looked with troubled glance towards door, stood for a moment as if he
would resist the incursion, and catching sight of sword by Black Rod's
side, abruptly sat down amid general titter.

[Illustration: "Stopped on the threshold."]

Still winding-up business. GEORGE CURZON explained Indian Budget to
PLOWDEN, and Rev. SAM SMITH, who thought it very good. So it was,
comprehensive, lucid, here and there brightened with felicitous
touches of eloquence.

"Pity," said GRAND CROSS, when I mentioned to him the depressing
circumstances attendant upon delivery of speech; "CURZON's a clever
youth. When he's been with me a month or two, he'll brighten up
considerably. Great advantage for a young man to have such guidance,
coming into almost daily contact with a person like his present Chief.
The fact is, TOBY, I am really responsible for the state of the House
to-night. The country, England and India alike, are so satisfied
with my rule over what I may, perhaps without offence, call our dusky
Empire, that people do not think it worth while to go down to House
to hear the affair discoursed on by my Under-Secretary. Amongst
the natives in India, I'm told, I'm regarded as a sort of Fetish.
Travellers in remote regions bring home stories of finding, set up in
humble cottages, little images, more or less resembling me. GORST told
me they have a saying there, which he was good enough to translate.
His knowledge of Hindustanee is extensive, peculiar, and acquired with
remarkable rapidity. These are the lines:

If you'd never make a loss,
Put your money on GRAND CROSS.