sympathetic. I also gave Ivanhoe a cigarette, but Filomena did not smoke. There is a prejudice against ladies smoking in Sicily unless they wish to be considered as belonging either to the very highest or to the very lowest class, and Filomena is content to belong to her own class. So she looked on while we smoked and drank our coffee.
I said: “When we were speaking of English poets just now, you mentioned a name which we are more accustomed to associate with politics, the name of Gladstone.”
“Ah! politics!” said Ivanhoe. “You have now in England a struggle between your House of Lords and your House of Commons, is it not so?”
I replied that I had heard something about it.
“It is civil war,” said Ivanhoe, “that is, it would have been civil war some years ago, but people are now beginning to see that it is intolerable that everyone should not be allowed to have his own way.”
“I am afraid I do not quite follow you,” I said.
“Well,” he explained, “it is not difficult. Your House of Commons is composed entirely of poor men, so poor that they cannot afford to pay for legislation. Your House of Lords is rich, and rich people are egoists and will not pay; so the House of Commons is angry.”
I did not ask where all the poor Members of the House of Commons were found in a country that had no poor people; Ivanhoe was too full of his subject to give me an opportunity.
“If the House of Lords still continues refusing to pay for legislation there will be no war, but the House of Lords will be abolished—annihilated.”
“My dear Ivanhoe,” I exclaimed, “what a head you have for politics!”