But two passages in the address made an impression on the Minister, by their curious connection with his recent interests. The first was a surprising compliment to the Church of Rome; the second was a panegyric in a much broader vein of the hooligans. Of the Roman Church the speaker said that it was the only form of Christianity which deserved their toleration and respect. He regarded it as the true Church of the Decadence, and as such he called upon the Brotherhood to support it. He was not himself a Catholic; he was a polytheist. But he considered that, next to polytheism, the Church of Rome afforded the best rallying-point for all that was beautiful and corrupt in the art and life of the age. This extraordinary eulogy was received with vociferous applause, especially by the French Count, whose air was that of a man enjoying a personal triumph. Molly Finucane, who had not been to Mass or Confession for many years, but who had not quite shaken off her early impressions, tried to disguise her nervousness by hammering the table with her wineglass till it broke--an accident which she was half disposed to interpret as the work of an offended Power. The Duke of Trent, who entertained a vague respect for the Roman Church as a venerable institution whose influence was generally exerted on the side of the Conservative party, hardly knew what to think of this equivocal homage to its merits. The Honourable Gerald St. John passed on to the question of hooliganism, not without a shy glance in the direction of the Home Secretary, which showed how much the jest was enhanced by the presence of hooliganism’s official adversary. The hooligans, he declared, were crusaders fighting for the same cause as that Dishonourable Brotherhood. They were martyrs of the new individualism. Their so-called outrages constituted a protest--the only form of protest which dull and hidebound statesmen could understand--against the iron yoke of Socialist civilization, under which they were all groaning. He regarded the hooligans as saviours. It was significant that so far the man whom they had selected for attack was that embodiment of everything vulgar and virtuous, the suburban ratepayer. When they had exterminated the ratepayer, he hoped they would go on to the millionaire. He had always regretted that their fellow-workers, the Anarchists, should show so much antipathy to Kings. It was an unreasonable prejudice. Kings were picturesque survivals in the midst of the hideous monotony of modern life. Kings were rarely respectable, and were not seldom steeped in crime; and this applied particularly to those romantic claimants--he, the speaker, preferred the dear old name “Pretender”--whom their Dishonourable Brother on the left was seeking to restore.