s for war
expenditure in the cause of philanthropy! Considering how very sharply
it looks after its L s. d. in other directions, this liberality is
especially touching and gratifying.'

But Queen Mab preferred to hurry past these dangerous-looking engines of
Altruism, and they continued their survey. They came next to a company
of umbrellas who were also barometers, and found out when it was going
to rain in time for their masters to take them out. This, Mab said, was
absurd, and, in fact, she was heartily tired of the whole thing before
the Owl had explained to her half-a-dozen ingenious structures. She said
that inanimate objects had no business to be so clever, and that, if the
mechanicians did not take care, they would shortly invent machines that
would conspire together to assassinate them, and then share the profits.

'Let us go away,' she exclaimed finally, 'before we turn into machines
ourselves! Everything is going round and round, and I am afraid of
having to begin to go round and round too.'

'Ah, I knew this would be the place for cultivating the automatic
principle in you,' said the Owl triumphantly. 'We will come again.'

'No, thank you,' said Mab, energetically spreading her wings, and, in
her preoccupation, taking the wrong road and darting into the great
luncheon-room, whither the Owl followed her. The tables were crowded
with people, and numbers of other people who had not yet lunched, were
pacing up and down, looking anxiously for vacant places which were not
there. The invisible spectators recognised the British manufacturer they
had seen in Richmond Park. He was seated at a table; he had been sitting
there since the disappearance of his last glass of claret, half an hour
by the great clock, and for the whole of that half-hour several persons,
standing very near his chair, had been fixing hungry eyes upon him,
and expecting him to get up. Every time his boots creaked they moved
perceptibly nearer, and made swift mental calculations of the chances
each would have to reach the chair; but the worthy manufacturer still
sat on, stolid and complacent, with a sense of comfort the keener by
contrast.

Queen Mab and the Owl found him uncongenial, and flew away again.

'That is just like him,' said the Owl, when they had reached the outside
of the building at last, and were perched on the roof, enjoying the
fresh air. 'He _will_ get all he can for his money. In him you may see a
typical and beautiful exa