ift the wheat from the chaff--to strip a question of what were
mere accidental elements, and to test a difficulty by its real qualities.
Atlee is a clever fellow, an able fellow, I assure you. That very telegram
before us is a proof how he can deal with a matter on which instruction
would be impossible.'

'Indeed, my lord!' said Walpole, with well-assumed innocence.

'I am right glad to know he is coming home. He must demolish that writer in
the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ at once--some unprincipled French blackguard,
who has been put up to attack me by Thouvenel!'

Would it have appeased his lordship's wrath to know that the writer of this
defamatory article was no other than Joe Atlee himself, and that the reply
which was to 'demolish it' was more than half-written in his desk at that
moment?

'I shall ask,' continued my lord, 'I shall ask him, besides, to write a
paper on Ireland, and that fiasco of yours, Cecil.'

'Much obliged, my lord!'

'Don't be angry or indignant! A fellow with a neat, light hand like Atlee
can, even under the guise of allegation, do more to clear you than scores
of vulgar apologists. He can, at least, show that what our distinguished
head of the Cabinet calls "the flesh-and-blood argument," has its full
weight with us in our government of Ireland, and that our bitterest enemies
cannot say we have no sympathies with the nation we rule over.'

'I suspect, my lord, that what you have so graciously called _my_ fiasco
is well-nigh forgotten by this time, and wiser policy would say, "Do not
revive it."'

'There's a great policy in saying in "an article" all that could be said in
"a debate," and showing, after all, how little it comes to. Even the feeble
grievance-mongers grow ashamed at retailing the review and the newspapers;
but, what is better still, if the article be smartly written, they are sure
to mistake the peculiarities of style for points in the argument. I have
seen some splendid blunders of that kind when I sat in the Lower House! I
wish Atlee was in Parliament.'

'I am not aware that he can speak, my lord.'

'Neither am I; but I should risk a small bet on it. He is a ready fellow,
and the ready fellows are many-sided--eh, Maude?' Now, though his lordship
only asked for his niece's concurrence in his own sage remark, Walpole
affected to understand it as a direct appeal to her opinion of Atlee, and
said, 'Is that your judgment of this gentleman, Maude?'

'I have no prescription t