"Well, let us hear the worst of it;" I answered very calmly, being used to these rodomontades of Sir Roland's, and not having found myself much the worse yet. "What does the enemy mean to do, next year?" "You may smile, Tommy. I am afraid you are as bad as the rest; who won't try to stop the blow, until their backs are broken. What do you think of these three little measures, out of seven, which the Cabinet propose to employ the Recess in preparing, and maturing, as they call it? To give the county franchise to every man who has a dust-bin, or even a dust-pan if he lives a hundred miles from London. To prohibit landowners from having any children, after a date to be settled by the Act. To abandon Malta, Gibraltar, and Aden, and all other places held unjustly, and surrender the British fleet, and all ships of war now building, to France, and Russia, and the Irish Land League. A pretty fair programme I call that." "And so should I, Roly, if I believed a word of it. But don't carry on with any more such chaff. Have a glass of good ale, good English malt, a sound constitutional draught, as you call it. I ordered in a firkin, and it has just got bright." "Now, if Englishmen drank this," exclaimed Sir Roland, after a good pull at the fresh, and freshening beverage, in my silver pot, one of the many I had earned as coxswain of victorious crews, "if Britons, instead of whining about their digestions, and sipping the flat sourness of half-ripened grapes, took a good swig of such hearty stuff as that, very soon we should be Britons again. The need of the age is good ale, my Tommy; not the public-house stuff, but the genuine thing, such as every good brewery can turn out when it likes. The decay of the nation, and the triumph of the hypocrites date from the difficulty of getting decent beer. And think of the brotherhood created by good beer. I take a pull, Tommy, so do you; we look at one another, and we trust one another, and a mutual warmth goes down into our glad bosoms. Will you get such a feeling from your sulky glass of claret, or your poisonous artificial waters, or even the fizz-up-the-nose of your touch-and-go Champagne? No, my boy. One of my most cherished hopes is to supply the noble working-man, with a real good article in the way of ale; and then let him be a Rad, or let him be a Tory--at any rate he will be an Englishman again. Let us have another pull, to illustrate that sentiment." I could not help laughing at Sir Roland's warmth, and confidence. Whatever he said, he had a way of saying, (without gesticulation, or appearance of excitement) which made at once a short cut into the mind of any listener. Perhaps because it came so straight, and clear, and sure, from his own mind; and generally in simple words, which are the wings of eloquence.