

begin baiting me. "Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said

Burshort. "Remington has made it the Obstetric Party."

"That's good!" said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming;

"I shall use that against you in the House!"

"I shall denounce you for abusing private confidences if you do,"

said Tarvrille.

"Remington wants us to give up launching Dreadnoughts and launch

babies instead," Burshort urged. "For the price of one Dreadnought-"

The little shrivelled don who had been omniscient about guns joined

in the baiting, and displayed himself a venomous creature.

Something in his eyes told me he knew Isabel and hated me for it.

"Love and fine thinking," he began, a little thickly, and knocking

over a wine-glass with a too easy gesture. "Love and fine thinking.

Two things don't go together. No philosophy worth a damn ever came

out of excesses of love. Salt Lake City-Piggott-Ag-Agapemone

again-no works to matter."

Everybody laughed.

"Got to rec'nise these facts," said my assailant. "Love and fine

think'n pretty phrase-attractive. Suitable for p'litical

dec'rations. Postcard, Christmas, gilt lets, in a wreath of white

flow's. Not oth'wise valu'ble."

I made some remark, I forget what, but he overbore me.

Real things we want are Hate-Hate and COARSE think'n. I b'long to

the school of Mrs. F's Aunt-"

"What?" said some one, intent.

"In 'Little Dorrit,'" explained Tarvrille; "go on!"

"Hate a fool," said my assailant.

Tarvrille glanced at me. I smiled to conceal the loss of my temper.

"Hate," said the little man, emphasising his point with a clumsy

fist. "Hate's the driving force. What's m'rality?-hate of rotten

goings on. What's patriotism?-hate of int'loping foreigners.

What's Radicalism?-hate of lords. What's Toryism?-hate of

disturbance. It's all hate-hate from top to bottom. Hate of a

mess. Remington owned it the other day, said he hated a mu'll.

There you are! If you couldn't get hate into an election, damn it

(hic) people wou'n't poll. Poll for love!-no' me!"

He paused, but before any one could speak he had resumed.

"Then this about fine thinking. Like going into a bear pit armed

with a tagle-talgent-talgent galv'nometer. Like going to fight a

mad dog with Shasepear and the Bible. Fine thinking-what we want

is the thickes' thinking we can get. Thinking that stands up alone.

Taf Reform means work for all, thassort of thing."

The gentleman from Cambridge paused. "YOU a flag!" he said. "I'd

as soon go to ba'ell und' wet tissue paper!"

My best answer on the spur of the moment was:

"The Japanese did." Which was absurd.

I went on to some other reply, I forget exactly what, and the talk

of the whole table drew round me. It was an extraordinary

revelation to me. Every one was unusually careless and outspoken,

and it was amazing how manifestly they echoed the feeling of this

old Tory spokesman. They were quite friendly to me, they regarded

me and the BLUE WEEKLY as valuable party assets for Toryism, but it

was clear they attached no more importance to what were my realities

than they did to the remarkable therapeutic claims of Mrs. Eddy.

They were flushed and amused, perhaps they went a little too far in

their resolves to draw me, but they left the impression on my mind

of men irrevocably set upon narrow and cynical views of political

life. For them the political struggle was a game, whose counters

were human hate and human credulity; their real aim was just every

one's aim, the preservation of the class and way of living to which

their lives were attuned. They did not know how tired I was, how

exhausted mentally and morally, nor how cruel their convergent

attack on me chanced to be. But my temper gave way, I became tart

and fierce, perhaps my replies were a trifle absurd, and Tarvrille,