Chapter V

The season was not yet over. Mrs. Clutterbuck had called upon Mary Smith,--and if my readers will believe me,--Mary Smith had called upon Mrs. Clutterbuck. And there had come a morning--Parliament was still sitting, the Goodwood Cup was not yet collared--when Mrs. Clutterbuck having heard for weeks past from Mr. Clutterbuck hints and guesses at the necessity for a secretary to deal with his now numerous invitations and engagements, quietly suggested Charlie Fitzgerald.

Had she suggested Tolstoi or the German Emperor she could not have surprised him more. But when he heard that the proposition had come from the family itself, that it had been largely due to Mr. Fitzgerald's own pronounced affection, and that he would be content with a nominal salary of £400 or £500 a year, Mr. Clutterbuck, though as much astonished as a man rapt into heaven, was convinced of the reality of the business, and the only thing that troubled him was the question of salary.

He paced up and down the room, suggesting to his wife the dilemma that a sum of £1000 or £1500 a year was all the expense he would hesitate to incur, while less would be an insult he would hesitate to offer. To which her only and sharp reply was that the young man could surely look after himself; that doubtless he had grown used to work of this sort and liked it, that he probably had means of his own, and that, anyhow, it had come from him, and that Mrs. Smith herself had spoken strongly in favour of the arrangement.

How long such a change might last only Fate could tell. It was the middle of the summer. When there were no more dinners to eat and no more women to talk to, Charlie Fitzgerald, all life and boxes, came down to Caterham, but not before going the round of some twenty-eight tradesmen in St. James's Street and Mayfair and assuring them that until the autumn he would be abroad.

With the entry of that vigorous young Irish life into Mr. Clutterbuck's home, began the last adventures of the merchant's singularly adventurous life and his introduction to the conflicting destinies of his country; for even if things had not bent that way, something in Charlie Fitzgerald's nature would have left him restless until he and those for whom he worked had struck some mark.

The young Irishman was the son of that Doctor Fitzgerald the oculist, who had been during all the later years of Queen Victoria's reign a link, as it were, between the professional and the political world of London, and who was himself a younger son of Sir Daniel Fitzgerald, the permanent head of the Fisheries whose name appears so frequently in Lady Cotteswold's Memoirs of Prince Albert and the Queen's early married life. Lady Fitzgerald, his wife, had been a Bailey, and the aunt, therefore, of Mrs. Smith.

It had not been thought necessary to dower her with any portion of the great Bailey fortune, for in those days the Irish land upon which Sir Daniel had foreclosed was a very ample provision even for onerous social duties in London, and the Baileys asked nothing of the eager lover but that he should adopt the name of Fitzgerald which had for centuries been associated with the estate his ardent forethought had acquired.

In those days a change of name demanded certain formalities; these were soon fulfilled, and in Charlie's generation, the third to bear the Irish title and arms, the original form "Daniel Daniels" was justly forgotten.

Since the days of Sir Daniel Irish land has passed through a revolution, especially when it has been held by those whose duties did not necessitate a visit to their estates. Sir Daniel's heir, the oculist's eldest brother, would have died impoverished had not the Government very properly succoured the son of so distinguished a Civil servant and created for him the post of Inspector in the Channel Islands (with the exception of Sark), a district in which he was understood to be present twice or even three times in a year. This salary died of course with its incumbent; his brother, the oculist, had been compelled to spend in hospitality his exceptional earnings, and the present generation of young men, sons of either brother, had had to face life unguarded.

It was not an easy position for boys used to the conversation and habits of the wealthiest society in the world. But much was done for them. Edward was married to the half-witted daughter of Sir John Garstang the cotton-spinner; Henry was put into the Scotch Education Office; Philip died, and Charlie, in spite of the mistake about Mr. Isaacs, would have done very well out of Lord Burpham if his incorrigible Irish character had not run away with him and with the motor-car of that eminent director of our Foreign Affairs. "Irish," I say, for Ireland was apparent in all that poor Charlie did, for though his mother was of pure German stock and strongly Protestant, while his accent was that of Eton College, yet his friends could easily descry in all his extravagances and escapades the adventurous Irish influence of his grandfather's estate. His cousins, through the Baileys (who were of pure English or Indian lineage), Jim in the Foreign Office and "Nobby" who had means and was, after a spell in the Heralds' College, at large, the Steynings and the rest, saw this Hibernian brilliance more clearly than any, and made it a permanent if insufficient excuse for his vagaries.

It was Boswell Delacourt who first suggested politics to Charlie Fitzgerald, and Fate did the rest.

Boswell Delacourt was not exactly a relative of Charlie Fitzgerald's, except in so far as everybody can be said to be related to everybody else; he was no more than a connection by marriage. But he did think it hard that a man of Mr. Clutterbuck's antecedents and position should stand aloof from political life. Nowhere can money be more usefully spent for the country than in the support of great political ideals, and nowhere can the wide experience and hard mental training of a commercial career do more for England than in the House of Commons. Nor did any one appreciate these truths more than Boswell Delacourt, nor did any of the younger people who were working in the organisation of the National Party work harder than he to spread them abroad. He hammered at Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald did his duty.

The new Secretary had passed the whole summer without a word of complaint, cooped up in the new house at Caterham; he had spent his energies in suggesting the purchase of books, the removal of pictures, and the renaming of the estate; he had recommended horses, cigars, wines, traps, motors, and jewellery, and sold them again with ready decision when he thought them unworthy; he had attended to all the correspondence, signed nearly all the cheques, received payment against all exchanges, and spared his host every sort of financial worry; he had compelled not a few of his own friends, in spite of their intense reluctance, to spend Saturday to Monday under that roof; with noble perseverance he had run the light Panhard himself for incredible distances and at a speed which Mr. Clutterbuck could hardly bear; he had done all these things for nearly two months without a respite, when, late in September, having forsworn all opportunities to shoot, he tackled the great affair.

