on. Crasweller, who was a member, and who took
his seat during these debates without venturing to speak, merely
whispered to his neighbour that the heartless greedy fellow was
unwilling to wait for the wools of Little Christchurch.

Three divisions were made on the debate, and thrice did the
Fixed-Periodists beat the old party by a majority of fifteen in a
House consisting of eighty-five members. So strong was the feeling
in the empire, that only two members were absent, and the number
remained the same during the whole week of the debate. This, I did
think, was a triumph; and I felt that the old country, which had
really nothing on earth to do with the matter, could not interfere
with an opinion expressed so strongly. My heart throbbed with
pleasureable emotion as I heard that old age, which I was myself
approaching, depicted in terms which made its impotence truly
conspicuous,--till I felt that, had it been proposed to deposit all
of us who had reached the age of fifty-eight, I really think that
I should joyfully have given my assent to such a measure, and have
walked off at once and deposited myself in the college.

But it was only at such moments that I was allowed to experience this
feeling of triumph. I was encountered not only in my own house but in
society generally, and on the very streets of Gladstonopolis, by the
expression of an opinion that Crasweller would not be made to retire
to the college at his Fixed Period. "What on earth is there to hinder
it?" I said once to my old friend Ruggles. Ruggles was now somewhat
over sixty, and was an agent in the town for country wool-growers.
He took no part in politics; and though he had never agreed to
the principle of the Fixed Period, had not interested himself in
opposition to it. He was a man whom I regarded as indifferent to
length of life, but one who would, upon the whole, rather face such
lot as Nature might intend for him, than seek to improve it by any
new reform.

"Eva Crasweller will hinder it," said Ruggles.

"Eva is a mere child. Do you suppose that her opinion will be allowed
to interrupt the laws of the whole community, and oppose the progress
of civilisation?"

"Her feelings will," said Ruggles. "Who's to stand a daughter
interceding for the life of her father?"

"One man cannot, but eighty-five can do so."

"The eighty-five will be to the community just what the one would be
to the eighty-five. I am not saying anything about your law. I am