terature was
like reading the Riot Act on an uninhabited island. Both reviews
suffered a serious falling-off in circulation and influence. Peace
hath its devastations as well as war.

The wives of noted public men formed another element of discomfiture
which the young Duke had almost entirely left out of his calculations.
It is sufficiently embarrassing to keep abreast of the possible
wobblings and veerings-round of a human husband, who, from the strength
or weakness of his personal character, may leap over or slip through
the barriers which divide the parties; for this reason a merciful
politician usually marries late in life, when he has definitely made up
his mind on which side he wishes his wife to be socially valuable. But
these trials were as nothing compared to the bewilderment caused by the
Angel-husbands who seemed in some cases to have revolutionized their
outlook on life in the interval between breakfast and dinner, without
premonition or preparation of any kind, and apparently without
realizing the least need for subsequent explanation. The temporary
peace which brooded over the Parliamentary situation was by no means
reproduced in the home circles of the leading statesmen and
politicians. It had been frequently and extensively remarked of Mrs.
Exe that she would try the patience of an angel; now the tables were
reversed, and she unwittingly had an opportunity for discovering that
the capacity for exasperating behaviour was not all on one side.

And then, with the introduction of the Navy Estimates, Parliamentary
peace suddenly dissolved. It was the old quarrel between Ministers and
the Opposition as to the adequacy or the reverse of the Government's
naval programme. The Angel-Quinston and the Angel-Hugo-Sizzle
contrived to keep the debates free from personalities and pinpricks,
but an enormous sensation was created when the elegant lackadaisical
Halfan Halfour threatened to bring up fifty thousand stalwarts to wreck
the House if the Estimates were not forthwith revised on a Two-Power
basis. It was a memorable scene when he rose in his place, in response
to the scandalized shouts of his opponents, and thundered forth,
"Gentlemen, I glory in the name of Apache."

Belturbet, who had made several fruitless attempts to ring up his young
friend since the fateful morning in St. James's Park, ran him to earth
one afternoon at his club, smooth and spruce and unruffled as ever.

"Tell me, what on earth ha