Mr. Bradley smiled benignantly upon Colonel Challoner as from heights of sunrise, and passed on. He had grown very lordly since his elevation to office. Still, a few paces further on it seemed worth his while to stop until Challoner rejoined him. He did not notice that the colonel had grown rather red in the face.
"If you do raise the question, Colonel Challoner, could you introduce into your speech 'Civis Romanus sum'? I should like to hang my speech upon that. Thank you."
Even a party hack will turn if he be sufficiently trodden upon by minor ministers, and Colonel Challoner did now.
"Mr. Bradley," he asked with a most elaborate politeness, "have you ever calculated how many Under Secretaries of State, past and present, there are alive to-day? Or how many of them have names which are even faintly familiar to the public?"
Mr. Bradley gasped and stared. This was Challoner--old Challoner--talking! Bradley was quite unprepared to cope with so unparalleled an outrage. The colonel actually went on, and in accents of raillery:
"'Civis Romanus sum.' Now, why quote a phrase so banal. Surely, Mr. Bradley, it has had its day. We can do better than that if we put our heads together. Civis Romanus sum! God bless my soul! But I am willing to help you with a tag of Latin. I will introduce another sentence. Balbus shall build a wall--upon my word he shall--and you can hang your speech onto that, and be damned to you."
Mr. Bradley, however, had suffered enough of this unseemliness. He hurried forward and passed between the clerks who recorded the votes with a heightened color. Colonel Challoner followed him. But he waited at the door for Robert Brook to emerge, and then drew him by the arm into the outer lobby.
"I have been thinking over what you proposed, Brook," he said. "Certainly, certainly we must make a stand against Fanshawe's bill. We have a duty to our constituents. We must show the government we are not to be trifled with."
Robert Brook responded with warmth.
"I thought that upon reflection you would look upon it that way. You will be a pillar of strength to us, Challoner."