the last divorce suit in high life. High life!—so high that some folks had to hold their noses. We want a bit of a change now. After that bit of strong venison, some capsicum to restore the palate. Saltren, you must convene a public meeting, make a demonstration, a torchlight procession of the out-of-work, issue a remonstrance. I'll come and help you. I know how to work those kind of things. A little grievance and some dissatisfaction well-stirred together is like chlorate of potash and sulphur in a mortar; only stir away, and in the end you get an explosion."
"It is of no use," said the captain, in a tone of discouragement.
"Of no use! I tell you it is of the utmost use; we'll make a public matter of it. Get a question asked in the House about it. There are so many journalists in there now that we can get anything asked when we want the question as a text for a leader. Why, we will fill the papers with your grievance, only we must have some meeting to report, and I'll help you with that. Bless you, I've half a dozen ways of poking this matter into notoriety; and we will show up the British aristocracy as the oppressors of the poor, those who are driving business out of the country, who are the true cause of the prevailing depression. Thanks to that recent divorce case we've made them out to be the moral cancer in the body of old England, and now we shall show that they are the drag on commercial progress. When folks are grumbling because the times are bad, it makes them mighty content to be shown a cause for it all, on which they may vent their ill-humour. Did you ever read 'The Curiosity Shop,' Saltren? Quilp had a figure-head to batter whenever things went wrong with him, and the public are much like Quilp; give 'em an admiral or a peer, or an archbishop, some figure-head, and whack, bang, hammer, and smash they go at it."
"As for the aristocracy," said Mrs. Saltren, "I ought to
