charge. If I could understand the meaning of that yellow visitation, then I should no longer have to fear that I was going mad!

(At this point the door is discreetly opened, and the Housekeeper, mild, benign, but inflexible, ENTERS, carrying a cup and toast-rack upon a tray.)

HOUSEKEEPER. I beg pardon, my lord; but I think your lordship ought to have your beef-tea now.

STATESMAN. Yes, yes, Mrs. Manson; come in.

DOCTOR. You are right, Mrs. Manson; he ought.

HOUSEKEEPER (placing the tray on a small stand).
Where will you have it, my lord?

STATESMAN. In my inside, Mrs. Manson—presently—he, he!

DOCTOR. Now, let me take your pulse…Yes, yes. Pretty good, you know.

(Mrs. Manson stands respectfully at attention with interrogation in her eye.)

STATESMAN. Yes, you may bring me my cap now. (Then to the Doctor). I generally sleep after this.

(Mrs. Manson brings a large tasselled fez of brilliant colour, and adjusts it to his head while he drinks. She then, goes to the door, takes a hot-water bottle from the bands of an unseen servant and effects the necessary changes. All this is done so unobtrusively that the Statesman resumes his theme without regarding her. When she has done she goes.)

Ah! Where was I?

DOCTOR. If you "could understand," you said.

STATESMAN. Ah, yes; understand. Again a strange faculty of divination came upon me. I stood upon the international plane, amid a congress of Powers, and let my eye travel once more over the Alliances of Europe. I looked, Doctor, and truly I saw, then, surprising shifts and changes in the political and diplomatic fabric which I had helped to frame. Time, and kingdoms had passed. I saw, at home and abroad, the rise of new parties into power, strange coalitions, defections, alliances; old balances destroyed, new balances set up in their place. I saw frontiers annulled, treaties violated, world-problems tumbling like clowns, standing on their heads and crying, "Here we are again!" Power—after all, had solved nothing!

My eye travelled over that problem of the Near East, which, for some generations at least, we thought to have settled, to Vienna, Petersburg, Constantinople—and away farther East to Teheran and—that other place whose name I have forgotten. And, as I looked, a Recording Angel came, and cried to me in a voice strangely familiar, the voice of one of my most detested colleagues—trusted, I mean—"You have put your money on the wrong horse!"

And I had, Doctor; if what I saw then was true—I had! Yes, if ever man blundered and fooled his countrymen into a false and fatal position—I was that man! It wasn't a question of right or wrong. In politics that doesn't really matter; you decide on a course, and you invent moral reasons for it afterwards. No, what I had done was much worse than any mere wrongdoing. All my political foresight and achievements were a gamble that had gone wrong; and for that my Day of Judgment had come, and I stood in the pillory, a peepshow for mockery. But why for their instrument of torture did they choose primroses? Oh, I can invent a reason! It was Moses Primrose, cheated of his horse with a gross of green spectacles cased in shagreen. But that was not the reason. For then came new insight, and a fresh humiliation. As I looked more intently I saw that I was not being mocked; I was being worshipped, adulated, flattered; I had become a god—for party purposes perhaps—and this was my day, given in my honour, for national celebration. And I saw, by the insight given me, that they were praising me for having put their money on the wrong horse! Year by year the celebration had gone on, until they had so got into the habit that they could not leave off! All my achievements, all my policies, all my statecraft were in the dust; but the worship of me had become a national habit—so foolish and meaningless, that nothing, nothing but some vast calamity—some great social upheaval, was ever going to stop it.

DOCTOR. My dear lord, it is I who must stop it now. You mustn't go on.

STATESMAN. I have done, Doctor. There I have given you the essentials of my dream; material depressing enough for the mind of an old man, enfeebled by indisposition, at the end of a long day's work. But I tell you, Doctor, that nothing therein which stands explainable fills me with such repulsion and aversion as that one thing which I cannot explain—why, why primroses?

DOCTOR. A remarkable dream, my lord; rendered more vivid—or, as you say, "real"—by your present disturbed state of health. As to that part of it which you find so inexplicable, I can at least point toward where the explanation lies. It reduces itself to this: primroses had become associated for you—in a way which you have forgotten—with something you wished to avoid. And so they became the image, or symbol, of your aversion; and as such found a place in your dream.

(So saying the doctor rises and moves toward the window, where his attention suddenly becomes riveted.)

STATESMAN. Perhaps, Doctor, perhaps, as you say, there is some such explanation. But I don't feel like that.

DOCTOR. Why, here are primroses! This may be the clue? Where do they come from?

STATESMAN. Ah, those! Indeed, I had forgotten them. At least; no, I could not have done that.

DOCTOR. There is a written card with them, I see.

STATESMAN. Her Gracious Majesty did me the great honour, hearing that I was ill, to send and inquire. Of course, since my removal from office, the opportunity of presenting my personal homage has not been what it used to be. That, I suppose, is as well.

DOCTOR. And these are from her Majesty?

STATESMAN. They came yesterday, brought by a special messenger, with a note written by her own hand, saying that she had picked them herself. To so great a condescension I made with all endeavour what return I could. I wrote—a difficult thing for me to do, Doctor, just now—presented my humble duty, my thanks; and said they were my favourite flower.

DOCTOR. And were they?

STATESMAN. Of course, Doctor, under those circumstances any flower would have been. It just happened to be that.

DOCTOR. Well, my lord, there, then, the matter is explained. You had primroses upon your mind. The difficulty, the pain even, of writing with your crippled hand, became associated with them. You would have much rather not had to write; and the disinclination, in an exaggerated form, got into your dream. Now that, I hope, mitigates for you the annoyance—the distress of mind.

STATESMAN. Yes, yes. It does, as you say, make it more understandable.
Bring them to me, Doctor; let me look my enemy in the face.

(The Doctor carries the bowl across and sets it beside him. Very feebly he reaches out a hand and takes some.)

My favourite flower. He—he! My favourite flower.

(Lassitude overtakes him—his head nods and droops as he speaks.)

  A primrose by the river's brim
  A yellow primrose was to him,
  And it was nothing more.

Who was it wrote that?—Byron or Dr. Watts? My memory isn't what it used to be. No matter. It all goes into the account.

My favourite flower!

"For I'm to be Queen of the May, mother, I'm to be Queen of the May!"

(The Doctor takes up his hat, and tiptoes to the door.)

  Tell me, where is fancy