make no other reply.

"And that in opposition to the wishes, as I understand, of a large
proportion of your fellow-citizens?"

"The wishes of our fellow-citizens have been declared by repeated
majorities in the Assembly."

"You have only one House in your Constitution," said Sir Ferdinando.

"One House I hold to be quite sufficient."

I was proceeding to explain the theory on which the Britannulan
Constitution had been formed, when Sir Ferdinando interrupted me. "At
any rate, you will admit that a second Chamber is not there to guard
against the sudden action of the first. But we need not discuss all
this now. It is your purpose to carry out your Fixed Period as soon
as the John Bright shall have departed?"

"Certainly."

"And you are, I am aware, sufficiently popular with the people here
to enable you to do so?"

"I think I am," I said, with a modest acquiescence in an assertion
which I felt to be so much to my credit. But I blushed for its
untruth.

"Then," said Sir Ferdinando, "there is nothing for it but that he
must take you with him."

There came upon me a sudden shock when I heard these words, which
exceeded anything which I had yet felt. Me, the President of a
foreign nation, the first officer of a people with whom Great Britain
was at peace,--the captain of one of her gunboats must carry me off,
hurry me away a prisoner, whither I knew not, and leave the country
ungoverned, with no President as yet elected to supply my place! And
I, looking at the matter from my own point of view, was a husband,
the head of a family, a man largely concerned in business,--I was to
be carried away in bondage--I, who had done no wrong, had disobeyed
no law, who had indeed been conspicuous for my adherence to my
duties! No opposition ever shown to Columbus and Galileo had come
near to this in audacity and oppression. I, the President of a free
republic, the elected of all its people, the chosen depository of its
official life,--I was to be kidnapped and carried off in a ship of
war, because, forsooth, I was deemed too popular to rule the country!
And this was told to me in my own room in the executive chambers, in
the very sanctum of public life, by a stout florid gentleman in a
black coat, of whom I hitherto knew nothing except that his name was
Brown!

"Sir," I said, after a pause, and turning to Captain Battleax and
addressing him, "I cannot believe that you, as an officer in the
British navy, will commit any ac