He was sometimes at a loss to think what on earth they would do without him on juries, of which he was usually elected foreman. And he never failed to listen with pleasure to the words that never failed to be spoken to him: “As plain men, gentlemen, you will at once see how improbable in every particular is the argument of my friend.” That he was valued in precisely the same way by both sides and ultimately by the judge filled him sometimes with a modest feeling that only a plain man was of any value whatever, certainly that he was the only kind of man who had any sort of judgment. He often wondered what the country would do without him; into what abysmal trouble she would get in her politics, her art, her law, and her religion. It seemed to him that he alone stood between her and manifold destructions. How many times had he not seen her reeling in her cups and sophistries, and beckoning to him to save her! And had he ever failed her, with his simple philosophy of a plain man: “Follow me, and the rest will follow itself”? Never! As witness the veneration in which he saw that he was held every time he opened a paper, attended the performance of a play, heard a sermon, or listened to a speech. Some day he meant to sit for his portrait, believing that this was due from him to posterity; and now and then he would look into the glass to fortify his resolution. What he saw there always gave him secret pleasure. Here was a face that he knew he could trust, and even in a way admire. Nothing brilliant, showy, eccentric, soulful; nothing rugged, devotional, profound, or fiery; not even anything proud, or stubborn; no surplus of kindliness, sympathy, or aspiration; but just simple, solid lines, a fresh colour, and sensible, rather prominent eyes--just the face that he would have expected and desired, the face of a plain man. IV.--THE SUPERLATIVE