“Be serious, Joe,” said Mr. Lavender.
“Well,” returned Joe, “I don't know what'll 'appen to you, sir, but I shall go on the bust permanent.”
Mr. Lavender sighed. “I do so wonder whether I shall, too,” he said.
Joe looked round at him, and a gleam of compassion twinkled in his greenish eyes. “Don't you worry, sir,” he said; “it's a question of constitootion. A week'd sew you up.”
“A week!” said Mr. Lavender with watering lips, “I trust I may not forget myself so long as that. Public men do not go 'on the bust,' Joe, as you put it.”
“Be careful, sir! I can't drive with one eye.”
“How can they, indeed?” went on Mr. Lavender; “they are like athletes, ever in training for their unending conflict with the national life.”
“Well,” answered Joe indulgently, “they 'as their own kind of intoxication, too—that's true; and the fumes is permanent; they're gassed all the time, and chloroformed the rest.
“I don't know to what you allude, Joe,” said Mr. Lavender severely.
“'Aven't you never noticed, sir, that there's two worlds—the world as it is, and the world as it seems to the public man?”