upon China. It's for
China's good--can you deny that? A huge country packed with wretched
barbarians! Our trade civilises them--can you deny it? It's our duty,
as the leading Power of the world! Hundreds of millions of poor
miserable barbarians. And"--he shouted--"what else are the Russians, if
you come to that? Can _they_ civilise China? A filthy, ignorant nation,
frozen into stupidity, and downtrodden by an Autocrat!"

"Well," murmured the diffident objector, "I'm no friend of tyranny; I
can't say much for Russia----"

"I should think you couldn't. Who can? A country plunged in the
darkness of the Middle Ages! The country of the _knout_! Pah! Who _can_
say anything for Russia?"

Vociferating thus, the champion of civilisation fixed his glare upon
Otway, who, having laid down the paper, answered this look of challenge
with a smile.

"As you seem to appeal to me," sounded in Piers' voice, which was
steady and good-humoured, "I'm bound to say that Russia isn't
altogether without good points. You spoke of it, by the bye, as the
country of the knout; but the knout, as a matter of fact, was abolished
long ago."

"Well, well--yes; yes--one knows all about that," stammered the loud
man. "But the country is still ruled in the _spirit_ of the knout. It
doesn't affect my argument. Take it broadly, on an ethnological basis."
He expanded his chest, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his
waistcoat. "The Russians are a Slavonic people, I presume?"

"Largely Slav, yes."

"And pray, sir, what have the Slavs done for the world? What do we owe
them? What Slavonic name can anyone mention in the history of progress?"

"Two occur to me," replied Piers, in the same quiet tone, "well worthy
of a place in the history of intellectual progress. There was a Pole
named Kopernik, known to you, no doubt, as Copernicus, who came before
Galileo; and there was a Czech named Huss--John Huss--who came before
Luther."

The bilious man was smiling. The fourth person present in the room, who
sat with his book at some distance, had turned his eyes upon Otway with
a look of peculiar interest.

"You've made a special study, I suppose, of this sort of thing," said
the fat-faced politician, with a grin which tried to be civil,
conveying in truth, the radical English contempt for mere intellectual
attainment. "You're a supporter of Russia, I suppose?"

"I have no such pretension. Russia interests me, that's all."

"Come now, would you say t