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The great drama of negotiation, which was now to follow the forty years' tragedy, involved the interests and absorbed the attention of the great Christian powers. Although serious enough in its substance and its probable consequences, its aspect was that of a solemn comedy. There was a secret disposition on the part of each leading personage with a few exceptions to make dupes of all the rest.
For the men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their own destruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their own persons, or members of a Gladstonian ministry, were the Home Rule party to come to the front.
And now, after two years in which there had been plenty of time for thinking, his conscience still did not trouble him on the score of his offenses. He believed, and was largely right in this belief, that the suckers he had trimmed had all been out to secure unlawful gain and to take cunning advantage of his supposedly foolish self and of other dupes.
We had some reason, however, to hope that they had found out a specific to cure it: During our stay upon the island we saw none in whom it had made a great progress, and one who went from us infected, returned after a short time in perfect health; and by this it appeared, either that the disease had cured itself, or that they were not unacquainted with the virtues of simples, nor implicit dupes to the superstitious follies of their priests.
Lieutenant Lawton blushed. It occurred to Madge that she and Phyllis knew little of the young officer's real character. Suppose, after all, he did not intend to present his discovery to his Government? Were she and Phil to be used as dupes? A long, searching look into the young man's earnest face seemed to reassure her. "When do you wish to give Phil the box, Mr. Lawton?" she said slowly.
Now, you do not suspect, I should think, that I should reveal my secrets to you, and still less his." "But these casks, what do they contain?" "Have you not put that question to your soldiers? What was their reply?" "That they contained powder and ball." "From whom had they that information? They must have told you that." "From the general; but we are not dupes."
This he said because he had been kept in ignorance by Priests; or, perhaps, because he thought craftily that none of his dupes could discover a curious and forgotten rhyme called 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard'. Anyhow, that orthodox gentleman made a howling error; and received some twenty-five letters and post-cards from kind correspondents who pointed out the mistake.
Joseph Pelman, to wit; who appeared perpetually on the point of choking himself by suppressed chucklings at his principal's cleverness and the simplicity of dupes. "Well, Joe?" "Two to see you, sir," said Joe, his face lit up with sprightly malice. "On the same lay. That Watkins farm of yours. I got it out of 'em. Ho ho! I kept 'em in different rooms.
A few days previous to this, Lofin got some few boards on his work set fire to, in order to have a case made out for the authorities, and by this means, and through the influence of political wirepullers, he succeeded in getting the arms of the state placed in the hands of his ignorant dupes, for the murder of their plundered countrymen.
They possessed themselves of precious stones and jewels, which were still eagerly offered, and secured solid value in exchange for the semblance of it, which had become so prized by the crowd of dupes. The first effect of this desire to realize was a general increase in the price of everything.
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