's a poser for you; and look at the money
he gave away about the _Alabama_ to the Yankees, instead of fightin'
them for it like an Englishman. That's another poser for you!" retorted
the big, burly antagonist who had wakened up and entered into the
discussion with elephantine zeal. "Some of you would let foreigners
jump on your stomachs, but Captain Cowan and me says, 'England for
ever!' Why, if it hadn't been for Palmerston and the old Jew, we would
all have been Russians or blooming Germans before now."

"Bravo, John Bird, well said! That's a clinker for you, Harvey," chimed
in the devoted supporter of the previous speaker. "Fine Britishers they
are, givin' away the country of their birth in lumps at a time!"

Harvey was purple; his blood was at boiling pitch, and his poignant
attack on Captain John Bird gave that gentleman some concern lest it
should reach to something more than mere words. His peroration
consisted of a luxuriant use of imprecating adjectives which stamped
him as a person of original thought. He apologized to his Creator as he
passed from point to point of these profane heights, and was obviously
sure that this chaste mode of seeking forgiveness commended his
observations to the Deity. The attack on Gladstone's and his own
patriotism roused him to produce prodigies of declamatory
illustrations.

"Givin' the country away," he said. "Gladstone's trying to stop them
dukes and earls and such like from stealing it. What does he say that
the House of Lords should be shut up for, and these gentry made to work
like other folk? I'll tell you what he says that for: because he wants
it fairly shared, and the men that go down to the sea in ships to have
a bit of it."

"Now you needn't repeat Scripture after you've been swearin' see hard,"
interposed Captain Cowan.

"No, sir, I'm not using Scripture. I'm saying that Gladstone wants to
turn them fellows in the House of Lords out to work for their living,
instead of cribbing all the land and gettin' such as you to back them
up and crawl on your bended knees and kiss their hands for them; but
I'm not one of them sort. I says what Joe Cowan says: 'The land for the
people if they pay for it.' Wasn't it Gladstone and Bright that said no
good would ever be done until the House of Lords was pulled down, and
wasn't it Joe Cowan that stood up for them when they wanted to make the
Queen the Empress of India? Didn't he say: 'No, gentlemen, the Queen
of England's good e