"No?" said Enid thoughtfully.
"Mine will be a scathing indictment, and of course I shall bring in the political situation. He writes back, evading the point at issue. I crush him with figures and statistics, and make him a practical offer—a few deer-forests, a paltry township, or my unearned increment, as the case may be."
"The mowing-machine is out of order," Enid remarked.
"I quote passages in his letter as the basis of negotiation. He pretends to accept. I point out how, when and why he has been guilty of paltry quibbling, and show that the Party he supports fosters such methods and manners."
"Is that all?"
"No. And that is just where I shall differ from everybody else. I shall go on where they have stopped. Having made one individual ridiculous, I shall broaden the basis of operation. With consummate skill I shall gradually draw the public officials down into the arena."
"Don't forget the gas-man; he was very rude last month."
"Not that kind," I explained. "Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries of State, the whole machinery of government shall writhe under the barbed shafts of my mockery. Ridicule is the power of the age. Ridicule in my hands shall be as bayonets to Napoleon, as poison to a Borgia." I gasped.
"Help!" said Enid, taking up The Daily Most. "Here's the very thing," she went on. "Somebody called 'A. Lethos'——"
"Pah! A pseudonym."