call it!"

"We've got to make people believe that it isn't what you get that
matters, but what you do," Roger went on. "All this footling squabble
between workmen and employers about a farthing an hour more or a
farthing an hour less ... isn't decent ... it isn't gentlemanly. Oh, I
know very well that the counter-jumper thinks it's very clever to trick
a customer out of a ha'penny ... but it doesn't last, that kind of
profit. We lost America because we behaved like cads to the colonists,
and we'll lose everything if we continue to play the counter-jumper
trick. It isn't very popular now to talk about gentlemen ... people
sneer at the word ... but I'd rather die like a gentleman than live like
a cad ... and that's the spirit I want to see restored to the Tory
Party. It's awfully needed in England now!"

They began to lay plans for an Improved Tory Party that included an
alliance with Labour and a closer confederation of the colonies,
together with a definite understanding with America.

"And what about Ireland?" said Henry.

"Oh, of course, Ireland must have Home Rule and be treated like a
colony. Nobody but a fool wants to treat it in any other way!" said
Roger.

"There are an awful lot of fools in the world," Gilbert said.

"I know that," Roger retorted, "but need we trouble about them?"

"We've got to get a group of fellows together on much the same
principle as the Fabian Society ... no one to be admitted unless he has
brains and is willing to work without payment. _Look_ at the work that
Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw and all those people did for Socialism _for
nothing_, even paying for it out of their own pockets when they weren't
over-flush ... my goodness, if we can only get people with that kind of
spirit into our group, we'll mould the world! By the way, we ought to
pinch some ideas from the Fabians! We could meet somewhere ... here, to
begin with. And when we've got a group of fellows together with some
notion of what we all want to do, we can start inviting eminent ones to
talk to us ... and heckle the stuffing out of them!"

Gilbert was able to tell them a great deal about the origin of the
Fabian Society ... for his father was one of the founders of it ... and
he told them how the Society had invited Mr. Haldane to talk to them ...
and of the way in which they had fallen on him in the discussion and
left all his arguments in shreds when the meeting ended.... "If we can
get Balfour or Asquith or some