t is as
well to make it as comfortable as possible. Each of us has his own
crib, with a bath to himself, and all the et-ceteras. This is where
we feed. It is not altogether a bad shop for grubbing." As I looked
round I thought that I had never seen anything more palatial and
beautiful. "This is where we pretend to sit," continued the lord;
"where we are supposed to write our letters and read our books. And
this," he said, opening another door, "is where we really sit, and
smoke our pipes, and drink our brandy-and-water. We came out under
the rule of that tyrant King MacNuffery. We mean to go back as
a republic. And I, as being the only lord, mean to elect myself
president. You couldn't give me any wrinkles as to a pleasant mode of
governing? Everybody is to be allowed to do exactly what he pleases,
and nobody is to be interfered with unless he interferes with
somebody else. We mean to take a wrinkle from you fellows in
Britannula, where everybody seems, under your presidency, to be as
happy as the day is long."

"We have no Upper House with us, my lord," said I.

"You have got rid, at any rate, of one terrible bother. I daresay
we shall drop it before long in England. I don't see why we should
continue to sit merely to register the edicts of the House of
Commons, and be told that we're a pack of fools when we hesitate." I
told him that it was the unfortunate destiny of a House of Lords to
be made to see her own unfitness for legislative work.

"But if we were abolished," continued he, "then I might get into
the other place and do something. You have to be elected a Peer of
Parliament, or you can sit nowhere. A ship can only be a ship, after
all; but if we must live in a ship, we are not so bad here. Come and
take some tiffin." An Englishman, when he comes to our side of the
globe, always calls his lunch tiffin.

I went back to the other room with Lord Marylebone; and as I took my
place at the table, I heard that the assembled cricketers were all
discussing the Fixed Period.

"I'd be shot," said Mr Puddlebrane, "if they should deposit me, and
bleed me to death, and cremate me like a big pig." Then he perceived
that I had entered the saloon, and there came a sudden silence across
the table.

"What sort of wind will be blowing next Friday at two o'clock?" asked
Sir Lords Longstop.

It was evident that Sir Lords had only endeavoured to change the
conversation because of my presence; and it did not suit me to allow