The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

76 THE HOUSE OF INDUSTRY

Government invited the British Government to prosecute me under the Foreign Enlistment Act.’’

“ Gun-running ? ”’

“ Something like that.’

“You'd have been liable to two years’ hard.’’

“Yes. But just then a General Election was pending, so the Most Noble the Marquess of Lansdowne, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, decided that a prosecution might make me a very popular person and secure my election. The business was therefore discreetly dropped. Besides the evidence was rather flimsy.”’

“ Learnt the error of your ways? ”’

“Not particularly; but that was a political affair and now I am more interested in things industrial.”’

“ Your House of Industry, eh? ”’

“Yes.”

~ Well, you know I’m a true blue Tory. My father and grandfather were country bankers. Then the business was sold to a joint stock Bank ; then it, in its turn, was absorbed by one of the Big Five.”

““ Like the fleas.’’

“The fleas? ”’

“ Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite ’em, Small fleas have smaller fleas, And so, ad infinitum.”’

“ Like the City of London, by Jove! ”’ “Ts it as bad as that? ”’