杰罗米•K•杰罗米 Jerome Klapka Jerome Joan sighed. It looked as if the word had been passed round to treat the whole thing as a joke. Mrs. Denton took a different view.!

“Oh, don’t you believe her,” she advised Mr. Halliday. “She loves you still. She’s only teasing you. This is Joan.” He did not answer; and they sat for a time in silence.

Folk’s words came back to her: “And poor Jack Allway. Tell him I thank him for all those years of love and gentleness.” She gave him the message. “Thought you looked a bit like it,” said the girl. “I’m in the chorus. It’s better than being in service or in a shop: that’s all you can say for it.” “Just all the difference,” answered Greyson, “between Pooh Bah as Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord High Admiral, or Chief Executioner, whichever he preferred to be, and Pooh Bah as all the Officers of State rolled into one. Pooh Bah may be a very able statesman, entitled to exert his legitimate influence. But, after all, his opinion is only the opinion of one old gentleman, with possible prejudices and preconceived convictions. The Mikado—or the people, according to locality—would like to hear the views of others of his ministers. He finds that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice and the Groom of the Bedchamber and the Attorney-General—the whole entire Cabinet, in short, are unanimously of the same opinion as Pooh Bah. He doesn’t know it’s only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage. The consensus of opinion convinces him. One statesman, however eminent, might err in judgment. But half a score of statesmen, all of one mind! One must accept their verdict.”