But a drowsy semi-abstraction was only achievable when the components of the Chaos were so numerous as to neutralize each other, becoming a sustained inarticulate roar. The moment a single speaker, or even two, became audible in an oasis of silence, Challis's attention was caught by his words, and divided fairly between them and what was left of the reveries they intruded on. Such an oasis was reached, as far as Challis's immediate neighbours were concerned, about half-way through his cigar, just as regret began to set in that he had smoked so much of it. Now it happened that Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who was quite unexhausted, though he had talked all day, and who was seated on the other side of the table, had at that moment just sketched the extinction of the British Empire in consequence of its ill-advised persistence in all the _dementiæ_ of all the States that _Deus_ ever _voluit perdere_. He had used up his Latin quotations, including the one we have taken a liberty with, and had finished with a beautiful picture of the New Zealander, our old friend, gazing across the site of vanished London from Jack Straw's Castle, and murmuring to himself, "Perierunt etiam ruinæ." Happy in his peroration, the orator sat sustaining a fat right foot on a fat left knee with a fat left hand. His fat right thumb and forefinger held a permanent glass of port; they seemed to be waiting for it to evaporate. His attitude was unfavourable to his figure, as it laid too much stress on a corporate capacity which might have been described as pendant. But the _ensemble_ was majestic, as he fixed his small but piercing eye on the cornice of the room opposite, grasping the eyeglass that accompanied it with what almost seemed a materialized allusion to his own powerful grasp of political issues. So sitting, his appearance was that of a Mind, giving attentive consideration to most things. "The disciple of Socrates," said he, with a decision and suddenness that compelled respectful attention, "turns with satisfaction from the contemplation of a spectacle that might well arrest the orgies of an Epicurus, or soften the cynicism of a Diogenes, to the fields in which Speculation, untrammelled by official responsibility, deposits--if I may be permitted the simile--the eggs from which will emerge (like Minerva from the brain of Jove) the fully-fledged Politician of the future." Here an expression of discontent from a young Lieutenant, whose chit was in the drawing-room awaiting his release, distracted Challis's attention for the moment. A word of sympathy elicited from this youth that he had a private grievance against Mr. Tomes. "_You_ wouldn't like it any more than I do, if he had trod on _your_ pup. Poor little beggar's only a month old!" He brooded over this injury in silence, and the orator again became audible. He seemed to have been digressing.