_First Lady_: "Why, if a man is unpopular in a community, the leading people drag him away to a convenient tree and hang him. Sometimes they burn him. Shocking, is it not?" _Second Lady_: "It would be shocking as a regular thing, but I confess it seems to me a most admirable custom for certain occasions, and I should be glad if it were brought over with other American inventions that we have found so convenient. Think what it would mean to wake up to-morrow and learn that Lloyd George had been hanged in the night!" _Third Lady_ (_vindictively_): "Yes, and better still, the whole Liberal cabinet." _Second Lady_: "Oh, that would be more than one could hope for." _First Lady_ (_whose humanitarianism seems to have been poisoned by party politics, but is trying to prevent a Reign of Terror in England_): "Surely you would except John Burns?" _Third Lady_: "Perhaps I should. I sometimes think that he has really repented, and that now his face is set toward the light." At that moment Ruth turned and caught my eye. She followed me out of the room and, though choking with laughter, said: "I would give a good deal if you had not overheard that conversation!" "Wouldn't have missed it for worlds," I replied. "I have another picture to hang beside it, and I shall call them 'Church and State!'" XXXII THE CHAPLAIN TO THE QUEEN Our journey led us now to Chester, whence we started on a little trip through Northern Wales. I was not very keen for it, for I feared it might prove too "post-cardy!" But it did not. If your memory fails you, you may turn again to your "Baedeker," for I do not intend to bore you with descriptions of scenery. At Betts-y-Coed we stopped at the "Waterloo," and took as many photos of the brawling brook as Mr. Pecksniff's pupils made elevations of Salisbury Cathedral. But far more interesting to me than any landscape was the porter of the hotel--John. You recall Oliver Wendell Holmes's description of the "Two Voices"--if not look it up in your "Autocrat," mine is in the trunk at Chester. One of these voices, I remember, was that of a German chambermaid in a hotel at Buffalo, and the other--I have forgotten where! Well, John's voice is more beautiful than theirs, I am sure. Indeed, I think it the most beautiful speaking voice I have ever heard--as more musical than the English voice than that is more musical than the Philadelphian's--at which you never tire of girding! The _timbre_ is exquisite, and there is a caressing quality in it which belongs to the Celt alone. Motorists, dusty, tired, hungry, and cross drove up hour after hour, and John's greeting was as comfortable as a warm bath. And when I say bath, I mean a wallow in a tub and not a wash in a tin basin--but I forgot. Ruth asked me not to mention "baths" again until we passed Sandy Hook. I do not know why. Perhaps you do?