“Oh, they’ve nothing to do with it!” said the Economist, a little snappishly. “The proportionate amount of surplus produce demanded by the community does not affect the basic process of production. Of course,” he added, in a rather more conciliatory tone, “it _would_ if the community demanded the total unearned increment and _then_ proposed taxes beyond that limit. _That_, I have always said, would affect the whole nature of production.” “Oh!” said the Squire. By this time they were nearing the Castle, and it was already dusk; they were silent during the last hundred yards as the great house showed more definitely through the mist, and the Economist could note upon the face of it the coat-of-arms with which he was familiar. They had been those of his host’s great-grandfather, a solicitor who had foreclosed. These arms were of stucco. Age and the tempest had made them green, and the head of that animal which represented the family had fallen off. They went into the house, they drank tea with the rather worried but well-bred hostess of it, and all evening the Squire’s thoughts were of his two daughters, who dressed exactly alike in the local town, and whose dresses were not yet paid for, and of his son, whose schooling was paid for, but whose next term was ahead: the Squire was wondering about the extras. Then he remembered suddenly, and as suddenly put out of his mind by an effort of surprising energy in such a man, the date February 3rd, on which he must get a renewal or pay a certain claim. They sat at table; they drank white fizzy wine by way of ritual, but it was bad. The Economist could not distinguish between good wine and bad, and all the while his mind was full of a very bothersome journey to the North, where he was to read a paper to an institute upon “The Reaction of Agricultural Prosperity upon Industrial Demand.” He was wondering whether he could get them to change the hour so that he could get back by a train that would put him into London before midnight. And all this cogitation which lay behind the general talk during dinner and after it led him at last to say: “Have you a ‘Bradshaw’?” But the Squire’s wife had no “Bradshaw.” She did not think they could afford it. However, the eldest daughter remembered an old “Bradshaw” of last August, and brought it, but it was no use to the Economist. * * * * * How various is man! How multiplied his experience, his outlook, his conclusions! A Little Conversation in Carthage HANNO: Waiter! Get me a copy of _The Times_. [_Mutters to himself. The waiter brings the copy of_ The Times. _As he gives it to Hanno he collides with another member of the Club, and that member, already advanced in years, treads upon Hanno’s foot._] HANNO: Ah! Ah! Ah!... Oh! [_with a grunt_]. Bethaal, it’s you, is it? BETHAAL: Gouty? HANNO [_after saying nothing for some time_]: ’Xtraordinary thing.... Nothing in the papers.