of hereditary tendency against environment and all that sort
of thing. The woman's father could have been an Envoy to
some of the smaller German Courts; that's where she'd get her
passion for visiting the poor, in spite of the most careful
upbringing. C'est le premier pa qui compte, as the cuckoo
said when it swallowed its foster-parent. That, I think, is
quite clever."

"And the wolves?"

"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in
the background that would never be satisfactorily explained.
After all, life teems with things that have no earthly
reason. And whenever the characters could think of nothing
brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they could
open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But
that would be very seldom."



REGINALD ON TARIFFS



I'm not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald);
I wish to be original. At the same time, I think one suffers
more than one realises from the system of free imports. I
should like, for instance, a really prohibitive duty put upon
the partner who declares on a weak red suit and hopes for the
best. Even a free outlet for compressed verbiage doesn't