and joined more moderately in the reader's bursts of enthusiasm.

'Here's the strong man made articulate,' cried Rolfe at length. 'It's
no use; he stamps down one's prejudice--what? It's the voice of the
reaction. Millions of men, natural men, revolting against the softness
and sweetness of civilisation; men all over the world; hardly knowing
what they want and what they don't want; and here comes one who speaks
for them--speaks with a vengeance.'

'Undeniable.'

'_But_----'

'I was waiting for the _but_,' said Morton, with a smile and a nod.

'The brute savagery of it! The very lingo--how appropriate it is! The
tongue of Whitechapel blaring lust of life in the track of English
guns!-- He knows it; the man is a great artist; he smiles at the voice
of his genius.--It's a long time since the end of the Napoleonic wars.
Since then Europe has seen only sputterings of temper. Mankind won't
stand it much longer, this encroachment of the humane spirit. See the
spread of athletics. We must look to our physique, and make ourselves
ready. Those Lancashire operatives, laming and killing each other at
football, turning a game into a battle. For the milder of us there's
golf--an epidemic. Women turn to cricket--tennis is too soft--and
tomorrow they'll be bicycling by the thousand;--they must breed a
stouter race. We may reasonably hope, old man, to see our boys blown
into small bits by the explosive that hasn't got its name yet.'

'Perhaps,' replied Morton meditatively. 'And yet there are considerable
forces on the other side.'

'Pooh! The philosopher sitting on the safety-valve. He has breadth of
beam, good sedentary man, but when the moment comes--The Empire; that's
beginning to mean something. The average Englander has never grasped
the fact that there was such a thing as a British Empire. He's
beginning to learn it, and itches to kick somebody, to prove his
Imperialism. The bully of the music-hall shouting "Jingo" had his
special audience. Now comes a man of genius, and decent folk don't feel
ashamed to listen this time. We begin to feel our position. We can't
make money quite so easily as we used to; scoundrels in Germany and
elsewhere have dared to learn the trick of commerce. We feel sore, and
it's a great relief to have our advantages pointed out to us. By God!
we are the British Empire, and we'll just show 'em what _that_ means!'

'I'm reading the campaigns of Belisarius,' said Morton, after a pause.

'What has th