a balloon.  “Shall the arbitration of the magistracy, indemnifications in money awarded by the Law-courts, succeed in satisfying,”—­but I declare to you, Richie, it was no platform speech.  I know your term—­“the chaincable sentence.”  Nothing of the kind, I assure you.  Plain sense, as from gentlemen to gentlemen.  We require, I said, a protection that the polite world of Great Britain does not now afford us against the aggressions of the knave, the fool, and the brute.  We establish a Court.  We do hereby—­no, no, not the “hereby”; quite simply, Richie—­pledge ourselves—­I said some other word not “pledge” to use our utmost authority and influence to exclude from our circles persons refusing to make the reparation of an apology for wanton common insults:  we renounce intercourse with men declining, when guilty of provoking the sentiment of hostility, to submit to the jurisdiction of our Court.  All I want you to see is the notion.  We raise the shield against the cowardly bully which the laws have raised against the bloody one.  “And gentlemen,"’ my father resumed his oration, forgetting my sober eye for a minute—­’"Gentlemen, we are the ultimate Court of Appeal for men who cherish their honour, yet abstain from fastening it like a millstone round the neck of their common-sense.”  Credit me, Richie, the proposition kindled.  We cited Lord Edbury to appear before us, and I tell you we extracted an ample apology to you from that young nobleman.  And let me add, one that I, that we, must impose it upon an old son to accept.  He does!  Come, come.  And you shall see, Richie, society shall never repose an inert mass under my leadership.  I cure it; I shake it and cure it.’

He promenaded the room, repeating:  ’I do not say I am possessed of a panacea,’ and bending to my chin as he passed; ’I maintain that I can and do fulfil the duties of my station, which is my element, attained in the teeth of considerable difficulties, as no other man could, be he prince or Prime Minister.  Not one,’ he flourished, stepping onward.  ’And mind you, Richie, this,’ he swung round, conscious as ever of the critic in me, though witless to correct his pomp of style, ’this is not self-glorification.  I point you facts.  I have a thousand schemes—­projects.  I recognize the value of early misfortune.  The particular misfortune of princes born is that they know nothing of the world—­babies!  I grant you, babies.  Now, I do.  I have it on my thumbnail.  I know its wants.  And just as I succeeded in making you a member of our Parliament in assembly, and the husband of an hereditary princess—­hear me—­so will I make good my original determination to be in myself the fountain of our social laws, and leader.  I have never, I believe—­to speak conscientiously—­failed in a thing I have once determined on.’