Alone with his lordship, I thought it best to acquaint him instantly with the change in my circumstances, touching lightly upon the matter of my now being an equal with rather most of the North Americans. He listened with exemplary patience to my brief recital and was good enough to felicitate me. “Assure you, glad to hear it--glad no end. Worthy fellow; always knew it. And equal, of course, of course! Take up their equality by all means if you take ‘em up themselves. Curious lot of nose-talking beggars, and putting r’s every place one shouldn’t, but don’t blame you. Do it myself if I could--England gone to pot. Quite!” “Gone to pot, sir?” I gasped. “Don’t argue. Course it has. Women! Slasher fiends and firebrands! Pictures, churches, golf-greens, cabinet members--nothing safe. Pouring their beastly filth into pillar boxes. Women one knows. Hussies, though! Want the vote--rot! Awful rot! Don’t blame you for America. Wish I might, too. Good thing, my word! No backbone in Downing Street. Let the fiends out again directly they’re hungry. No system! No firmness! No dash! Starve ‘em proper, I would.” He was working himself into no end of a state. I sought to divert him. “About the Honourable George, sir----” I ventured. “What’s the silly ass up to now? Dancing girl got him--yes? How he does it, I can’t think. No looks, no manner, no way with women. Can’t stand him myself. How ever can they? Frightful bore, old George is. Well, well, man, I’m waiting. Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Briefly I disclosed to him that his brother had entangled himself with a young person who had indeed been a dancing girl or a bit like that in the province of Alaska. That at the time of my cable there was strong reason to believe she would stop at nothing--even marriage, but that I had since come to suspect that she might be bent only on making a fool of her victim, she being, although an honest enough character, rather inclined to levity and without proper respect for established families. I hinted briefly at the social warfare of which she had been a storm centre. I said again, remembering the warm words of the Mixer and of my charwoman, that to the best of my knowledge her character was without blemish. All at once I was feeling preposterously sorry for the creature. His lordship listened, though with a cross-fire of interruptions. “Alaska dancing girl. Silly! Nothing but snow and mines in Alaska.” Or, again, “Make a fool of old George? What silly piffle! Already done it himself, what, what! Waste her time!” And if she wasn’t keen to marry him, had I called him across the ocean to intervene in a vulgar village squabble about social precedence? “Social precedence silly rot!” I insisted that his brother should be seen to. One couldn’t tell what the woman might do. Her audacity was tremendous, even for an American. To this he listened more patiently.