en Public
Opinion at all. All they've seen is what the U.P. let 'em. Now if I
was the Gover'ment, I'd 'ave it out once for all with the U. P."

"Ah!" cried Mr. Lavender, whose eyes were starting from his, head, so
profoundly was he agitated by what was to him a new thought.

"Yes," continued Joe, "if I was the Gover'ment, next time it 'appened,
I'd say: 'All right, old cock, do your damnedest. I ain't responsible to
you. Attack, suppress, and all the rest of it. We're goin' to do what
we say, all the same!' And then I'd do it. And what'd come of it?
Either the U.P. would go beyond the limits of the Law--and then I'd jump
on it, suppress its papers, and clap it into quod--or it'd take it lyin'
down. Whichever 'appened it'd be all up with the U. P. I'd a broke its
chain off my neck for good. But I ain't the Gover'ment, an Gover'ment's
got tender feet. I ask you, sir, wot's the good of havin' a
Constitooshion, and a the bother of electing these fellows, if they can't
act according to their judgment for the short term of their natural
lives? The U.P. may be patriotic and estimable, and 'ave the best
intentions and all that, but its outside the Constitooshion; and what's
more, I'm not goin' to spend my last blood an' my last money in a
democratic country to suit the tastes of any single man, or triumpherate,
or wotever it may be made of. If the Government's uncertain wot the
country wants they can always ask it in the proper way, but they never
ought to take it on 'earsay from the papers. That's wot I think."

While he was speaking Mr. Lavender had become excited to the point of
fever, for, without intending it, Joe had laid bare to him a yawning
chasm between his worship of public men and his devotion to the Press.
And no sooner had his chauffeur finished than he cried: "Leave me, Joe,
for I must think this out."

"Right, sir," answered Joe with his smile, and taking the tea-tray from
off his master, he set it where it must infallibly be knocked over, and
went out.

"Can it be possible," thought Mr. Lavender, when he was alone, "that I am
serving God and Mammon? And which is God and which is Mammon?" he added,
letting his thoughts play over the countless speeches and leading
articles which had formed his spiritual diet since the war began. "Or,
indeed, are they not both God or both Mammon? If what Joe says is true,
and nothing is recorded save what seems good to this Unseen Power, have I
not been listening to ghosts an