a paragraph or two more: I skip a lot.... Ah! here we
are.' Captain Baskelett read to himself and laughed in derision: 'He
calls our Constitution a compact unsigned by the larger number involved
in it. What's this? "A band of dealers in fleshpottery." Do you detect
a gleam of sense? He underscores it. Then he comes to this': Captain
Baskelett requested Colonel Halkett to read for himself: 'The stench of
the trail of Ego in our History.'

The colonel perused it with an unsavoury expression of his features, and
jumped up.

'Oddly, Mr. Romfrey thought this rather clever,' said Captain Baskelett,
and read rapidly:

'"Trace the course of Ego for them: first the king who conquers and
can govern. In his egoism he dubs him holy; his family is of a
selected blood; he makes the crown hereditary--Ego. Son by son the
shame of egoism increases; valour abates; hereditary Crown, no
hereditary qualities. The Barons rise. They in turn hold sway, and
for their order--Ego. The traders overturn them: each class rides
the classes under it while it can. It is ego--ego, the fountain
cry, origin, sole source of war! Then death to ego, I say! If
those traders had ruled for other than ego, power might have rested
with them on broad basis enough to carry us forward for centuries.
The workmen have ever been too anxious to be ruled. Now comes on
the workman's era. Numbers win in the end: proof of small wisdom in
the world. Anyhow, with numbers there is rough nature's wisdom and
justice. With numbers ego is inter-dependent and dispersed; it is
universalized. Yet these may require correctives. If so, they will
have it in a series of despots and revolutions that toss, mix, and
bind the classes together: despots, revolutions; panting
alternations of the quickened heart of humanity."

'Marked by our friend Nevil in notes of admiration.'

'Mad as the writer,' groaned Colonel Halkett. 'Never in my life have I
heard such stuff.'

'Stay, colonel; here's Shrapnel defending Morality and Society,' said
Captain Baskelett.

Colonel Halkett vowed he was under no penal law to listen, and would
not; but Captain Baskelett persuaded him: 'Yes, here it is: I give you
my word. Apparently old Nevil has been standing up for every man's right
to run away with... Yes, really! I give you my word; and here we have
Shrapnel insisting on respect for the marriage laws. Do hear this; here
it is in black and white:--