hat necessity upon me,' remarked the
young practitioner.

'Outside the wheels of the machine, sir, we indulge our hallucination of
immunity. I've been one in the whirr of them, relating what I hadn't
quite heard, and capitulating what I didn't think at all, in spite of the
cry of my conscience--a poor infant below the waters, casting up
ejaculatory bubbles of protestation. And if it is my reproach that I left
it to the perils of drowning, it's my pride that I continued to transmit
air enough to carry on the struggle. Not every journalist can say as
much. The Press is the voice of the mass, and our private opinion is
detected as a discord by the mighty beast, and won't be endured by him.'

'It's better not to think of him quite as a beast,' said Mr. Colesworth.

'Infinitely better: and I like your "guile," sir: But wait and tell me
what you think of him after tossing him his meat for a certain number of
years. There's Rockney. Do you know Rockney? He's the biggest single gun
they've got, and he's mad for this country, but ask him about the public,
you'll hear the menagerie-keeper's opinion of the brute that mauled his
loins.'

'Rockney,' said Mr. Colesworth, 'has the tone of a man disappointed of
the dictatorship.'

'Then you do know Rockney!' shouted Captain Con. 'That's the man in a
neat bit of drawing. He's a grand piece of ordnance. But wait for him
too, and tell me by and by. If it isn't a woman, you'll find, that primes
him, ay, and points him, and what's more, discharges him, I'm not Irish
born. Poor fellow! I pity him. He had a sweet Irish lady for his wife,
and lost her last year, and has been raging astray politically ever
since. I suppose it's hardly the poor creature's fault. None the less,
you know, we have to fight him. And now he 's nibbling at a bait--it 's
fun: the lady I mentioned, with a turn for adventure and enterprise: it's
rare fun: he 's nibbling, he'll be hooked. You must make her
acquaintance, Mr. Colesworth, and hold your own against her, if you can.
She's a niece of my wife's and I'll introduce you. I shall find her in
London, or at our lodgings at a Surrey farm we've taken to nurse my
cousin Captain Philip O'Donnell invalided from Indian awful climate!--on
my return, when I hope to renew the acquaintance. She has beauty, she has
brains. Resist her, and you 'll make a decent stand against Lucifer. And
supposing she rolls you up and pitches you over, her noticing you is a
pretty compliment