"Let us walk together." Mr. Chubble took Dick Hazlewood by the arm and as they went filled the lane with his plaints. "I should think you can't deny it. Why, he has actually written a pamphlet to enforce his views upon the subject." "You should bless your stars, Mr. Chubble, that there is only one. He suffers from pamphlets. He writes 'em and prints 'em and every member of Parliament gets one of 'em for nothing. Pamphlets do for him what the gout does for other old gentlemen--they carry off from his system a great number of disquieting ailments. He's at prison reform now," said Dick with a smile of thorough enjoyment. "Have you heard him on it?" "No, and I don't want to," Mr. Chubble exploded. He struck viciously at an overhanging bough, as though it was the head of Harold Hazlewood, and went on with the catalogue of crimes. "He made a speech last week in the town-hall," and he jerked his thumb backwards towards the town they had left. "Intolerable I call it. He actually denounced his own countrymen as a race of oppressors." "He would," answered Dick calmly. "What did I say to you a minute ago? He's advanced, you know." "Advanced!" sneered Mr. Chubble, and then Dick Hazlewood stopped and contemplated his companion with a thoughtful eye. "I really don't think you understand my father, Mr. Chubble," said Dick with a gentle remonstrance in his voice which Mr. Chubble was at a loss whether to take seriously or no. "Can you give me the key to him?" he cried. "I can." "Then out with it, my lad." Mr. Chubble disposed himself to listen but with so bristling an expression that it was clear no explanation could satisfy him. Dick, however, took no heed of that. He spoke slowly as one lecturing to an obtuse class of scholars. "My father was born predestined to believe that all the people whom he knows are invariably wrong, and all the people he doesn't know are invariably right. And when I feel inclined to deplore his abuse of his own country I console myself with the reflection that he would be the staunchest friend of England that England ever had--if only he had been born in Germany." Mr. Chubble grunted and turned the speech suspiciously over in his mind. Was Dick poking fun at him or at his father? "That's bookish," he said. "I am afraid it is," Dick Hazlewood agreed humbly. "The fact is I am now an Instructor at the Staff College and much is expected of me." They had reached the gate of Little Beeding House. It was summer time. A yellow drive of gravel ran straight between long broad flower-beds to the door. "Won't you come in and see my father?" Dick asked innocently. "He's at home." "No, my lad, no." Mr. Chubble hastened to add: "I haven't the time. But I am very glad to have met you. You are here for long?"