it will come to. People living in it won't see till
the shoe pinches them; and by that time my brother, and others like him,
will have been ruined in their business.

QUEEN. Local option is not going to come yet, Brown.

J.B. (_firmly_). No, Ma'am, not while I vote conservative, it won't.
But I was looking ahead; I was talking about Mr. Gladstone.

QUEEN. Mr. Gladstone has retired from politics. At least he is not going
to take office again.

J.B. Don't you believe him, Ma'am. Mr. Gladstone is not a retiring
character. He's in to-day's paper again--columns of him; have ye seen?

QUEEN. Yes; quite as much as I wish to see.

J.B. And there's something in what he says, I don't deny.

QUEEN. There's a great deal in what he says, I don't understand, and that
I don't wish to.

J.B. Now you never said a truer thing than that in your life, Ma'am!
That's just how I find him. Oh, but he's a great man; and it's wonderful
how he appreciates the Scot, and looks up to his opinion.

(_But this is a line of conversation in which his Royal Mistress
declines to be interested. And she is helped, at that moment, by something
which really does interest her_.)

QUEEN. Brown, how did you come to scratch your leg?

J.B. 'Twas not me, Ma'am; 'twas the stable cat did that--just now while
Mop was having his walk.

QUEEN. Poor dear Brown! Did she fly at you?

J.B. Well, 'twas like this, Ma'am; first Mop went for her, then she went
for him. And I tell ye she'd have scraped his eyes out if I'd left it to a
finish.

QUEEN. Ferocious creature! She must be mad.

J.B. Well, Ma'am, I don't know whether a cat-and-dog fight is a case of
what God hath joined together; but it's the hard thing for man to put
asunder! And that's the scraping I got for it, when I tried.

QUEEN. You must have it cauterised, Brown. I won't have you getting
hydrophobia.

J.B. You generally get that from dogs.

QUEEN. Oh, from cats too; any cat that a mad dog has bitten.

J.B. They do say, Ma'am, that if a mad dog bites you--you have to die
barking. So if it's a cat-bite I'm going to die of, you'll hear me mewing
the day, maybe.

QUEEN. I don't like cats: I never did. Treacherous, deceitful creatures!
Now a dog always looks up to you.

J.B. Yes, Ma'am; they are tasteful, attractive animals; and that, maybe,
is the reason. They give you a good conceit of yourself, dogs do. You
never have to apologise to a dog. Do him an injury--you've only to say you
forgi