task. But, Madam, there is almost nothing to tell: politics, like the rest
of us, have been taking holiday.

QUEEN. I thought that Mr. Gladstone had been speaking.

LORD B. (_with an airy flourish of courtly disdain_). Oh, yes! He has
been--speaking.

QUEEN. In Edinburgh, quite lately.

LORD B. And in more other places than I can count. Speaking--speaking--
speaking. But I have to confess, Madam, that I have not read his speeches.
They are composed for brains which can find more leisure than yours,
Madam--or mine.

QUEEN. I have read some of them.

LORD B. Your Majesty does him great honour--and yourself some
inconvenience, I fear. Those speeches, so great a strain to understand, or
even to listen to--my hard duty for now some forty years--are a far
greater strain to read.

QUEEN. They annoy me intensely. I have no patience with him!

LORD B. Pardon me, Madam; if you have read _one_ of his speeches,
your patience has been extraordinary.

QUEEN. Can't you stop it?

LORD B. Stop?--stop what, Madam? Niagara, the Flood? That which has no