--that Mr. Churchill is a statesman, and that if
he insists that this odious man's railway must go through, it is in the
interests of the country that it should. I tell them...."

She paused for a minute to take breath and then went on: "I was speaking
to a man of that class only this morning, rather an intelligent man and
quite nice--I was saying, 'Don't you see, my dear Mr. Tull, that it is a
question of international politics. If the grand duke does not get the
money for his railway, the grand duke will be turned out of his--what is
it--principality? And that would be most dangerous--in the present
condition of affairs over there, and besides....' The man listened very
respectfully, but I could see that he was not convinced. I buckled to
again...."

"'And besides,' I said, 'there is the question of Greenland itself. We
English must have Greenland ... sooner or later. It touches you, even.
You have a son who's above--who doesn't care for life in a country town,
and you want to send him abroad--with a little capital. Well, Greenland
is just the place for him.' The man looked at me, and almost shook his
head in my face."

"'If you'll excuse me, my lady,' he said, 'it won't do. Mr. Churchill
is a man above hocus-pocus. Well I know it that have had dealings with
him. But ... well, the long and the short of it is, my lady, that you
can't touch pitch and not be defiled; or, leastwise, people'll think
you've been defiled--those that don't know you. The foreign nations are
all very well, and the grand duchy--and the getting hold of Greenland,
but what touches me is this--My neighbour Slingsby had a little money,
and he gets a prospectus. It looked very well--very well--and he brings
it in to me. I did not have anything to do with it, but Slingsby did.
Well, now there's Slingsby on the rates and his wife a lady born,
almost. I might have been taken in the same way but for--for the grace
of God, I'm minded to say. Well, Slingsby's a good man, and used to be a
hard-working man--all his life, and now it turns out that that
prospectus came about by the man de Mersch's manoeuvres--"wild-cat
schemes," they call them in the paper that I read. And there's any
number of them started by de Mersch or his agents. Just for what? That
de Mersch may be the richest man in the world and a philanthropist.
Well, then, where's Slingsby, if that's philanthropy? So Mr. Churchill
comes along and says, in a manner of speaking, "That's all very well