so long as that. Public men do not go 'on the bust,' Joe, as you
put it."

"Be careful, sir! I can't drive with one eye."

"How can they, indeed?" went on Mr. Lavender; "they are like athletes,
ever in training for their unending conflict with the national life."

"Well," answered Joe indulgently, "they 'as their own kind of
intoxication, too--that's true; and the fumes is permanent; they're
gassed all the time, and chloroformed the rest.

"I don't know to what you allude, Joe," said Mr. Lavender severely.

"'Aven't you never noticed, sir, that there's two worlds--the world as it
is, and the world as it seems to the public man?"

"That may be," said Mr. Lavender with some excitement. "But which is the
greater, which is the nobler, Joe? And what does the other matter?
Surely that which flourishes in great minds, and by their utterances is
made plain. Is it not better to live in a world where nobody shrinks
from being starved or killed so long as they can die for their kings and
countries, rather than in a world where people merely wish to live?"

"Ah!" said Joe, "we're all ready to die for our countries if we've got
to. But we don't look on it, like the public speakers, as a picnic.
They're a bit too light-'earted."

"Joe," said Mr. Lavender, covering his ears, and instantly uncovering
them again, "this is the most horrible blasphemy I have ever listened
to."

"I can do better than that, sir," answered Joe. "Shall I get on with
it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Lavender, clenching his hands, "a public man shrinks from
nothing--not even from the gibes of his enemies."

"Well, wot abaht it, sir? Look at the things they say, and at what
really is. Mind you, I'm not speakin' particular of the public men in
this country--or any other country; I'm speakin' of the lot of 'em in
every country. They're a sort of secret society, brought up on gas. And
every now and then someone sets a match to it, and we get it in the neck.
Look 'ere, sir. Dahn squats one on his backside an' writes something in
'igh words. Up pops another and says something in 'igher; an' so they go
on poppin' up an' squattin' dahn till you get an atmosphere where you
can't breathe; and all the time all we want is to be let alone, and 'uman
kindness do the rest. All these fellers 'ave got two weaknesses--one's
ideas, and the other's their own importance. They've got to be
conspicuous, and without ideas they can't, so it's a vicious circle. When
I see a man bein'