in the rich stream; and, with strictest
impartiality, he turned the mouth of his conversational
can from one to the other, so that all
might have their share. He illustrated his
stream with perks, and succeeded in producing
a general perk in his chest and body, and put
himself through all the gentle spasms of a
Robin. Such an opportunity being not likely to
recur, they had got him on the state of Europe,
and on the schemes of designing powers, and
the conversational oil was flowing very freely
indeed.

He would illustrate it, he said, by a matter
that came within his own experience (oil-can to
Major Brown) when he was busy concluding
that treaty, which they might have heard of, with
the Waipiti tribe. He had had the honour of
finally determining the great boundary question
(oil suddenly directed on Mr. Welbore Craven).
Mind, he did not accept the foolish stories then
current about the Waipiti being worked by
other parties who were pulling the wires. Some
pointed to the Omai country; some, to beyond
the hills. It would not be betraying a state
secret to say, now that the thing is past and gone,
that Harrington, Minister for Waste Lands and
Marshes, held this strongly in council; so did
Bond, afterwards premier (went out on the
squatter question). But he (turning the oil
with a jerk on to Brown) simply said, Wait—
simply wait. No groping in the dark. And what
was his principle? People at home, and people
abroad, and people generally, still wondered what
was the secret instrument he had used in
composing these Waipiti troubles. Other governments
and other governors had tried before him,
and—no discredit to them—had failed. And
why? Simply because they ignored this
obvious principle: " Never seem to want what you
want." There was the whole of it. The world
was welcome to know it. (This spoken with a
look as if he were distributing five-pound notes
all round.) The result was, he believed, pretty
well known at home and abroad. Upon his word,
that was the whole secret history of the transaction.
He was glad it should be known. (General
sprinkle of oil over all, as from the rose of a
watering-pot.)

The constituents of the group were changed one
by one, as a factory-girl changes her spindles, but
the conversation trickled on. Sir Hopkins marked
its time with jerks and little spasms, gesticulating
with those useful points of his nose, his
lips, and his chin. Lady Laura looked on with
pride, brought up young Gulliver and younger
Lord Spandril, most unsuitable objects, but who
were at once oiled abundantly.

In this retirement, and waiting a promised
vacancy in one of the Indian provinces, Sir
Hopkins Pocock received unusual local honours.
The maire and syndics called on him: he walked
in a diplomatic cloud, and aired the Waipiti
question innumerable times. He kept his little
diplomatic tools from rusting by practice in
drawing-rooms and other places, putting on
his government-house manner as if it were his
uniform, and laying his head on one side in the
Robin attitude, when any one was bold enough
to utter a long sentence—as who should say,
"I'm looking over the wall at you. I can see
you."

He often talked with Lady Laura over
her son Charles. He had had a sort of liking
for Charles when a boy, really surprising in
one into whose system, a bundle of despatches
had got introduced instead of a heart. He had
wished that he should be put to diplomacy, but
at that time he had not made his Indian money,
and his wishes naturally did not carry the
weight with them they now did. Lady Laura
often bitterly bewailed it to him. " We should
have made an attaché of him, indeed we should,"
she said, penitently. " But I must say we never
knew—poor Thornton and I—that you so wished
it."

The diplomatist rubbed his fingers gleefully,
perked his head on one side as if he were going
to pick up caraway-seeds, and said:

"You were not wanted to know, my dear
Laura; there was my policy, you see. One of
my little secrets has been never seem to want
what you do want. Do you understand?"

Lady Laura was confounded at the discovery
of this powerful engine; but she did not
remark to him that it had broken down in that
particular instance.

"However," continued he, "we shall get
him a better profession—marry him off, when I
am at government-house, in my Indian district.
He shall come with me as secretary, aide-de-camp,
or something of that sort. We shall get him a
rajah's daughter—a nabob's child—with half a
million of rupees. Leave it to me."

Sir Hopkins came back to that subject often,
and planned it minutely. Lady Laura
welcomed it with delight, for Sir Hopkins had
been too hopelessly abandoned to diplomacy to
marry, and this really looked like adoption. She
had often thought of her son's offering himself
for marriage in the City, only that such a
scheme, coming from her, would be hopeless.
In the hands of a trained diplomatist it was
different.

Meanwhile, the refitting was going on, and the
diplomatist was getting on new sheathing and
copper fastening, and being fresh riveted all
through. Every day he sent away many letters,
which he found a pleasure in ingeniously shaping
as much like despatches as possible. He said
he was "feeling his way," and, judging from
the many times he wrote, the feeling must
have been on a very extensive scale, and the
way of enormous length.

It was near the end of the season. The brave
enduring mother had led her fair squad on, again
and again, to the front, and, though unable to
break the enemy's line, had never lost courage.
Soon the daylight would be gone, and there
would be no light left to fight by. To do them
justice, they too did not falter, but came on again
and again, being so well led. Yet it seemed idle.
The two youths had all the training of old
Machiavellians. They were almost affectionate
in their bearing, these young traitors. They