“But you are in danger, then?” said Sergius Thord, bending an anxious look of enquiry upon him. “Not more so than you, or any of my comrades are,” replied Leroy; “I have commenced my campaign--and I have no doubt you will hear some results of it ere long!” He spoke so quietly and firmly, yet with such an air of assurance and authority, that something of an electric thrill passed through the entire company, and all eyes were fixed on him in mingled admiration and wonderment. “Of the ‘Corruption of the State,’ concerning which our fair teacher has spoken to-night,” he continued, with another quick glance at Lotys--“there can be no manner of doubt. But we should, I think, say the ‘Corruption of the Ministry’ rather than of the State. It is not because a few stock-jobbers rule the Press and the Cabinet, that the State is necessarily corrupt. Remove the corruptors,--sweep the dirt from the house--and the State will be clean.” “It will require a very long broom!” said Paul Zouche. “Take David Jost, for example,--he is the fat Jew-spider of several newspaper webs,--and to sweep him out is not so easy. His printed sheets are read by the million; and the million are deluded into believing him a reliable authority!” “Nothing so easy as to prove him unreliable,” said Leroy composedly; “And then----” “Then the million will continue to read his journals out of sheer curiosity, to see how long a liar can go on lying!” said Zouche;--“Besides a Jew can turn his coat a dozen times a day; he has inherited Joseph’s ‘coat of many colours’ to suit many opinions. At present Jost supports Pérousse, and calls him the greatest statesman living; but if Pérousse were once proved a fraud, Jost would pen a sublimely-conscientious leading article, beginning in this strain;--’ We are now at liberty to confess that we always had our doubts of M. Pérousse!’” A murmur of angry laughter went round the board. “There was an article this evening in one of Jost’s off-shoot journals,” went on Zouche, “which must have been paid for at a considerable cost. It chanted the praises of one Monsignor Del Fortis,--who, it appears, preached a sermon on ‘National Education’ the other day, and told all the sleepy, yawning people how necessary it was to have Roman Catholic schools in every town and village, in order that souls might be saved. The article ended by saying--‘We hear on good authority that his Majesty the King has been pleased to grant a considerable portion of certain Crown lands to the Jesuit Order, for the necessary building of a monastery and schools’----” “That is a lie!” broke in Pasquin Leroy, with sudden vehemence. “The King is in many respects a scoundrel, but he does not go back on his word!” Axel Regor looked fixedly across at him, with a warning flash in the light of his cold languid eyes. “But how do you know that the King has given his word?”