come back from one of the places to which younger sons exile themselves,
and for all I knew it might be the correct thing for girls to elect
brothers nowadays in one set or another.

"Oh, tell me some more," I said, "one likes to know about one's sister.
You and the Right Honourable Charles Gurnard are Dimensionists, and who
are the others of your set?"

"There is only one," she answered. And would you believe it!--it seems
he was Fox, the editor of my new paper.

"You select your characters with charming indiscriminateness," I said.
"Fox is only a sort of toad, you know--he won't get far."

"Oh, he'll go far," she answered, "but he won't get there. Fox is
fighting against us."

"Oh, so you don't dwell in amity?" I said. "You fight for your own
hands."

"We fight for our own hands," she answered, "I shall throw Gurnard over
when he's pulled the chestnuts out of the fire."

I was beginning to get a little tired of this. You see, for me, the
scene was a veiled flirtation and I wanted to get on. But I had to
listen to her fantastic scheme of things. It was really a duel between
Fox, the Journal-founder, and Gurnard, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Fox, with Churchill, the Foreign Minister, and his supporters, for
pieces, played what he called "the Old Morality business" against
Gurnard, who passed for a cynically immoral politician.