and other voices denying the fact.  “I will name no one,” said the Senator.  “How could I tell what noble friend I might put on a stool of repentance by doing so.”  And he looked round on the gentlemen on the platform behind him.  “But I defy any member of Parliament here present to get up and say that it is not so.”  Then he paused a moment.  “And if it be so, is that rational?  Is that in accordance with the theory of representation as to which you have all been so ardent, and which you profess to be so dear to you?  Is the country not over-ridden by the aristocracy when Lord Lambswool not only possesses his own hereditary seat in the House of Lords, but also has a seat for his eldest son in the House of Commons?”

Then a voice from the back called out, “What the deuce is all that to you?”

CHAPTER XXIV

The Senator’s Lecture.—­No.  II

“If I see a man hungry in the street,” said the Senator, instigated by the question asked him at the end of the last chapter, “and give him a bit of bread, I don’t do it for my own sake but for his.”  Up to this time the Britishers around him on the platform and those in the benches near to him, had received what he said with a good grace.  The allusion to Lord Lambswool had not been pleasant to them, but it had not been worse than they had expected.  But now they were displeased.  They did not like being told that they were taking a bit of bread from him in their own political destitution.  They did not like that he, an individual, should presume that he had prayer to offer to them as a nation.  And yet, had they argued it out in their own minds, they would have seen that the Senator’s metaphor was appropriate.  His purpose in being there was to give advice, and theirs in coming to listen to it.  But it was unfortunate.  “When I ventured to come before you here, I made all this my business,” continued the Senator.  Then he paused and glanced round the hall with a defiant look.  “And now about your House of Lords,” he went on.  “I have not much to say about the House of Lords, because if I understand rightly the feeling of this country it is already condemned.”  “No such thing.”  “Who told you that?” “You know nothing about it” These and other words of curt denial came from the distant corners, and a slight murmur of disapprobation was heard even from the seats on the platform.  Then Lord Drummond got up and begged that there might be silence.  Mr. Gotobed had come there to tell them his views,—­and as they had come there expressly to listen to him, they could not without impropriety interrupt him.  “That such will be the feeling of the country before long,” continued the Senator, “I think no one can doubt who has learned how to look to the signs of the times in such matters.  Is it possible that the theory of an hereditary legislature can be defended with reason?  For a legislature you want the best and wisest of your people.”