Meantime, Wilfrid Bertram, who has been speaking for more than an hour without contradiction, except such as he read on his friends’ faces, perceives at last that he has been wearying them; a knowledge which is always slow to steal upon the teacher of mankind. He stops in the middle of a very fine peroration. “My dear people,” he remarks, a little irritably--“I mean, ladies and gentlemen--if you are so soon weary of so illimitable a subject, I fear I must have failed to do it justice.” “So soon?--oh, hang it!” says the man who has wished for something to drink. “We came upstairs at half-past four, and you’ve had all the jaw to yourself ever since, and it’s past six now, and we’re all as thirsty as dogs.” An expression of extreme disdain passes over the lecturer’s face. “I did not invite _you_, Lord Marlow,” he says, very coldly. “If I had done I would have provided beer and skittles for your entertainment.” “Oh, I say Wilfrid, come, finish your address to us; it’s extremely interesting,” observes, in amiable haste, a much older man, with a bald head and pleasant, ruddy countenance, who is his uncle, Lord Southwold. “Immensely interesting!” echo everybody: they can say so with animation, almost with veracity, now that they are aware it is drawing to an end. “I ask your pardon if my infirmities have done injustice to a noble theme. I fear I have failed to make myself intelligible,” says Bertram, in a tone intended to be apologetic, but which is actually only aggressive, since it plainly implies that his pearls have been thrown before swine. He closes the manuscript and note-books which are lying before him with the air of a person who is prepared for anything from the obtuseness and ingratitude of humanity. “Nothing could be clearer than what you’ve said,” says the gentleman who wanted a drink. “Nobody is to have anything they can call their own, and everybody who likes is to eat in one’s plate and bathe in one’s bath.” “At theatres the buffoon in the gallery is usually turned out, with the approval of the entire audience,” Bertram remarks, with sententious chilliness. “Were I not in my own chambers----” Lord Marlow laughs rudely. “I don’t think you could throw me downstairs. Your diet of brown bread and asparagus don’t make muscle.” “My dear fellow--before women--pray be quiet,” murmurs a guardsman who is on the seat next to him. “Do finish your reading, Wilfrid,” says Lady Southwold, coaxingly. “Your views are so disinterested if they are a--a--a little difficult to carry out as the world is constituted.” “Excuse me,” replies Bertram, “I have trespassed too long on every one’s indulgence. It is, I believe, altogether impossible to attempt to introduce altruism and duty into a society which considers Lord Marlow’s type of humanity as either wholesome or ornamental.”