Here an expression of discontent from a young Lieutenant, whose chit was in the drawing-room awaiting his release, distracted Challis's attention for the moment. A word of sympathy elicited from this youth that he had a private grievance against Mr. Tomes. "_You_ wouldn't like it any more than I do, if he had trod on _your_ pup. Poor little beggar's only a month old!" He brooded over this injury in silence, and the orator again became audible. He seemed to have been digressing.
"I will pursue this aspect of the case no further, but will return to the subject in hand. It is not, I hope, necessary for me to say, at this table, that I am not one of that group of indiscriminate Thinkers who are prepared to welcome the germination of the Political Idea in the crude brain of every Sciolist. The outcome of such a surrounding is but too apt to out-Herod Herod. The _medio tutissimus ibis_, the _procellas cautus horrescis_ that we may suppose to have guided Cæsar's wife, should also serve as a beacon to those whose ambition it is to deserve the gratitude of posterity." Challis was enjoying the cigar too much to ask--"Why Cæsar's wife?"
Mr. Tomes's assumption of his right to the rostrum was so forcible as scarcely to allow of usurpation while he was visibly bolting an _ad interim_ glass of port with a view to going on again. Mr. Brownrigg chafed, and Mr. Wraxall stood himself over in despair. The young Lieutenant murmured a prayer to any Providence that would shape the end of Mr. Tomes's speech, and help him on to it. There seemed no hope. So he thought of the chit's teeth and chin in self-defence. Mr. Tomes swallowed his glass of port with a clear conscience about its non-evaporation--had he not given it every opportunity?--and resumed:
"I must not, however, allow myself to be led away...." But he had to pause a few seconds, to remember something to have been led away by. Feeling uncertain, he repeated: "I must not allow myself to be led away by a side-topic, however fascinating. The maturity of Political Thought claims our attention. Whether we contemplate the vast areas of controversy laid bare to the scalpel of the Political Analyst in connection with the aspirations of the Socialist pure and simple, the Anarchist pure and simple, or the Nihilist pure and simple, or differentiate by a closer scrutiny the theories of the Socialist-Anarchist, the Socialist-Nihilist, or the Nihilist-Anarchist, we are driven irresistibly to the same conclusion--that Omniscience is still in its infancy. There is one element which all schemes for the Readjustment of the Universe have in common--namely, that each differs on some vital point from the whole of its neighbours. Do not let us be discouraged by this. Let us rather be content to infer from it the dangers that await those who advocate rash departures from the existing order of things, and to recognize, in the discrepancies attendant on the consolidations of Political Opinion in the thousand and one groups into which it crystallizes, the indisputable fact that the Index-finger of the Political Horizon is the maintenance of the _status quo_. I trust I make myself clearly understood."