‘The idea is everything in military affairs,’ a solemn dupe, a Mr. Rumford, partly bald, of benevolent aspect, and looking more copious than his flow, observed to the lady beside him.  ‘The flag is only an idea.’

She protested against the barbarism of war, and he agreed with her, but thought it must be:  it had always been:  he deplored the fatality.  Nevertheless, he esteemed our soldiers, our sailors too.  A city man himself and a man of peace, he cordially esteemed and hailed the victories of a military body whose idea was Duty instead of Ambition.

‘One thing,’ said Mrs. Dyke, evading the ambiguous fife, ’patriotic as I am, I hope, one thing I confess; I never have yet brought myself to venerate thoroughly our Royal Standard.  I dare say it is because I do not understand it.’

A strong fraternal impulse moved Mr. Rumford to lean forward and show her the face of one who had long been harassed by the same incapacity to digest that one thing.  He guessed it at once, without a doubt of the accuracy of the shot.  Ever since he was a child the difficulty had haunted him; and as no one hitherto had even comprehended his dilemma, he beamed like a man preparing to embrace a recovered sister.

‘The Unicorn!’ he exclaimed.

‘It is the Unicorn!’ she sighed.  ‘The Lion is noble.’

’The Unicorn, if I may speak by my own feelings, certainly does not inspire attachment, that is to say, the sense of devotion, which we should always be led to see in national symbols,’ Mr. Rumford resumed, and he looked humorously rueful while speaking with some earnestness; to show that he knew the subject to be of the minor sort, though it was not enough to trip and jar a loyal enthusiasm in the strictly meditative.

‘The Saxon should carry his White Horse, I suppose,’ Dr. Forbery said.

‘But how do we account for the horn on his forehead?’ Mr. Rumford sadly queried.

‘Two would have been better for the harmony of the Unicorn’s appearance,’ Captain Con remarked, desirous to play a floundering fish, and tender to the known simple goodness of the ingenuous man.  ’What do you say, Forbery?  The poor brute had a fall on his pate and his horn grew of it, and it ’s to prove that he has got something in his head, and is dangerous both fore and aft, which is not the case with other horses, who’re usually wicked at the heels alone.  That’s it, be sure, or near it.  And his horn’s there to file the subject nation’s grievances for the Lion to peruse at his leisure.  And his colour’s prophetic of the Horse to come, that rides over all.’

’Lion and Unicorn signify the conquest of the two hemispheres, Matter and Mind,’ said Dr. Forbery.  ’The Lion there’s no mistake about.  The Unicorn sets you thinking.  So it’s a splendid Standard, and means the more for not being perfectly intelligible at a glance.’

’But if the Lion, as they’ve whispered of late, Forbery, happens to be stuffed with straw or with what’s worse, with sawdust, a fellow bearing a pointed horn at close quarters might do him mortal harm; and it must be a situation trying to the patience of them both.  The Lion seems to say “No prancing!” as if he knew his peril; and the Unicorn to threaten a playful dig at his flank, as if he understood where he’s ticklish.’