"Ah, that'll put you right. A little meat for the Mistress, Alice. Never mind the soda. It'll not hurt you, Mother. Prime stuff is that and prime stuff never does harm to no one. Some I've had by me at the Duke of Wellington for many a year." At first the Mayoress was very shy of the brandy, prime stuff though it was, but his worship was adamant, and after a moment or two of half-hearted resistance Maria seemed the better for her lord's inflexibility. "Talkin' of the Duke of Wellington ... funny how things work out! When we went in there in '79, you and me, we little thought we should be where we are now, in the most important time in history. That reminds me. Alice, just ring up the _Tribune_ Office and give the editor my compliments and tell him I've arranged to speak to-morrow at the Gas Works at twelve o'clock and they had better send a reporter." "Very good, sir." "Alice!" Alice halted sphinx-like at the door. "Wait a minute. I'll go myself!" Josiah plucked his table napkin out of his collar. "Nothing like doing a thing while it's fresh in your mind. And do it yourself if you want it done right. I must have a word with Parslow the editor. The jockey he sent to Jubilee Park to report the flower show didn't know his business. The most important part of the speech was left out." He laid down his table napkin and rose determinedly. "Nice thing in a time like this for the Mayor of the City not to be fully reported. I've half a mind to tell that Parslow what I think of him. Some people don't seem to know there's a war on." Five minutes later when Josiah returned in triumph to his gooseberries he found Maria reclining on the sofa with her feet up, next the window opening on to the spacious lawns of Strathfieldsaye. The impassive but assiduous handmaid was fanning her mistress with a handkerchief. "That's right, Alice!" Josiah sat down with an air of satisfaction. He was not indifferent to the sufferings of Maria, but of recent years she seemed to have developed a susceptibility to climatic conditions perhaps a little excessive for the wife of one who at heart was still a plain man. She had a proneness to whims and fancies now which in robuster days was lacking. He could only ascribe it to a kind of misplaced fineladyism, and he didn't quite approve it. "I spoke pretty straight to the _Tribune_ ... to the subeditor. I said I hoped they fully realized their duty to the public and also to the Empire, but that I sometimes doubted it. He seemed a bit huffed, I thought ... but you'll see I'll be reported to-morrow all right. I'll look after your mistress, Alice. Go and get the coffee." When Alice returned with the coffee she found the Mayor vigorously fanning the Mayoress with a table napkin, and she was peremptorily ordered "to nip upstairs for a bottle of sal volatile." XXXIV