Because the Secretary of State for India is an arbiter of old port, new cravats and suave cigars, there is a snatch of recitative pretended to have issued from his lips in a fume of dilatory tobacco smoke:
Stands England where she did
Of Orient troubles rid?
Pray don't disturb my ash
With themes so crude and rash!
Actually, of course, the Earl of Birkenhead is sensitive to the slightest "Orient trouble" affecting India. He keeps his counsel, and sometimes he keeps it over a glass and a cigar; but when trouble is scented the quick...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
