‘Anything else in the paper, colonel?  I’ve not seen it to-day,’ said Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking.

‘No, I don’t think there’s anything,’ Colonel Halkett replied.  ’Our diplomatists haven’t been shining much:  that ‘s not our forte.’

‘No:  it’s our field for younger sons.’

’Is it?  Ah!  There’s an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and we’re such a peaceful nation, eh?  We look as if we were in for a complication with China.’

‘Well, sir, we must sell our opium.’

‘Of course we must.  There’s a man writing about surrendering Gibraltar!’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do that.’

‘But where do you draw the line?’ quoth Tuckham, very susceptible to a sneer at the colonel, and entirely ignorant of the circumstances attending Beauchamp’s position before him.  ’You defend the Chinaman; and it’s questionable if his case is as good as the Spaniard’s.’

’The Chinaman has a case against our traders.  Gibraltar concerns our imperial policy.’

’As to the case against the English merchants, the Chinaman is for shutting up his millions of acres of productive land, and the action of commerce is merely a declaration of a universal public right, to which all States must submit.’

’Immorality brings its punishment, be sure of that.  Some day we shall have enough of China.  As to the Rock, I know the argument; I may be wrong.  I’ve had the habit of regarding it as necessary to our naval supremacy.’

‘Come! there we agree.’

‘I’m not so certain.’

‘The counter-argument, I call treason.’

‘Well,’ said Beauchamp, ’there’s a broad policy, and a narrow.  There’s the Spanish view of the matter—­if you are for peace and harmony and disarmament.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then strengthen your forces.’

‘Not a bit of it!’

’Then bully the feeble and truckle to the strong; consent to be hated till you have to stand your ground.’

‘Talk!’

‘It seems to me logical.’

‘That’s the French notion—­c’est lodgique!’

Tuckham’s pronunciation caused Cecilia to level her eyes at him passingly.

‘By the way,’ said Colonel Halkett, ’there are lots of horrors in the paper to-day; wife kickings, and starvations—­oh, dear me! and the murder of a woman:  two columns to that.’

‘That, the Tory reaction is responsible for!’ said Tuckham, rather by way of a joke than a challenge.

Beauchamp accepted it as a challenge.  Much to the benevolent amusement of Mr. Austin and Colonel Halkett, he charged the responsibility of every crime committed in the country, and every condition of misery, upon the party which declined to move in advance, and which therefore apologized for the perpetuation of knavery, villany, brutality, injustice, and foul dealing.

’Stick to your laws and systems and institutions, and so long as you won’t stir to amend them, I hold you accountable for that long newspaper list daily.’