shortness of leg that detracted from the majesty of
his resemblance to our Eighth Harry, but increased his air of solidity; and he
was authoritative in speaking. »Let me set you right, sir,« he said sometimes to
Colonel Halkett, and that was his modesty. »You are altogether wrong,« Miss
Halkett heard herself informed, which was his courtesy. He examined some of her
water-colour drawings before sitting down to dinner, approved of them, but
thought it necessary to lay a broad finger on them to show their defects. On the
question of politics, »I venture to state,« he remarked, in anything but the
tone of a venture, »that no educated man of ordinary sense who has visited our
colonies will come back a Liberal.« As for a man of sense and education being a
Radical, he scouted the notion with a pooh sufficient to awaken a vessel in the
doldrums. He said carelessly of Commander Beauchamp, that he might think himself
one. Either the Radical candidate for Bevisham stood self-deceived, or - the
other supposition. Mr. Tuckham would venture to state that no English gentleman,
exempt from an examination by order of the Commissioners of Lunacy, could be
sincerely a Radical. »Not a bit of it; nonsense,« he replied to Miss Halkett's
hint at the existence of Radical views; »that is, those views are out of
politics; they are matters for the police. Dutch dykes are built to shut away
the sea from cultivated land, and of course it 's a part of the business of the
Dutch Government to keep up the dykes, and of ours to guard against the mob; but
that is only a political consideration after the mob has been allowed to
undermine our defences.«
    »They speak,« said Miss Halkett, »of educating the people to fit them -«
    »They speak of commanding the winds and tides,« he cut her short, with no
clear analogy; »wait till we have a storm. It 's a delusion amounting to
dementedness to suppose, that with the people inside our defences, we can be
taming them and tricking them. As for sending them to school after giving them
power, it 's like asking a wild beast to sit down to dinner with us - he wants
the whole table and us too. The best education for the people is government.
They 're beginning to see that in Lancashire at last. I ran down to Lancashire
for a couple of days on my landing, and I 'm thankful to say Lancashire