J.B.  Eh!  Many years ago, that was; he was no but Mr. Disraeli then.  But he was the real thing, Ma’am:  oh, a nice gentleman.

QUEEN.  He is always very nice to me.

J.B.  I remember now, when he first came, he put a tip into me hand.  And when I let him know the liberty he had taken, “Well, Mr. Brown,” he said, “I’ve made a mistake, but I don’t take it back again!”

QUEEN.  Very nice and sensible.

J.B.  And indeed it was, Ma’am.  Many a man would never have had the wit to leave well alone by just apologising for it.  But there was an understandingness about him, that often you don’t find.  After that he always talked to me like an equal-just like yourself might do.  But Lord, Ma’am, his ignorance, it was surprising!

QUEEN.  Most extraordinary you should think that, Brown!

J.B.  Ah!  You haven’t talked to him as I have, Ma’am:  only about politics, and poetry, and things like that, where, maybe, he knows a bit more than I do (though he didn’t know his Burns so well as a man ought that thinks to make laws for Scotland!).  But to hear him talking about natural facts, you’d think he was just inventing for to amuse himself!  Do you know, Ma’am, he thought stags had white tails like rabbits, and that ’twas only when they wagged them so as to show, that you could shoot them.  And he thought that you pulled a salmon out o’ the water as soon as you’d hooked him.  And he thought that a haggis was made of a sheep’s head boiled in whisky.  Oh, he’s very innocent, Ma’am, if you get him where he’s not expecting you.

QUEEN.  Well, Brown, there are some things you can teach him, I don’t doubt; and there are some things he can teach you.  I’m sure he has taught me a great deal.

J.B.  Ay?  It’s a credit to ye both, then.

QUEEN.  He lets me think for myself, Brown; and that’s what so many of my ministers would rather I didn’t.  They want me to be merely the receptacle of their own opinions.  No, Brown, that’s what we Stewarts are never going to do!

J.B.  Nor would I, Ma’am, if I were in your shoes.  But believe me, you can do more, being a mere woman, so to speak, than many a king can do.

QUEEN.  Yes; being a woman has its advantages, I know.

J.B.  For you can get round ’em, Ma’am; and you can put ’em off; and you can make it very awkward for them—­very awkward—­to have a difference of opinion with you.

QUEEN (good-humouredly).  You and I have had differences of opinion sometimes, Brown.

J.B.  True, Ma’am; that has happened; I’ve known it happen.  And I’ve never regretted it, never!  But the difference there is, Ma’am, that I’m not your Prime Minister.  Had I been—­you’d ’a been more stiff about giving in—­naturally!  Now there’s Mr. Gladstone, Ma’am; I’m not denying he’s a great man; but he’s got too many ideas for my liking, far too many!  I’m not against temperance any more than he is—­put in its right place.  But he’s got that crazy notion of “local option” in his mind; he’s coming to it, gradually.  And he doesn’t think how giving “local option,” to them that don’t take the wide view of things, may do harm to a locality.  You must be wide in your views, else you do somebody an injustice.