ge and plunged them in it, to writhe patriotically; and
although it may be said, that they felt their situation less than did he
the venom they sprang in his blood, he was cruel; he caused discomfort.
But these good friends about him stood for the country, an illogical
country; and as he could not well attack his host Victor Radnor, an
irrational man, he selected the abstract entity for the discharge of his
honest spite.

The irrational friend was deeper at the source of his irritation than
the illogical old motherland. This house of Lakelands, the senselessness
of his friend in building it and designing to live in it, after
experiences of an incapacity to stand in a serene contention with the
world he challenged, excited Colney's wasp. He was punished, half way
to frenzy behind his placable demeanour, by having Dr. Schlesien for
chorus. And here again, it was the unbefitting, not the person, which
stirred his wrath. A German on English soil should remember the dues of
a guest. At the same time, Colney said things to snare the acclamation
of an observant gentleman of that race, who is no longer in his first
enthusiasm for English beef and the complexion of the women. 'Ah, ya,
it is true, what you say: "The English grow as fast as odders, but
they grow to corns instead of brains." They are Bull. Quaat true.' He
bellowed on a laugh the last half of the quotation.

Colney marked him. His encounters with Fenellan were enlivening
engagements and left no malice; only a regret, when the fencing passed
his guard, that Fenellan should prefer to flash for the minute. He would
have met a pert defender of England, in the person of Miss Priscilla
Graves, if she had not been occupied with observation of the bearing
of Lady Grace Halley toward Mr. Victor Radnor; which displeased her on
behalf of Mrs. Victor; she was besides hostile by race and class to an
aristocratic assumption of licence. Sparing Colney, she with some scorn
condemned Mr. Pempton for allowing his country to be ridiculed without
a word. Mr. Pempton believed that the Vegetarian movement was
more progressive in England than in other lands, but he was at the
disadvantage with the fair Priscilla, that eulogy of his compatriots
on this account would win her coldest approval. 'Satire was never an
argument,' he said, too evasively.

The Rev. Septimus Barmby received the meed of her smile, for saying in
his many-fathom bass, with an eye on Victor: 'At least we may boast of