they shall go, though their intentions were those of the Apostle Paul. We don't punish them for being Socialists or Suffragists, but for breaking the peace. Why, goodness me, if we didn't, we should have every malefactor in Britain claiming preferential treatment because he was a Christian Scientist or a Pentecostal Dancer." 

 "Mr. Cargill, do you realise what you are saying?" said Lady Lavinia with a scared face. 

 "Of course I do. I am a lawyer, and may be presumed to know the law. If any other doctrine were admitted, the Empire would burst up in a fortnight." 

 "That I should live to hear you name that accursed name!" cried the outraged lady.  "You are denying your gods, Mr. Cargill. You are forgetting the principles of a lifetime." 

 Mr. Cargill was becoming excited, and exchanging his ordinary Edinburgh-English for a broader and more effective dialect. 

 "Tut, tut, my good wumman, I may be allowed to know my own principles best. I tell ye I've always maintained these views from the day when I first walked the floor of the Parliament House. Besides, even if I hadn't, I'm surely at liberty to change if I get more light. Whoever makes a fetish of consistency is a trumpery body and little use to God or man. What ails ye at the Empire, too? Is it not better to have a big country than a kailyard, or a house in Grosvenor Square than a but-and-ben in Balham?" 

 Lady Lavinia folded her hands.  "We slaughter our black fellow-citizens, we fill South Africa with yellow slaves, we crowd the Indian prisons with the noblest and most enlightened of the Indian race, and we call it Empire building!" 

 "No, we don't," said Mr. Cargill stoutly, "we call it common-sense. That is the penal and repressive side of any great activity. D'ye mean to tell me that you never give your maid a good hearing? But would you like it to be said that you spent the whole of your days swearing at the wumman?" 

 "I never swore in my life," said Lady Lavinia. 

 "I spoke metaphorically," said Mr. Cargill.  "If ye cannot understand a simple metaphor, ye cannot understand the rudiments of politics." 

 Picture to yourself a prophet who suddenly discovers that his God is laughing at him, a devotee whose saint winks and tells him that the devotion of years has been a farce, and you will get some idea of Lady Lavinia's frame 

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