ternly, "that's not the point."

"I was afraid not."

"The thing is, one must be in the swim. Everybody is offering things right
and left now. Look at SUTHERLAND, DERBY--even LLOYD GEORGE."

"I didn't know they were friends of yours."

"Not exactly; but----"

"Then why so familiar?"

"My dear," I explained, "that _is_ the point. Once get your name in the
papers at the end of a two-column letter and you are the friend of all the
world--it gives one an _entree_ to the castle of the Duke and the cottage
of the crofter."

"Even before you've written it?"

"I have written it!"

"Oh, how splendid! Where?"

"In here," I said, tapping the best bit of my head.

"Oh, _that_!" And then, pensively: "Next time Mary Jane has a brainstorm,
I'll tell her to call you 'Charley.' Poor girl!"

"I don't think you quite appreciate," I remarked.

"I don't. What exactly do we stand to gain?"

"There's the rub. Not lucre. Perish the thought! But one begins to be a
power, an influence. People whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?' '_That!_
Don't you know? Why Him--He! The man who is making the Government a
laughing-stock. The man who holds the Empire in the palm of his hand. The
man who----'"

"Thanks," said Enid. "We had better buy a gramophone. I thought you were
getting fidgety at home."

"Dearest," I explained, "it is not that. It is because I feel in me a
spirit that will not be denied. Give me the opportunity and I will make
this land, this England----"

"Hush, Squawks. Was'ms frightened then, poor darling!"

"That dog----"

"Hush!" said Enid to me. "How are you going to begin?"

"It is quite simple. Somebody writes something to the papers."

"Yes; so far it sounds easy."

"Now that something is hideously disparaging to my class and calling. I
promptly answer him."

"That is, if you can be funnier at his expense than he at yours."

"I shan't be funny at all."

"No?" said Enid thoughtfully.

"Mine will be a scathing indictment, and of course I shall bring in the
political situation. He writes back, evading the point at issue. I crush
him with figures and statistics, and make him a practical offer--a few
deer-forests, a paltry township, or my unearned increment, as the case may
be."

"The mowing-machine is out of order," Enid remarked.

"I quote passages in his letter as the basis of negotiation. He pretends to
accept. I point out how, when and why he has been guilty of paltry
quibbling, and show that the Pa