.

"Miss Sophia Milton--Mr. Carter," said Mrs. Hilary, and left us.

Well, we tried the theaters first; but as she had only been to the
Lyceum and I had only been to the Gaioety, we soon got to the end of
that. Then we tried Art: she asked me what I thought of Degas: I
evaded the question by criticizing a drawing of a horse in last week's
Punch--which she hadn't seen. Upon this she started literature. She said
"Some Qualms and a Shiver" was the book of the season. I put my money on
"The Queen of the Quorn." Dead stop again! And I saw Mrs. Hilary's
eye upon me; there was wrath in her face. Something must be done. A
brilliant idea seized me. I had read that four-fifths of the culture of
England were Conservative. I also was a Conservative. It was four to
one on! I started politics. I could have whooped for joy when I elicited
something particularly incisive about the ignorance of the masses.

"I do hope you agree with me," said Miss Milton. "The more one reads
and thinks, the more one sees how fatally false a theory it is that the
ignorant masses--people such as I have described--can ever rule a great
Empire."

"The Empire wants gentlemen; that's what it wants," said I, nodding my
head and glancing triumphantly at Mrs. Hilary.

"Men and women," said she, "who are acquainted with the best that has
been said and thought on all important subjects."

At the time I believed this observation to be original, but I have since
been told that it was borrowed. I was delighted with it.

"Yes," said I, "and have got a stake in the country, you know, and know
how to behave emselves in the House, don't you know?"

"What we have to do," pursued Miss Milton, "is to guide the voters.
These poor rustics need to be informed--"

"Just so," I broke in. "They have to be told--"

"Of the real nature of the questions--"

"And which candidate to support."

"Or they must infallibly"--she exclaimed.

"Get their marching orders," I cried, in rapture. It was exactly what I
always did on my small property.

"Oh, I didn't quite mean that," she said reproachfully.

"Oh, well, neither did I--quite," I responded adroitly. What was wrong
with the girl now?

"But with the help of the League--" she went on.

"Do you belong?" I cried, more delighted than ever.

"O, yes," said she. "I think it's a duty. I worked very hard at the last
election. I spent days distributing packages of--"

Then I made, I'm sorry to say, a false step. I observe