asizing the voluptuous outlines of the
bust.

"Splendidly," he returned. He stood with his coat-tails to the fire, his
coarse-grained face beaming like an extra lamp. "The people and those
croquettes were A1. The way Mary's picked up French cookery is
wonderful."

"Yes, especially considering she denies herself butter. But I'm not
thinking of that nor of our guests." He looked at her wonderingly.
"Henry," she continued impressively, "how would you like to get into
Parliament?"

"Eh, Parliament? Me?" he stammered.

"Yes, why not? I've always had it in my eye."

His face grew gloomy. "It is not practicable," he said, shaking the head
with the prominent teeth and ears.

"Not practicable?" she echoed sharply. "Just think of what you've
achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. Not
practicable, indeed! Why, that's the very word you used years ago in the
provinces when I said you ought to be President. You said old
Winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I
felt certain your superior English would tell in the long run in such a
miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that
delicious blunder about the 'university' of the Exodus instead of the
'anniversary,' and I went about laughing over it in all the best
circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and
seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness
was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? Didn't you
tell me that we should never rise to the surface?"

"It didn't seem probable, did it?" he murmured in self-defence.

"Of course not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of
Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely
to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all
filled up by old hands, there was no way of getting on the Council and
meeting our magnates."

"Yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. I had not much
difficulty in persuading the United Synagogue that a new synagogue was a
crying want in Kensington, but I could hardly persuade the government
that a new constituency is a crying want in London." He spoke pettishly;
his ambition always required rousing and was easily daunted.

"No, but somebody's going to start a new something else, Henry," said
Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. "Trust in me; think of what
we have done in less than a