"I understand what that queer phrase means," said she.

"Go on!" "Well, it was utterly neglected, till at last it became a nuisance--" "Yes," quoth Ellen, "I understand: like the railways and the robber knights.

Yes ?" "So then they turned the makeshift business on to it, and handed it over to a body up in London, who from time to time, in order to show that they had something to do, did some damage here and there,--cut down trees, destroying the banks thereby; dredged the river (where it was not needed always), and threw the dredgings on the fields so as to spoil them; and so forth.

But for the most part they practised 'masterly inactivity,' as it was then called--that is, they drew their salaries, and let things alone." "Drew their salaries," she said.

"I know that means that they were allowed to take an extra lot of other people's goods for doing nothing.
And if that had been all, it really might have been worth while to let them do so, if you couldn't find any other way of keeping them quiet; but it seems to me that being so paid, they could not help doing something, and that something was bound to be mischief,--because," said she, kindling with sudden anger, "the whole business was founded on lies and false pretensions.