"Hold your tongue, Percy," said an elder officer. "The fruits are not here because Lord Alfred gorged himself so tremendously that we were afraid his mother, the duchess, would withdraw him from the service when she heard that he had made himself sick."
"There are curaçoa, chartreuse, pepperwick, mangostino, and Russian brandy on the side-board," suggested a third.
"I shall have a glass of madeira--just a thimbleful," said another, who seemed to be a few years older than Lord Alfred Percy. Then one of the stewards brought the madeira, which the young man drank with great satisfaction. "This wine has been seven times round the world," he said, "and the only time for drinking it is five-o'clock tea,--that is, if you understand what good living means." I asked simply for a cup of tea, which I found to be peculiarly good, partly because of the cream which accompanied it. I then went up-stairs to take a constitutional walk with Mr Crosstrees on the deck. "I saw you sitting there for a couple of hours very thoughtful," said he, "and I wouldn't disturb you. I hope it doesn't make you unhappy that you are carried away to England?"
"Had it done so, I don't know whether I should have gone--alive."
"They said that when it was suggested, you promised to be ready in two days."
"I did say so--because it suited me. But I can hardly imagine that they would have carried me on board with violence, or that they would have put all Gladstonopolis to the sword because I declined to go on board."
"Brown had told us that we were to bring you off dead or alive; and dead or alive, I think we should have had you. If the soldiers had not succeeded, the sailors would have taken you in hand." When I asked him why there was this great necessity for kidnapping me, he assured me that feeling in England had run very high on the matter, and that sundry bishops had declared that anything so barbarous could not be permitted in the twentieth century. "It would be as bad, they said, as the cannibals of New Zealand."
"That shows the absolute ignorance of the bishops on the subject."
"I daresay; but there is a prejudice about killing an old man, or a woman. Young men don't matter."
"Allow me to assure you, Mr Crosstrees," said I, "that your sentiment is carrying you far away from reason. To the State the life of a woman should be just the same as that of a man. The State cannot allow itself to indulge in romance."