“Do you think I should be useful in the crockery trade?” Norgate asked.

Herr Selingman appeared to take the enquiry quite seriously.

“Why not?” he demanded.  “You are well-educated, you have address, you have intelligence.  Mrs. Benedek has spoken very highly of you.  But you—­oh, no!  It would not suit you at all to plunge yourself into commerce, nor would it suit you, I think, to push the affairs of a prosperous German concern.  You are very English, Mr. Norgate, is that not so?”

“Not aggressively,” Norgate replied.  “As a matter of fact, I am rather fed up with my own country just now.”

Mr. Selingman sat quite still in his chair.  Some signs of a change which came to him occasionally were visible in his face.  He was for that moment no longer the huge, overgrown schoolboy bubbling over with the joy and appetite of life.  His face seemed to have resolved itself into sterner lines.  It was the face of a thinker.

“There are other Englishmen besides you,” Selingman said, “who are a little—­what you call ‘fed up’ with your country.  You have much common sense.  You do not believe that yours is the only country in the world.  You like sometimes to hear plain speech from one who knows?”

“Without a doubt,” Norgate assented.

Mr. Selingman stroked his knee with his fat hand.

“You in England,” he continued, “you are too prosperous.  Very, very slowly the country is drifting into the hands of the people.  A country that is governed entirely by the people goes down, down, down.  Your classes are losing their hold and their influence.  You have gone from Tory to Whig, from Whig to Liberal, from Liberal to Radical, and soon it will be the Socialists who govern.  You know what will come then?  Colonies!  What do your radicals care about colonies?  Institutions!  What do they care about institutions?  All you who have inherited money, they will bleed.  You will become worse than a nation of shop-keepers.  You will be an illustration to all the world of the dangers of democracy.  So!  I go on.  I tell you why that comes about.  You are in the continent of Europe, and you will not do as Europe does.  You are a nation outside.  You have believed in yourselves and believed in yourselves, till you think that you are infallible.  Before long will come the revolution.  It will be a worse revolution than the French Revolution.”

Norgate smiled.  “Too much common sense about us, I think, Mr. Selingman, for such happenings,” he declared.  “I grant you that the classes are getting the worst of it so far as regards the government of the country, but I can’t quite see the future that you depict.”

“Good Englishman!” Herr Selingman murmured approvingly.  “That is your proper attitude.  You do not see because you will not see.  I tell you that the best thing in all the world would be a little blood-letting.  You do not like your Government.  Would it not please you to see them humiliated just a little?”