 no navy and no army. At the most we could muster a few old ships, a
couple of experimental vessels of war, and twenty-five thousand soldiers
indifferently weaponed.
    We were in fact as naked to the Imperial foe as the merely painted Britons.
    This being apprehended, by the aid of our own shortness of figures and the
agitated images of the red-breeched only waiting the signal to jump and be at
us, there ensued a curious exhibition that would be termed, in simple language,
writing to the newspapers, for it took the outward form of letters: in reality,
it was the deliberate saddling of our ancient nightmare of Invasion, putting the
postillion on her, and trotting her along the high-road with a winding horn to
rouse old Panic. Panic we will, for the sake of convenience, assume to be of the
feminine gender and a spinster, though properly she should be classed with the
large mixed race of mental and moral neuters which are the bulk of comfortable
nations. She turned in her bed at first like the sluggard of the venerable
hymnist: but once fairly awakened, she directed a stare toward the terrific
foreign contortionists, and became in an instant all stormy nightcap and fingers
starving for the bell-rope. Forthwith she burst into a series of shrieks, howls,
and high piercing notes that caused even the parliamentary Opposition, in the
heat of an assault on a parsimonious Government, to abandon its temporary
advantage and be still awhile. Yet she likewise performed her part with a
certain deliberation and method, as if aware that it was a part she had to play
in the composition of a singular people. She did a little mischief by dropping
on the stock-markets; in other respects she was harmless, and, inasmuch as she
established a subject for conversation, useful.
    Then, lest she should have been taken too seriously, the Press, which had
kindled, proceeded to extinguish her with the formidable engines called leading
articles, which fling fire or water, as the occasion may require. It turned out
that we had ships ready for launching, and certain regiments coming home from
India; hedges we had, and a spirited body of yeomanry; and we had pluck and
patriotism, the father and mother of volunteers innumerable. Things were not so
bad.
    Panic, however, sent up a plaintive whine. What country had anything like
our treasures to defend? - countless riches, beautiful women, an inviolate soil!
True, and it must be done. Ministers were authoritatively summoned to set to
work immediately. They replied that they had been at work
