“Suppose they are,” snapped Eden. “Am I a fool that I should fancy that anything could be done without fools?”
Lord Seawood pulled himself together; but he was still staring.
“I suppose you mean that a new policy–I can hardly say a popular policy– perhaps rather a successful anti-popular policy–”
“Both, if you like,” said the other. “Why not?”
“I should hardly have thought,” said Lord Seawood, “that the populace would be particularly interested in all this elaborate antiquarian theory about chivalry.”
“Have you ever considered,” asked the Prime Minister, looking over his shoulder, “the meaning of the word chivalry?”
“Do you mean in the derivative sense?” asked the other nobleman.
“I mean in the horse sense,” replied Eden. “What people really like is a man on a horse–and they don’t mind much if it’s a high horse. Give the people plenty of sports–tournaments, horse races– panem et circenses, my boy–that will do for a popular side to the policy. If we could mobilise all that goes to make the Derby we could fight the Deluge.”
“I begin,” said Seawood, “to have some sort of wild notion of what you mean.”
“I mean,” answered his friend, “that the Democracy cares a damn sight more about the inequality of horses than about the equality of men.”