u thought
that in a republic like ours there would be no more of the 'chains' he
was so fond of talking about. He did not anticipate a stagnation of the
national moral sense. An Englishman who has made a study of these things
said lately that the Americans had retained the forms of freedom, but
that the substance had suffered considerably."

"Who said that?" asked Claudius.

"Mr. Herbert Spencer. He said it to a newspaper reporter in New York,
and so it was put into the papers. It is the truest thing he ever said,
but no one took any more notice of it than if he had told the reporter
it was a very fine day. They don't care. Tell the first man you meet
down town that he is a liar; he will tell you he knows it. He will
probably tell you you are another. We are all alike here. I'm a liar
myself in a small way--there's a club of us, two Americans and one
Englishman."

"You are the frankest person I ever met, Mr. Bellingham," said Claudius,
laughing.

"Some day I will write a book," said Mr. Bellingham, rising and
beginning to tramp round the room. "I will call it--by the way, we were
talking about Petersburg. You had better be off."

"I am going, but tell me the name of the book before I go."

"No, I won't; you would go and write it yourself, and steal my thunder."
Uncle Horace's eyes twinkled, and a corruscation of laugh-wrinkles shot
like sheet-lightning over his face. He disappeared into a neighbouring
room, leaving a trail of white smoke in his wake, like a locomotive.
Presently he returned with a _Bullinger Guide_ in his hand.

"You can sail on Wednesday at two o'clock by the Cunarder," he said.
"You can go to Newport to-day, and come back by the boat on Tuesday
night, and be ready to start in the morning." Mr. Bellingham prided
himself greatly on his faculty for making combinations of times and
places.

"How about those letters, Mr. Bellingham?" inquired Claudius, who had no
idea of going upon his expedition without proper preparations.

"I will write them," said Uncle Horace, "I will write them at once," and
he dived into an address-book and set to work. His pen was that of the
traditional ready-writer, for he wrote endless letters, and his
correspondence was typical of himself--the scholar, the wanderer, and
the Priest of Buddha by turns, and sometimes all at once. For Mr.
Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern
moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of