be a pretty able fellow. Weaklings (added my American) don't last
long, at any rate in our times. 'God and Nature turn out the
incompetents almost as quickly as would the electorate.' . . .
But my point is that the House of Lords, having in the past exploited
this supposed miracle for all it was worth, are now (if the Liberals
have any sense) to be faced with the overdraft which every miracle
leaves to be paid sooner or later. The longer-headed among the Peers
perceived this some years ago; they all see it now, and are tumbling
over each other in their haste to dodge the 'hereditary principle'
somehow. It is for the Liberals to hold them firmly to the dear old
miracle and rub their noses in it. So, and so only, will this
electorate of ours rid itself, under a misapprehension, of a real
peril, to which, if able to see the thing in its true form and
dimensions, it would in all likelihood yield itself grovelling."

"Eh? I don't follow--"

"I tell you, Bonaday, the House of Lords is in fact no hereditary
curse at all. What the devil has it to do with the claims of old
descent? Does it contain a man whose ancestor ever saw Agincourt?
Bankers, brewers, clothiers, mine-owners, company-promoters,
journalists--our Upper House to-day is a compact, fairly
well-selected body of men who have pushed to success over their
fellows. Given such a body of supermen, well agreed among
themselves, and knowing what they want, supplied with every
temptation to feed on the necessities of the weak, armed with
extravagant legal powers, even fortified with a philosophy in the
sham Darwin doctrine that, with nations as with men, the poverty of
one is the wealth of another--there, my dear sir, you have a menace
against which, could they realise it, all moderate citizens would be
fighting for their lives. . . . But it is close upon dinner-time, and
I refuse to extend these valuable but parenthetical remarks on the
House of Lords one whit farther to please your irresolution. . . .
It's high time Corona went to school."

"I have not been well lately, as you know, Brother. I meant all
along, as soon as I picked up my strength again, to--"

"Tilly vally, tilly vally!" snapped Brother Copas. "Since we are
making excuses shall we add that, without admitting ourselves to be
snobs, we have remarked a certain refinement--a delicacy of mind--in
Corona, and doubt if the bloom of it will survive the rough contact
of a public elementary school? .