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  finie, was getting generally out of touch with an impatiently progressive age, hanging back and acting as a drag where formerly it had been the propeller. One serious result of this was a slackening of cordiality with the continental neighbours, especially with France, the rapidity of whose transition toward an enlightened Socialism made her the more susceptible of coldness and discouragement, so inconsistent with the former character of her old ally. Then again, in relation to the United States, untoward incidents connected with the fisheries disputes had recently occurred which, though in years past they would have been easily smoothed over, were now seized upon by the Irish-American faction in order to breed resentment between the old and the new portions of the Anglo-Saxon race. All this would have been difficult to bring about but for the Bungling Coalition which the influence of reactionary Englishwomen had done so much to set at the helm, and which thus continued to make such bad blood between the nation and its neighbours and natural allies that, what with little Ireland determined to trouble the waters if possible, and great Russia, also alienated, biding her time until they should be troubled, it needed no statesman of genius to foresee that any trivial dispute which in ordinary times would do no harm beyond agitating the money markets for a day or two, might now precipitate war.

But every dog has his day, and the Bungling Coalition had theirs. They spent it in snapping and snarling abroad, and in leaving their traces against every important institution at home. Venality began to appear in public concerns, while vulgarity was stamped on the surface of a society which had ceased to believe in its professed principles, and which cared little more to shape its own destiny than our three friends, in the trip previously narrated, would have cared to take personal charge of and navigate the