Mrs. S. In every contingency, JOSEPH.  How unlike that talented, but untrustworthy, senior of his, and of yours, WILL GLADSTONE; a lad whose leadership you once acknowledged, but whose pernicious influence, I am happy to find, you have lately quite cast off.

Master Joe (knowingly).  Rather!  Where there’s a WILL there’s a way; and WILL thought it must always be his way.  But “not for JOE!”

Dr. T. Again, JOSEPH, is not that—­ahem!—­quotation from the popular minstrelsy of our time a leetle reminiscent of ruder, and more Radical days?

Master Joe.  Perhaps so, Sir, perhaps so.  Let me then say that “Ego primam tollo, nominor quoniam Leo” is a very pretty maxim for lions—­and jackals.  The former role I may not yet have risen to, but I’m hanged if I’ll stoop to the latter.

Dr. T. Quite so, quite so!  At any rate, not in such a questionable Leonina Societas.  Remember, also, JOSEPH, what an awful example you have in young GRANDOLPH, with whom, at one time, you seemed a little intimate.  You have only to reflect upon his fiasco, “to have the counsels of prudence borne in imperatively upon your mind, and the lesson will not be the less impressively taught if it is remembered that GRANDOLPH will be on the spot to take note of and profit by any mistakes that may be committed by his more deserving and successful rival.”

Master Joe (aside).  Lessons all round, eh?  Seems to me all this grandmotherly advice is wondrous like a “wigging” in disguise.  Perhaps they’ll find I’m better at teaching than learning.

Mrs. S. Cavendo tutus, JOSEPH, safe by caution.  The motto of your predecessor.  You cannot do better than take it as your own.

Master Joe (innocently).  Think not, Ma’am?  I fancy every man ought to have his own motto.  Now I was thinking of Cede nullis!

[Illustration:  THE NEW MONITOR.

DR. TIMES.  “YOU’RE A CLEVER BOY, JOE, AND WE CONGRATULATE YOU; BUT
NOW YOU’RE IN A POSITION OF RESPONSIBILITY,—­AHEM!—­YOU
MUST—­AHEM!—­BEHAVE YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY!”]

Doctor T. Tut—­tut—­tut, JOSEPH!  Inappropriate,—­in your present position.  You will have to yield to many,—­to those in authority over you, in fact.  “Leaders! (and Monitors) have to subordinate their personal tastes, and even their individual convictions, to an enlarged conception of the general advantage.”

Mrs. S. Yes, JOE, don’t, whatever you do, compromise your authority by any indiscreet or extravagant insistance—­

Master Joe (quickly, though with becoming gravity).  Quite so, Ma’am! Very true, Sir!  My “conceptions,” I may say, have “enlarged” considerably of late, since I have found (as Mrs. S. well says) “how much of my antipathy” (to the powers that be) “was sheer prejudice.”  And, as to “the general advantage,” I am sanguine that I shall find it consonant—­if not identical—­with my own.