tter about it in the Times."

"I don't see anything to laugh at in that," declared Stella. "Dogs are
dogs."

"They are, sister, especially in England."

"Laundresses aren't washerwomen there," observed Mrs Murchison. "I'd
like you to see the colour of the things he's brought home with him, Mrs
Williams. Clean or dirty, to the laundry they go--weeks it will take to
get them right again--ingrained London smut and nothing else."

"In this preference business they've got to lead the way," Williams
reverted. "We're not so grown up but what grandma's got to march in
front. Now, from your exhaustive observation of Great Britain, extending
over a period of six weeks, is she going to?"

"My exhaustive observation," said Lorne, smiling, "enables me to tell
you one thing with absolute accuracy; and that is that nobody knows.
They adore Wallingham over there--he's pretty nearly a god--and
they'd like to do as he tells them, and they're dead sick of theoretic
politics; but they're afraid--oh, they're afraid!"

"They'll do well to ca' canny," said John Murchison.

"There's two things in the way, at a glance," Lorne went on. "The
conservatism of the people--it isn't a name, it's a fact--the hostility
and suspicion; natural enough: they know they're stupid, and they half
suspect they're fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them
that. Slow--oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence than
anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when things are being
done, mind, all over the world, done against them--when their shipping
is being captured, and their industries destroyed, and their goods
undersold beneath their very noses--and the thing they want to know
is--Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a ha'penny morning
paper, too--that they think rather dangerously go-ahead--a whole column,
headed, to inquire what's the matter with the swallows. The Times the
same week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church Service, and
a special contribution on Prayers for the Dead. Lord, they need 'em!
Those are the things they THINK about! The session's nearly over, and
there's two Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills--bishoprics
and benefices, and Lord knows what--still to get through. Lot of anxiety
about 'em, apparently! As to a business view of politics, I expect the
climate's against it. They'll see over a thing--they're fond of doing
that--or under it, or round one side of it, but they don't s