*

A PROPER PROPORTION.

(_An Interview with Mr. H.G. WELLS_).

I found the Sage, as I had expected, in his study at Omniscience Lodge.
There he sat in his new suit of Britlings, surrounded by novels and stories
in MS. dealing with every aspect of human affairs, sixty of the more
important being specifically devoted to the War and the various ways in
which it might conceivably terminate. I modestly approached and presented
myself.

"You have come," he said with a courteous gesture, "to discover my views on
the present conflict?"

"Not exactly," I said.

"Ah," he said; "which is it, then? You can take your choice, you know. All
you have to do is to select the subject," and he handed me a volume
resembling _Kelly's Directory_ in size and colour, and entitled
"_Classified Catalogue of Subjects on which Opinions can be furnished at
the Shortest Notice_." I turned the pages breathlessly until I came to
"Class V, Voter; sub-class P, Proportional Representation." "There," I
said, "is what I want," and I pointed the place out to him.

"Dear me," he said, "you desire guidance on a very simple matter."

"Well," I said, "I'm not so sure about that. It has rather flummoxed us in
our office. We can't make head or tail--"

"You may thank your stars," he interrupted, "that you've come to the right
shop. I'll make it all as clear as daylight in two shakes of a pig's
whisker. Are you ready?"

I said I was, and he began to pour forth at once.

"Imagine," he said, "a constituency of 40,000 voters who elect four
representatives. Obviously anyone who gets 40,001 votes is elected. Well
then, there are ten candidates. All you have to do is to take the quotient
of _x_ divided by _y_, where _x_ can be raised to the _n_th power and _y_
can be raised to the _n_th-1, and add to this the least common denominator
of the number of votes cast for the last three candidates, taking care to
eliminate in each case the square root of _z_, where _z_ equals the number
of voters belonging to the Church of England, _minus_ Archdeacons and Rural
Deans, but inclusive of Minor Canons and Precentors. Do you follow me?"

"Ye-es," I said.

"I thought you would," he said. "Next we proceed to take the multiples of
the superhydrates mathematically converted into decimals, and then,
allowing, of course, for the kilometric variation of the earth's maximum
temperature reduced by the square of the hypotenuse, you begin the delicate
operation of transferri