mphlet for months. Nay, taking it in
the whole, had he not been at work on it for years? And now a kind
Providence had given him the opportunity of pouring it forth before
the assembled pundits gathered from all the nations of the civilised
world.

As he sat there, solitary in his bedroom, his hands dropped down by
his side, his pipe hung from his mouth on to his breast, and his
eyes, turned up to the ceiling, were lighted almost with inspiration.
Men there at the congress, Mr. Chaffanbrass, young Staveley, Felix
Graham, and others, had regarded him as an impersonation of dullness;
but through his mind and brain, as he sat there wrapped in his old
dressing-gown, there ran thoughts which seemed to lift him lightly
from the earth into an elysium of justice and mercy. And at the
end of this elysium, which was not wild in its beauty, but trim
and orderly in its gracefulness,--as might be a beer-garden at
Munich,--there stood among flowers and vases a pedestal, grand above
all other pedestals in that garden; and on this there was a bust with
an inscription:--"To Von Bauhr, who reformed the laws of nations."

It was a grand thought; and though there was in it much of human
conceit, there was in it also much of human philanthropy. If a reign
of justice could be restored through his efforts--through those
efforts in which on this hallowed day he had been enabled to make
so great a progress--how beautiful would it be! And then as he sat
there, while the smoke still curled from his unconscious nostrils, he
felt that he loved all Germans, all Englishmen, even all Frenchmen,
in his very heart of hearts, and especially those who had travelled
wearily to this English town that they might listen to the results
of his wisdom. He said to himself, and said truly, that he loved
the world, and that he would willingly spend himself in these great
endeavours for the amelioration of its laws and the perfection of its
judicial proceedings. And then he betook himself to bed in a frame of
mind that was not unenviable.

I am inclined, myself, to agree with Felix Graham that such efforts
are seldom absolutely wasted. A man who strives honestly to do good
will generally do good, though seldom perhaps as much as he has
himself anticipated. Let Von Bauhr have his pedestal among the
flowers, even though it be small and humble!

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENGLISH VON BAUHR

On the following morning, before breakfast, Felix Graham and Augustus