usly would be the course of a fanatic, a man
devoid of the sense of proportion. Were such a man, I asked, fitted to
govern the country?

He did not stop to argue, but went away leaving me the conviction that
he thanked his stars on the Government's providential escape from so
maniacal a minister. I hope I did not treat him with any discourtesy;
but, oh! it was good to speak the truth after all the dismal lies I have
been forced to tell at the bidding of Raggle's Party. Now that I am no
longer bound by the rules of the game, it is good to feel a free, honest
man.

Never again shall I stretch forth my arms and thunder invectives against
well-meaning people with whom in my heart I secretly sympathise.
Never again shall I plead passionately for principles which a horrible
instinct tells me are fundamentally futile. Never again shall I attempt
to make mountains out of mole-hills or bricks without straw or sunbeams
out of cucumbers.

I shall conduct no more inquiries into pauper lunacy, thank Heaven! And
as for the public engagements which Dale Kynnersley made for me during
my Thebaid existence on Murglebed-on-Sea, the deuce can take them all--I
am free.

I only await the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, for which quaint
post under the Crown I applied, to cease to be a Member of Parliament.
And yet, in spite of all my fine and superior talk, I am glad I am
giving up in the recess. I should not like to be out of my seat were the
House in session.

I should hate to think of all the fascinating excitement over nothing
going on in the lobbies without me, while I am still hale and hearty.
When Parliament meets in February I shall either be comfortably dead or
so uncomfortably alive that I shall not care.

_Ce que c'est que de nous!_ I wonder how far Simon de Gex and I are
deceiving each other?

There is no deception about my old friend Latimer, who called on me a
day or two ago. He is on the Stock Exchange, and, muddle-headed creature
that he is, has been "bearing" the wrong things. They have gone up
sky-high. Settling-day is drawing near, and how to pay for the shares he
is bound to deliver he has not the faintest notion.

He stamped up and down the room, called down curses on the prying fools
who came across the unexpected streak of copper in the failing mine,
drew heart-rending pictures of his wife and family singing hymns in the
street, and asked me for a drink of prussic acid. I rang the bell and
ordered R