Mr. Bull. Perfectly. The questions of Egypt and the New Hebrides, of our post near the Pyramids, and your Protectorate near Tahiti, have, of course, no real connection.
Madame France. Obviously, Monsieur! Are they not dealt with in separate Conventions?
Mr. Bull. Ah! if all quarrels—I beg pardon, political problems—could as easily be settled by a Conventional Act!
Madame France. How welcome to you, Monsieur, to all parties in your Parliament, to the "rescuers" as to the "retirers," to your Lord Chamberlain, as well as to your Grand Old Gladstone, must be the prospect of an early, not to say immediate withdrawal from the Land of the Pharaohs! Surely the fugitive Israelites of old never left it with such pleased promptitude as you will—"scuttle out" of it! Have I accurate memory of the Beaconsfieldian phrase, Monsieur?
Mr. Bull. Your memory, Madam, is miraculous. The forty centuries—or, however, many more there may happen to be there at the moment of my departure—will doubtless, in the words of your own great phraser, "look down from the Pyramids" with emotions not less marked than my own—and yours, Madam.
Madame France. My emotions at the present moment—and yours, I hope, Monsieur—are simply of supreme joy at the so happy removal of difficulties and the so complete restoration of amity between us by this charming Convention, so satisfactory in its actual terms, so much more so in its promises for the future. I felicitate you, dear Monsieur Bull.
Mr. Bull. And I, Madam, reciprocate your felicitations. (Aside.) It pleases her, apparently, and I do not see that it can possibly hurt me! [Left bowing.
