ant speeches, and had the general solidity and
suffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of
life. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an
undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but
that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident,
and had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be
reckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a
serious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind Miss
Arrowpoint's addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in
antique lace. He was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner
outburst of Klesmer's on the lack of idealism in English politics,
which left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply
by the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this
excuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous
feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what
then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of "Buy
cheap, sell dear." On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and
other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally
ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not
surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished
at his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way
that would have told at a constituents' dinner--to be accounted for
probably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that
fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged
him to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the
drawing-room he for the first time went up to Klesmer at the piano,
Miss Arrowpoint being near, and said--

"I had no idea before that you were a political man."

Klesmer's only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and
stare at Mr. Bult.

"You must have been used to public speaking. You speak uncommonly well,
though I don't agree with you. From what you said about sentiment, I
fancy you are a Panslavist."

"No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew," said Klesmer, flashing
a smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like
rush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery
rather offensive and Polish, but--Miss Arrowpoint being there--did not
like to move away.

"Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan idea