ckets, but Lalage snubbed her. I
gathered that there was reason for precipitancy more serious than the
by-laws of the steamboat company.

"I am confident," I said, "that Selby-Harrison is capable of carrying on
the work of exterminating bishops."

"It's not that either," said Lalage. "The fact is that we have come
to Lisbon on business, not for pleasure. You've probably guessed that
already."

"I feared it. Of the two reasons you gave me this morning for coming
here----"

"I haven't told you any reason yet," said Lalage.

"Excuse me, but when we first met this morning you said distinctly that
you had come to see me. I hardly flattered myself that could really be
true."

"It was," said Lalage. "Quite true."

"It's very kind of you to say so and of course I quite believe you, but
then you afterward gave me to understand that your real object was to
work up the emotion caused by the appearance of a dead king with a view
to utilizing it to add intensity to a prize poem. That, of course, is
business of a very serious kind. That's why I meant to say a minute ago
that of the two reasons you gave me for coming here the second was the
more urgent."

"Don't ramble in that way," said Lalage. "It wastes time. Hilda, explain
the scheme which we have in mind at present."

Hilda threw away the greater part of a cigarette and sat up in her
beehive. I do not think that Hilda enjoys smoking cigarettes. She
probably does it to impress the public with the genuine devotion to
principle of the A.T.R.S.

"The society," said Hilda "has met with difficulties. Its objects----"

"He knows the objects," said Lalage. "Don't you?"

"To expose in the public press----" I began.

"That's just where we're stuck," said Lalage.

"Do you mean to tell me that the Irish newspapers have been so
incredibly stupid as not to publish the articles sent by you, Hilda, and
Selby-Harrison?"

"Not a single one of them," said Lalage.

"And the bishops," I said, "still wear their purple stocks, their
aprons, and their gaiters; and still talk tommyrot through the length
and breadth of the land."

"But we're not the least inclined to give in," said Lalage.

"Don't," I said. "Keep on pelting the editors with articles. Some day
one of them will be away from home and an inexperienced subordinate----"

"That would be no use," said Hilda.

"What we have determined to do," said Lalage, "is to start a paper of
our own."

"It ought," I said, "to be a