The baronet shook his head.
"An egg, John—let me beat you up an egg."
"Yes, yes," murmured Sir John, still abstracted, "beat it, yes, do beat it."
Lady Elphinspoon, in spite of her elevated position as the wife of the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, held it not beneath her to perform for her husband the plainest household service. She rang for an egg. The butler broke it for her into a tall goblet filled with old sherry, and the noble lady, with her own hands, beat the stuff out of it. For the veteran politician, whose official duties rarely allowed him to eat, an egg was a sovereign remedy. Taken either in a goblet of sherry or in a mug of rum, or in half a pint of whisky, it never failed to revive his energies.
The effect of the egg was at once visible in the brightening of his eye and the lengthening of his ears.
"And now explain to me," said his wife, "what has happened. What is this Boundary Bill?"
"We never meant it to pass," said Sir John. "It was introduced only as a sop to public opinion. It delimits our frontier in such a way as to extend our suzerainty over the entire desert of El Skrub. The Wazoos have claimed that this is their desert. The hill tribes are restless. If we attempt to advance the Wazoos will rise. If we retire it deals a blow at our prestige."
Lady Elphinspoon shuddered. Her long political training had taught her that nothing was so fatal to England as to be hit in the prestige.
"And on the other hand," continued Sir John, "if we move sideways, the Ohulîs, the mortal enemies of the Wazoos, will strike us in our rear."
"In our rear!" exclaimed Lady Elphinspoon in a tone of pain. "Oh, John, we must go forward. Take another egg."