ou's Dominion, he did just that.

He advanced across the lawn eloquent as all the tides. He said he had
been observing to the Agent-General that it was both politically immoral
and strategically unsound that forty-four million people should bear the
entire weight of the defences of Our mighty Empire, but, as he had
observed (here the Agent-General evaporated), we stood now upon the
threshold of a new era in which the self-governing _and_ self-respecting
(bis) Dominions would rightly and righteously, as co-partners in Empery,
shoulder their share of any burden which the Pan-Imperial Council of
the Future should allot. The Agent-General was already arranging for
drinks with Penfentenyou at the other end of the garden. Mr. Lingnam
swept me on to the most remote bench and settled to his theme.

We dined at eight. At nine Mr. Lingnam was only drawing abreast of
things Imperial. At ten the Agent-General, who earns his salary, was
shamelessly dozing on the sofa. At eleven he and Penfentenyou went to
bed. At midnight Mr. Lingnam brought down his big-bellied despatch box
with the newspaper clippings and set to federating the Empire in
earnest. I remember that he had three alternative plans. As a dealer in
words, I plumped for the resonant third--'Reciprocally co-ordinated
Senatorial Hegemony'--which he then elaborated in detail for
three-quarters of an hour. At half-past one he urged me to have faith
and to remember that nothing mattered except the Idea. Then he retired
to his room, accompanied by one glass of cold water, and I went into the
dawn-lit garden and prayed to any Power that might be off duty for the
blood of Mr. Lingnam, Penfentenyou, and the Agent-General.

To me, as I have often observed elsewhere, the hour of earliest dawn is
fortunate, and the wind that runs before it has ever been my most
comfortable counsellor.

'Wait!' it said, all among the night's expectant rosebuds. 'To-morrow is
also a day. Wait upon the Event!'

I went to bed so at peace with God and Man and Guest that when I waked I
visited Mr. Lingnam in pyjamas, and he talked to me Pan-Imperially for
half-an-hour before his bath. Later, the Agent-General said he had
letters to write, and Penfentenyou invented a Cabinet crisis in his
adored Dominion which would keep him busy with codes and cables all the
forenoon. But I said firmly, 'Mr. Lingnam wishes to see a little of the
country round here. You are coming with us in your own car.'

'It's a hir