One morning, towards the end of March, Mr. Barkworth was seated at breakfast at The Orchard, Winterslow, dividing his attentions impartially among his food, his letters, and his daughter, who sat facing him at the other end of the table. His day was never properly begun unless the letters and the bacon arrived together. He had opened two letters, and cut the third, and Lilian was pouring out his second cup of coffee, when a sudden ejaculation from her father caused her to hold her hand.
"Scandalous, 'pon my soul and body, perfectly scandalous!" he exclaimed.
"What is it, Father?" asked Lilian, not very anxiously, for she was accustomed to little volcanic explosions at home: plenty of rumble but no fire.
"What, indeed! Just listen to this, h'm! 'My dear Barkworth, I found an opportunity in the lobby last night of speaking to the Prime Minister on the matter of a search-expedition for your friend Mr. Burnaby. He was very sympathetic, but said that, much as he should have liked to serve me, he was afraid our hands were too full just now to think of it. One can understand it, poor man. You see, what with these complications threatening in Persia, and the various little troubles in all parts of the world, connected with our imperial policy, one can hardly expect--' Faugh!" He tore the letter across. "Fiddlesticks! I'd like to see Palmerston back for a week. We'd soon see then, h'm! We'd have an expedition off to Central Africa in a winking. We want a little more of the 'Civis Romanus sum' in our milk-and-water politicians. Cicero, you know, my dear."
"But, Father, I don't understand what Cicero and Lord Palmerston have to do with Mr. Burnaby."
"Now, that's just it. Women never can see that sort of thing; your mother couldn't, poor woman! I'll explain so that any child could understand it. Cicero was a great Roman orator and statesman, you know, my dear. In one of his speeches he asked how many Roman citizens his hearers imagined had been insulted with impunity, how many Roman merchants robbed, or ship-owners kept in captivity,--meaning that he defied 'em to say a single one. Now suppose that Cicero had been Lord Palmerston, what would he have said?--tell me that, now!"
"Wasn't Lord Palmerston an Irish peer, Father?"
"Eh! what? Yes, must have been, or he couldn't have sat in the House. But what's that to do with it?"
"Why, Father, if Cicero had been Lord Palmerston, would not he have said: 'Just thread on the tail of me coat', or something to that effect?"
Mr. Barkworth looked sharply at his daughter, but she was demurely peeling an egg. As he was hesitating whether to explode or not, there was a knock at the door, and a maid entered bearing a salver.