"Captain Battleax cannot remain here long with that expensive toy which he keeps locked up somewhere among his cocked-hats and white gloves. I can assure you he has not even allowed me to see the trigger since I have been on board. But 250-ton swivellers do cost money, and the John Bright must steam away, and play its part in other quarters of the globe. What do you intend to do when he shall have taken his pocket-pistol away?"
I thought for a little what answer it would best become me to give to this question, but I paused only for a moment or two. "I shall proceed at once to carry out the Fixed Period." I felt that my honour demanded that to such a question I should make no other reply.
"And that in opposition to the wishes, as I understand, of a large proportion of your fellow-citizens?"
"The wishes of our fellow-citizens have been declared by repeated majorities in the Assembly."
"You have only one House in your Constitution," said Sir Ferdinando.
"One House I hold to be quite sufficient."
I was proceeding to explain the theory on which the Britannulan Constitution had been formed, when Sir Ferdinando interrupted me. "At any rate, you will admit that a second Chamber is not there to guard against the sudden action of the first. But we need not discuss all this now. It is your purpose to carry out your Fixed Period as soon as the John Bright shall have departed?"
"Certainly."
"And you are, I am aware, sufficiently popular with the people here to enable you to do so?"
"I think I am," I said, with a modest acquiescence in an assertion which I felt to be so much to my credit. But I blushed for its untruth.