"There was a story my dominie used to tell," said Robin, who had been listening to this diatribe with rapt attention, "about a visitor to a seaside hotel, who ordered a bottle of wine. The boy brought up the wrong kind, so the visitor sent for the landlord and pointed out the mistake, adducing the label on the bottle as evidence. 'I'm very sorry, sir, I'm sure,' said the landlord, 'but I'll soon put it right. Boy, bring another label!' An old story, I am afraid, but it seems to me to put Party goverment into a nutshell."

I rose, and began to replace the stoppers in the decanters. I was feeling rather cross. I hate having my settled convictions tampered with. They are not elastic, and this makes them brittle, and I always feel nervous about their stability when the intellectual pressure of an argument grows intense.

"When you two have abolished the British Constitution," I remarked tartly, "what do you propose to substitute for the present _regime_?"

"'There,'" said Champion, "as the charwoman replied when asked for a character, 'you _'ave_ me.' Let us join the ladies."

But I was still angry.

"It always seems best to me," I persisted doggedly, "to take up a good sound line of action and stick to it, and to choose a good sound party and stick to that. Half a glass of sherry before we go upstairs?"

"No, thanks. That is why I envy you, Adrian," said Champion. "It's a wearing business for us, being so--so--what shall we call it, Mr Fordyce?"

"Detached?" suggested Robin.

"That's it."

"Two-faced would be a better word," I growled.

Champion clapped me on the shoulder.

"Adrian," said he, "in time of peace there is always a large, critical, neutral, and infernally irritating party, for ever philandering betwixt and between two extremes of opinion. But when war is declared and it comes to a fight, the ranks close up. There is no room for detachment, and there are no neutrals. When occasion calls, you'll find all your friends--your half-hearted, carping, Erastian friends--ranged up tight beside you. Shall we be trapesing about in Tom Tiddler's ground when the pinch comes, Mr Fordyce--eh?"

"Never fear!" said Robin.

And I am bound to say that we all of us lived to see John Champion's assertion made good.

CHAPTER SIX.

ROBIN OFF DUTY.

I have yet to introduce to the indulgent reader two more members of the family into which I have married.

The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already made passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded of about equal parts of angelic innocence and original sin. In her dealings with her fellow-creatures she exhibits all the _sangfroid_ and self-possession that mark the modern child. She will be a "handful" some day, the Twins tell me, and they ought to know. However, pending the arrival of the time when she will begin to rend the hearts of young men, she contents herself for the present with practising that accomplishment with complete and lamentable success upon her own garments.

She is the possessor of a vivid imagination, which she certainly does not inherit from me, and is fond of impersonating other people, either characters of her own creation or interesting figures from story-books.

Consequently it is never safe to address her too suddenly. She may be a fairy, or a bear, or a locomotive at the moment, and will resent having to return to her proper self, even for a brief space, merely to listen to some stupid and irrelevant remark--usually something about bed-time or an open door--from an unintelligent adult.

Kitty says that I spoil her, but that is only because Kitty is quicker at saying a thing than I am. She is our only child; and I sometimes wonder, at moments of acute mental introspection (say, in the night watches after an indigestible supper), what we should do without her.

The other character waiting for introduction is my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think, fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he considers--very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was there myself--the finest public school in the world. Having no parents, he resides at my house during his holidays, and refreshes me exceedingly.

He is a sturdy but rather diminutive youth, with a loud voice. (He always addresses me as if I were standing on a distant hill-top.) He bears a resemblance to his sisters of which he is heartily and frankly ashamed, and which he endeavours at times to nullify as far as possible by a degree of personal uncleanliness which would be alarming to me, were it not that the traditions of my own extreme youth have not yet been entirely obliterated from my memory.

His health is excellent, and his intellect is in that condition euphemistically described in house-master's reports as "unformed." He is always noisy, constitutionally lazy, and hopelessly casual. But he possesses the supreme merit of being absolutely and transparently honest. I have never known him tell a lie or do a mean thing. To such much is forgiven.

At present he appears to possess only two ambitions in life; one, to gain a place in his Junior House Fifteen, and the other, to score some signal and lasting victory over his form-master, a Mr Sydney Mellar, with whom he appears to wage a sort of perpetual guerilla warfare. Every vacation brings him home with a fresh tale of base subterfuges, petty tyrannies, and childish exhibitions of spite on the part of the infamous Mellar, all duly frustrated, crushed, and made ridiculous by the ingenuity, resource, and audacity of the intrepid Rubislaw. I have never met Mr Mellar in the flesh, but I am conscious, as time goes on and my young relative's reminiscences on the subject accumulate, of an increasing feeling of admiration and respect for him.

"He's a rotten brute," observed Gerald one day. "Do you know what he had the cheek to do last term?"

"What?"

"Well, there was a clinking new desk put into our form-room, at the back. I sit there," he added rather _navely_. "As soon as I saw it, of course I got out my knife and started to carve my name. I made good big letters, as I wanted to do the thing properly on a fine new desk like that."

"Was this during school hours?" I ventured to inquire.

"Of course it was. Do you think a chap would be such a silly ass as to want to come in specially to carve his name during play-hours, when he's got the whole of his school-time to do it in?"

"I had not thought of that," I said apologetically.

"And don't go putting on side of that sort, Adrian, old man," roared Gerald, in what a stranger would have regarded as a most threatening voice, though I knew it was merely the one he keeps for moments of playful badinage. "I saw _your_ name carved in letters about four inches high in the Fifth Form room only the other day. I don't see how you can jaw a man for doing a thing you used to do yourself thirty or forty years ago."

I allowed this reflection on my appearance to pass without protest, and Gerald resumed his story.

"Well, I did a first-class G to begin with, and was well on with the Rubislaw--all in capitals: I thought it would look best that way--when suddenly a great hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed my knife. It was Stinker, of course."

"St----"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. We call him 'Stinker' now. You see, his name is S. Mellar, and if you say it quickly it sounds like 'Smeller.'

So we call him 'Stinker.' It was a kid called Lane thought of it. Pretty smart--eh? Oh, he's a clever chap, I can tell you," yelled Gerald, with sincere enthusiasm.

"He must be a youth of gigantic intellect," I said.

"Oh, come off the roof! Well, Stinker grabbed my knife, and said, 'Hallo, young man, what's all this? Handing down your name to posterity--eh?' with a silly grin on his face.

"I said I was just carving my name.

"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.

"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only got as far as G. RUB,--and then I saw that the whole thing as it stood spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all about it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling sweeps!

"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'--they cut it out and put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob--' this time. I have thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like that, in a sort of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you have carved it.

But remember, young man, not another letter do you add to that name so long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you are,--a nasty little destructive Grub,--and a Grub you shall remain, so far as that desk is concerned, for all time. And if ever in future years you come down here as a distinguished Old Boy--say a K.C.B. or an Alderman,--remember to bring your numerous progeny'--oh, he's a sarcastic devil!--'to this room, and show them what their papa once was!'

"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot of kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off _that_ tap quite suddenly, and said--

"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name on a desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have told you not to _is_. This silly street-boy business has been getting too prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on the walls next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk was put in, that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I will cane you.'

And he _did_," concluded Gerald, with feeling.

"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a silly old desk."

"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."

"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal niceties.