anner of English local affairs.'

'I see, you are afraid I might be induced to become a candidate for the
House of Commons--or, perhaps, for the London County Council, or the
School Board. I tell you what, Hamilton: I do seriously wish I had an
opportunity of going into training on the School Board. It would give me
some information and some ideas which might be very useful if we ever
get again to be at the head of affairs in Gloria.'

Hamilton was a young man who took life seriously. If it were possible to
imagine that he could criticise unfavourably anything said or done by
his chief, it would be perhaps when the chief condescended to trifle
about himself and his position. So Hamilton did not like the mild jest
about the School Board. Indeed, his mind was not at the moment much in a
condition for jests of any kind, mild or otherwise.

'I don't fancy we should learn anything in the London School Board that
would be of any particular service to us out in Gloria,' he said
protestingly.

'Right you are,' the Dictator answered, with a half-pathetic smile. 'I
need you, boy, to recall me to myself, as the people say in the novels.
No, I do not for a moment feel myself vain enough to suppose that the
ordinary member of the London School Board could at a stroke put his
finger within a thousand miles of Gloria on the map of the
world--Mercator's Projection, or any other. And yet, do you know, I have
odd dreams in my head of a day when Gloria may become the home and the
shelter of a sturdy English population, whom their own country could
endow with no land but the narrow slip of earth that makes a pauper's
grave.'

CHAPTER XVII

MISS PAULO'S OBSERVATION

Miss Paulo sat for a while thoughtfully biting the top of her quill pen
and looking out dreamily into the street. Her little sitting-room faced
Knightsbridge and the trees and grass of the Park. Often when some
problem of the domestic economy of the hotel caused her a passing
perplexity, she would derive new vigour for grappling with complicated
sums from a leisurely study of those green spaces and the animated
panorama of the passing crowd. But to-day there was nothing particularly
complicated about the family accounts, and Dolores Paulo sought for no
arithmetical inspiration from the pleasant out-look. Her mind was wholly
occupied with the thought of what Captain Sarrasin had been saying to
her--of the possible peril that threatened the Dictator.

She drew th