mumbled the words with his eyes on my waistcoat, with an air that
accorded rather ill with the semblance of portentous probity that his
beard conferred on him. But he set an eye-glass in his left eye
immediately afterward, and looked straight at me as if in challenge.
With a smiling "Don't mention," I tried to demonstrate that I met him
half way.

"You want to interview me," he said, blandly. "I am only too pleased. I
suppose it is about my Arctic schemes that you wish to know. I will do
what I can to inform you. You perhaps remember what I said when I had
the pleasure of meeting you at the house of the Right Honourable Mr.
Churchill. It has been the dream of my life to leave behind me a happy
and contented State--as much as laws and organisation can make one. This
is what I should most like the English to know of me." He was a dull
talker. I supposed that philanthropists and state founders kept their
best faculties for their higher pursuits. I imagined the low, receding
forehead and the pink-nailed, fleshy hands to belong to a new Solon, a
latter-day Æneas. I tried to work myself into the properly enthusiastic
frame of mind. After all, it was a great work that he had undertaken. I
was too much given to dwell upon intellectual gifts. These the Duc
seemed to lack. I credited him with having let them be merged in his one
noble idea.

He furnished me with statistics. They had laid down so many miles of
railways, used so many engines of British construction. They had taught
the natives to use and to value sewing-machines and European costumes.
So many hundred of English younger sons had gone to make their fortunes
and, incidentally, to enlighten the Esquimaux--so many hundreds of
French, of Germans, Greeks, Russians. All these lived and moved in
harmony, employed, happy, free labourers, protected by the most rigid