_Madame France (with effusion)--_
"And doth not a meeting like this make amends?"
I trust I have quoted with textual accuracy your so charming, and to
the actual situation happily appropriate poet?
_Mr. Bull (avec empressement)._ It does--or perhaps I should say
doth--indeed, Madam. As to the bit from the bard--well, may its
appropriateness never be less! How much pleasanter than the grim
dictum of an elder rhymester, who referred to your people as those
"Whom nature hath predestined for our foes,
And made it bliss and virtue to oppose."
_Madame France._ The barbarian! Oppose, indeed! Why should we oppose
each other, dear Monsieur BULL?
_Mr. Bull._ Why, indeed?
_Madame France._ True, your bellicose Lord PALMERSTON did oppose my
great FERDINAND'S grand idea, and that from motives the most insular
and unenlightened. Just as some few poltroons in your sea-girt isle
at present oppose the Channel Tunnel, which yet, in good time, will
doubtless become as benign an actuality as the Suez Canal itself.
_Mr. Bull._ Humph! PAM had perhaps his reasons, which, in the light
of subsequent events, one must admit not to have been without their
weight.
_Madame France._ Oh, Monsieur BULL! "Greater freedom of intercourse
between nations is the tendency of our industrial and social
development, and the tide of human intelligence cannot be arrested by
_vague fears_." So I read in a pamphlet on the Tunnel. How true, is it
not?
_Mr. Bull._ Doubtless; as true as that the tide of invasion could not
be arrested by cosmopolitan cant.
_Madame France._ Invasion? Fie, Monsieur BULL! In the new lexicon of
international amity there is no such word.
_Mr. Bull._ If the excision of the _word_ could absolutely abolish the
possibility of the thing, all would be well--between you and Germany,
for instance.
_Madame France._ _Sacre-e-e!_ I beg pardon. Expletives should also
be banished from civility's lexicon. But BISMARCK is a _monstre_, a
_miserable_,--whereas you----! [_Bows sweetly._
_Mr. Bull._ Inarticulate flattery, Madam, is irresistible--and
unanswerable. The renewal--if, indeed, it was ever _really_
interrupted--of the _entente cordiale_ between us, is a blessed boon
not to be matched in value by a hundred--Tunnels!
_Madame France._ And this Convention is the sign and seal of that
renewal, _n'est-ce-pas_? I _knew_ you never intended to stop in Egypt.
_Mr. Bull._ Longer than was necessary--assuredly not, Madam. And I was
_certain_ the New Hebrides had no real charms to permanently arrest
your feet.
_Madame France._ Though a _pied a terre_ in Raraitea, of course--you
comprehend, Monsieur!
_Mr. Bull._ Perfectly. The questions of Egypt and the New Hebrides, of
our post near the Pyramids, and your Protectorate near Tahiti, have,
of course, no real connection.
_Madame France._ Obviously, Monsieur! Are they not dealt with in
separate Conventions?
_Mr. Bull._ Ah! if all quarrels--I beg pardon, political
problems--could as easily be settled by a Conventional Act!
_Madame France._ How welcome to you, Monsieur, to all parties in
your Parliament, to the "rescuers" as to the "retirers," to your
Lord CHAMBERLAIN, as well as to your Grand Old GLADSTONE, must be the
prospect of an early, not to say immediate withdrawal from the Land of
the Pharaohs! Surely the fugitive Israelites of old never left it with
such pleased promptitude as _you_ will--"scuttle out" of it! Have I
accurate memory of the Beaconsfieldian phrase, Monsieur?
_Mr. Bull._ Your memory, Madam, is miraculous. The forty
centuries--_or, however, many more there may happen to be there at
the moment of my departure_--will doubtless, in the words of your own
great phraser, "look down from the Pyramids" with emotions not less
marked than my own--and yours, Madam.
_Madame France._ My emotions at the present moment--and yours, I
hope, Monsieur--are simply of supreme joy at the so happy removal of
difficulties and the so complete restoration of amity between us by
this charming Convention, so satisfactory in its actual terms, so
much more so _in its promises for the future_. I felicitate you, dear
Monsieur BULL.
_Mr. Bull._ And I, Madam, reciprocate your felicitations. (_Aside._)
It pleases her, apparently, and I do not see that it can possibly hurt
me! [_Left bowing._
* * * * *
[Illustration: CONVENTION-AL POLITENESS.
JOHN BULL. "DELIGHTED, MY DEAR MADAM! IT PLEASES YOU,
AND--(_Aside_)--IT DOESN'T HURT _ME_!!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: SPEEDING THE PARTING GUEST.
_Host (who has trod on the Lady's Skirt)._ "OH! FORGIVE ME! YOU SEE
IT'S MY NATURAL INSTINCT TO DETAIN YOU!"]
* * * * *