An article appeared in a German Review advocating the purchase of the Delta by Germany, with one of whose colonies it was coterminous. The wound it dealt was the deeper from the fact that Mr Barnett’s own second cousin, Baron Bloch, was the author of the article, which appeared above his pseudonym of “Sympathicus.” It was good to hear the outburst of indignation with which this proposal was met in England. We were saved by the rally of our own blood to our side. The article “Git,” which appeared in the principal American newspaper in London, was undoubtedly the turning point, after which the City and the banking interest determined to support what was feared at the time to be the vacillating policy of the Government. Owing to the persistence of a very wealthy private member, whom no arguments could mollify, unexpected difficulties arose in the transference of the Delta from the Foreign to the Colonial Office, a trifling but necessary formality which could not be accomplished till much later, in August, when the close season for grouse was at an end. [Illustration: BARON BLOCH (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY M. M. BALLARU ET CIE., 147 _bis_, RUE ST. LOUP. LES CLICHÉS SONT LA PROPRIÉTÉ EXCLUSIVE DE LA MAISON)] The correspondent of _The Times_ at Kurù, in a long course of articles, which did more than anything else to teach the monied classes what the M’Korio might mean, never once mentioned the company nor any of its supporters—and there are conditions under which such neutrality is dangerous. Against all this Mr Barnett bore up with an heroic tenacity. There was but one feature in all the field before him which gave him any serious anxiety, and this was that unhappy vacillation which I have already so often shown Mr Burden to have displayed, from the moment that he plunged into efforts ill-suited to his training and experience. It was necessary, upon the face of it, that Mr Abbott should be invited to join the original promoters, to “chip in,” as Mr Barnett put it in somewhat excessive joviality of phrase. But Mr Abbott was Faroosh. None but Mr Burden could approach him, and frequently as he had been asked to do so, Mr Burden hesitated; a childish hesitation; a man shrinking from a scene. But if Mr Abbott’s directorship could wait, there were other and more disquieting symptoms in Mr Burden’s manner. He had fits of silence. For days he saw eye to eye with all his colleagues—and then, suddenly, a note would come, short, querulous, excusing himself from attending the most important functions. At last, during the great reception in the beginning of July, Mr Barnett grew seriously concerned.