if you smoke, Mr. Lashmar?--Why, that's right. Two yards of
Broseley also, Mrs. Ricketts."

Breakspeare had produced his pouch, which he opened and held to Martin.

"Here's a new mixture, my own blending, which I should like you to try.
I see your pipe is empty."

"Gramercy," replied the other, with a wave of the hand. "I stick to my
own mundungus; any novelty disturbs my thoughts. Offer it to Mr.
Lashmar, who might find this weed of mine a trifle rank.--Here comes
the jug. What say you to that for a head, Mr. Lashmar? A new
nine-gallon, tapped before breakfast this morning, now running clear
and cool as a mountain burn. What would life be without this? Elsewhere
our ale degenerates; not many honest brewers are left. Druggist's wine
and the fire of the distilleries will wreck our people. Whenever you
have a chance, Mr. Lashmar, speak a word for honest ale. Time enough is
wasted at Westminster; they may well listen to a plea for the source of
all right-feeling and right-thinking--amber ale."

Dyce soon understood that here, at all events, he was not called upon
for eloquence, or disquisition. Martin Blaydes had become rather dull
of car, and found it convenient to do most of the talking himself. Now
and then he turned his sneeze-menacing smile this way or that, and a
remark always claimed his courteous attention, but in general his eyes
were fixed on the glow of the fireplace, 'whilst he pursued a humorous
ramble from thought to thought, topic to topic. Evidently of local
politics he knew nothing and recked not at all; he seemed to take for
granted that Lashmar was about to sit in Parliament for Hollingford,
and that the young man represented lofty principles rarely combined
with public ambition.

"You may do something; I don't know, I don't know. Things are bad, I
fear, and likely to be worse. We had hopes, Mr. Lashmar, when the world
and I were young. In those days there was such a thing as zeal for
progress and progress didn't necessarily mean money. You know my view
of the matter, friend Breakspeare. Two causes explain the pass we've
come to--the power of women and the tyranny of finance. How does that
touch you, Mr. Lashmar?"

"Finance yes," Dyce replied. "It's the curse of the modern world. But
women?"

"Yes, yes, the 'monstrous regiment of women,' as the old writer hath
it. Look at the diseases from which we are suffering--materialism and
hysteria. The one has been intensified and extended, the other has