DIST. V. That, for you, must be a retrospect of deep satisfaction.  It has made much history.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Catastrophes make history—­sometimes.

DIST. V. You helped to avert them.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, for a time.  But another may be coming, and I shan’t be here then.  And if I were, I should be no use.

DIST. V. Oh, don’t say that!  Nor can I agree, either.  No use?  Your good word is a power we still depend on.  No, Chamberlain, we cannot do without you.

CHAMBERLAIN.  You did—­when you accepted my resignation.

DIST. V. For a fixed and an agreed purpose.  In a way that only bound us more closely.

CHAMBERLAIN.  I thought so then.  But it has turned out differently.

DIST. V. Has it?  I should not have said so.  Am I not to count on you still?

CHAMBERLAIN.  As a diminishing force?  Yes; I shan’t disappoint you.

DIST. V. Oh! (Deprecatingly, as of something that need not have been said.) But not that at all!

CHAMBERLAIN (rubbing it in).  Necessarily:  one who, as I said, can only look backward.  Forward, I am nothing.  Believe me, I have measured myself at last.  This is no miscalculation—­like the other.

DIST. V. The other?

CHAMBERLAIN.  My resignation.

DIST. V. Was that one?

CHAMBERLAIN.  It certainly had not the effect I intended.

DIST. V. Surely you were not then intending to force me against my own judgment?

CHAMBERLAIN.  No; but I thought you, and the rest, would follow.

DIST. V. I think we did:  I think we still do.  But sometimes, with followers, following takes time.

CHAMBERLAIN.  It will take more than my time.  That is where I miscalculated.

DIST. V. But, my dear Chamberlain—­if one may be personal—­you are maintaining your strength, are you not?  The doctors—­are hopeful?

CHAMBERLAIN.  The regulation paragraphs are supplied to the papers, if that’s what you mean.

DIST. V. But I had this from members of your own family.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Quite so; it is they who supply them.

DIST. V. Then, if the source is so authoritative, surely it must be true.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Are newspaper paragraphs in such cases—­ever true?

DIST. V. Perhaps I am no judge.  As you know, I seldom read them.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Aren’t the probabilities that they will always overstate the case—­as far as possible?

DIST. V. That is a course which, as an old politician,—­speaking generally—­I must own has its advantages.  So often, when things are uncertain, one has to act as if one were sure.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, you’ve done that—­sometimes.  Sometimes you haven’t.  I shouldn’t call you an old politician, though.  Being old is the thing you’ve always managed to avoid.  And yet, you’ve been in at a good many political deaths first and last.