JOHN (impatient of this feminine manifestation).  Oh, dad, go on.  Go on!  I want to get at the bottom of this titles business.  I’m hanged if I can understand it.  What strikes me as an unprejudiced observer is that titles are supposed to be such a terrific honour, and yet the people who deal them out scarcely ever keep any for themselves.  Look at Mr. Gladstone, for instance.  He must have made about forty earls and seven thousand baronets in his time.  Now if I was a Prime Minister, and I believed in titles—­which I jolly well don’t—­I should make myself a duke right off; and I should have several marquises and viscounts round me in the Cabinet like a sort of bodyguard, and my private secretaries would have to be knights.  There’d be some logic in that arrangement anyhow.

CULVER.  In view of your political career, John, will you mind if I give you a brief lesson on elementary politics—­though you are on your holidays?

JOHN (easily).  I’m game.

CULVER.  What is the first duty of modern Governments?

JOHN.  To govern.

CULVER.  My innocent boy.  I thought better of you.  I know that you look on the venerable Mr. Tranto as a back number, and I suspect that Mr. Tranto in his turn regards me as prehistoric; and yet you are so behind the times as to imagine that the first duty of modern Governments is to govern!  My dear Rip van Winkle, wake up.  The first duty of a Government is to live.  It has no right to be a Government at all unless it is convinced that if it fell the country would go to everlasting smash.  Hence its first duty is to survive.  In order to survive it must do three things—­placate certain interests, influence votes, and obtain secret funds.  All these three things can be accomplished by the ingenious institution of Honours.  Only the simple-minded believe that Honours are given to honour.  Honours are given to save the life of the Government.  Hence the Honours List.  Examine the Honours List and you can instantly tell how the Government feels in its inside.  When the Honours List is full of rascals, millionaires, and—­er—­chumps, you may be quite sure that the Government is dangerously ill.

TRANTO.  But that amounts to what we’ve been saying in The Echo to-day.

CULVER.  Yes, I’ve read the The Echo.

JOHN.  I thought you never had a free moment at the office—­always rushed to death—­at least that’s the mater’s theory.

CULVER.  I’ve read The Echo, and my one surprise is that you’re here to-night, Tranto.

TRANTO.  Why?

CULVER.  I quite thought you’d have been shoved into the Tower under the Defence of the Realm Act.  Or Sampson Straight, anyway. (Hildegarde starts.) Your contributor has committed the unpardonable sin of hitting the nail on the head.  He might almost have seen an advance copy of the Honours List.

TRANTO.  He hadn’t.  Nor had I. Who’s in it?