To put the "business" on a sound footing? Yes, I thought so;
it looked like it. No, it wasn't! But before I quite knew, there'd come a
point where we couldn't go back; and so we just had to go on--and on.
D'you know what was the cleverest thing said or done during that war?...
You'd never guess ... but it's true. Campbell-Bannerman's "methods of
barbarism" speech. We downed him for it at the time, but it caught on--it
stuck. And it was on the strength of it (with C.-B. as their hope for the
future) that the Boers were persuaded to make peace: saved our face for
us. They might have gone on, till we got sick of it, and the world too.
JESSE COLLINGS. I don't--I can't think you are right, Chamberlain. You are
forgetting things.
CHAMBERLAIN. No--I've had difficulty about thinking so myself; but, it has
come to me.
(_And so he sits and meditates over the point in his career where as a
business man he first jailed. Presently he resumes_:)
When two men, whose qualifications I used rather to despise, beat me at
business, Collings--it was a facer!
JESSE COLLINGS. Bannerman; and--the other?
CHAMBERLAIN. Comes to see me to-day. But it won't be a business meeting.
He'll not say anything about it--if he can help.
JESSE COLLINGS. And you?
CHAMBERLAIN. Perhaps I shall succumb to his charm. I've done so before
now.
JESSE COLLINGS. Have you and he--had words ever?
CHAMBERLAIN. Differences of opinion, of course.
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