rehensible policy and of your absurd "Intelligence" and
"Righteousness!" Call yourselves a Parliament? I tell you, your
Constitution is rotten to the core. Do you think we are to shed our
blood for you, to perish of famine, sword and pestilence, while you sit
here, talking the most delirious nonsense that ever was talked since the
Confusion of Tongues? You never have anything fresh to say; but there
you are, and nothing stops you. If it was the Day of Judgment you would
go on moving resolutions; and you have the insolence to maunder over
your gallant band of heroes, sacrificed to a whim of party rancour or a
struggle for place. We put you here to maintain law and order, to give
justice to your fellow-countrymen, and you sit listening to your own
melodious voices raving of the welfare of the nation, of Political
Economy, Budgets, and Ballots; but so much as the meaning of true
justice the bulk of you never guess. _You_, you turn Parliament into a
club, and your ambition is satisfied by invitations to dinner. But
we have borne enough, and marched enough; now you must march. We have
trudged at your bidding thousands of weary miles, for an end you made
impossible by your word-splitting cowardice. _Your_ turn has come. The
troops are in readiness; we are drilling the unemployed in event of
civil war, and you had better look out. "Obey me,"' added the General,
insensibly sliding into a popular quotation, '"and my nature's ile:
disobey me, and it's still ile, but it's ile of vitriol."'

For the most part honourable members sat stunned and silent; but from
the more rebellious came a few cries of 'Order!' 'Turn him out!' and the
Speaker slowly rose. 'I would remind the gallant General of the Mutiny
Act,' he said.

'An obsolete restriction of free contract,' said the General. He stamped
his foot, and in a second a file of soldiers had appeared.

'Take away that bauble!' exclaimed the General to his aide-decamp in
a severe and terrible tone, as he pointed to the mace. But as he gazed
upon the venerable emblem his frown melted, and his eyes grew dim.
For one instant the victorious warrior, the inexorable avenger of his
country's wrongs, was the dreamy worshipper of Blue China, the aesthetic
adorer of marquetry, and Chippendale.

'Take away that bauble,' he repeated in a low voice of ineffable
sweetness, 'and deposit it in the upper compartment of my bureau. You
know the spot. The bauble has a Chippendale feeling about it.'

Th