It was in the second smoking-room some time before dinner that the elder man and the younger sipping sherry and bitters, began their fateful conversation.

Charlie Fitzgerald first introduced the business--and he launched it fair and clean, for when Mr. Clutterbuck had said in a ruminating sort of way "The days are drawing in, Mr. Fitzgerald," Charlie Fitzgerald had answered:

"Yes---- Why don't you send something to the Party Funds?"

Since his secretary had been in the house, Mr. Clutterbuck had authorised not a few large cheques, and had let Charlie sign many more. He wondered what new claim this might be, but he hardly liked to venture an opinion. He thought it better to wait a moment and let time or the goddess Chance illuminate him.

"You see, after all," said Fitzgerald, spreading out one hand towards the fire, "they expect it ... don't they?" he asked sympathetically, looking up sideways in Mr. Clutterbuck's face.

"Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a maze, "yes"--thoughtfully--"I suppose they do." But who they were, or what it was they expected, torture could not have got out of him.

"Well--you see----" went on Charlie in the tone of interest and thought which men adopt when they are putting a proposition carefully to another, "it's only natural they should. You can't carry on either of the great Parties for nothing, and lots of men expect to get everything out of politics and to put nothing in; and then there are others who don't care about being in the movement. It's a difficult job altogether." Then he added in a thoroughly different tone: "They were in a damned tight hole in '95!"

"Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald," said the older man again. He had appreciated by this time perhaps one quarter of the affair.

"Bozzy," went on Fitzgerald, "Bozzy says that it goes up and down like a Jack-in-the-box. One election hardly anything, and then before they know where they are--millions! But I don't believe it"--he wagged his head wisely and leaned back again--"don't believe a word of it. There must always be a balance in hand, and a fat one too. Think of it!" he went on, "think of all it's got to _do_--Damn elections! They only come once in five years anyhow. Look at all that's got to go on meanwhile? You can't advertise for nothing, and you can't print for nothing, and you can't get men to start newspapers, that don't pay, in Egypt for nothing; and you can't get your information abroad and in America for nothing. It's all rubbish to say that they let it go fut! It is true they get in a hole sometimes. And I say they were both in a hole in '95."

Mr. Clutterbuck still sat silent.

"You will say," continued Fitzgerald rapidly after a short interval, as he stood up against the mantelpiece with his back to the fire, "you'll say----"

"No, I won't," said Mr. Clutterbuck, "I assure you, Mr. Fitzgerald, I shall put no obstacle in the way of such a decision."

"Well--but," returned his secretary, "you see it really must be explained--you can't leap in the dark."

"Certainly not," said Mr. Clutterbuck with determination.

"That's it," said Charlie Fitzgerald, dropping his chin and looking profoundly at the carpet.

There was a considerable interval of silence, and Mr. Clutterbuck, who fully appreciated that this new world was not the lucid world of commerce, or, rather, that it had a language of its own with which he was not yet familiar, forebore to ask a question. Nay, it would have puzzled him very considerably to frame a question so that it should relate to anything intelligible, human or divine. But as Charles Fitzgerald remained quite silent, the merchant did venture to suggest that he would gladly and heartily do anything that was expected of him in the matter.

"Yes, I know," said Fitzgerald, pacing towards the window. "I wasn't bothering about that. I'm sure you would. But I was thinking which Party.... You see, in the old days," he said, suddenly facing round, "it was simple enough: you had your set and your set went Whig, and it was all plain sailing, but then the old days were beastly corrupt, and what a man spent he liked to spend on his own people. There's a place over the hill there," he said, jerking his head backwards towards Gatton, "where my great uncle's father-in-law was--seven electors and £20,000. But they won't tolerate that now. So there you are! You got to ask yourself which Party. Then there's another trouble: there used to be only two Parties; now they're five, and look like seven."

Mr. Clutterbuck's mind moved forward by one cog, and he saw that the talk had something to do with the nuances of the House of Commons. He let Fitzgerald go on, but he could have wished that young man of breeding would make himself clearer, unless, indeed, this method of address were native or in some way necessary to exalted rank.

"Bozzy says," began Fitzgerald, "there are really only two party-funds again, now the National Party's kept going two years, and I 'spose he's right. Nobody gives to the Irish except the Irish, and that's a sort of audit sheet business, like the Labour people. And the Radicals haven't got a regular organisation. Then, of course, you might say, 'Why not give to both?' like the Stanfords."

"Who are the Stanfords, Mr. Fitzgerald?" broke in the master of the house, clutching like a drowning man at a straw.

"Lord Stanford and his wife," said Charlie Fitzgerald innocently. "Old Bill Lewisohn that was; they call it Lewis and Lewis still."

"Oh yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck humbly.

"Well," said Fitzgerald, getting his second wind, "as I say, you might say 'Why not give to both, like the Stanfords?' Frankly, I don't think it pays. He gives to the Opposition, anyway he _did_ give to the Opposition before the General Election because of the peerage; and she gives to the Nationals _now_ because of the Church Bill. But it doesn't pay. They don't get half the attention either of 'em would get singly. Besides which," he added, "a man must consult his convictions. Course he must."

"Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Clutterbuck, who now at last perceived that the elements of the tangle consisted of a sum of money, his political convictions, and the Party system. "I've never concealed mine. I was a Conservative as long as I took any interest in politics. But the 1906 administration was a good one; the 1908 was a better. Then when this Coalition came I was hard at work and not bothering about politics: I suppose I'd have gone National. But not altogether, you know; and as for the first tariff--well, I'm out of business now, and I suppose I oughtn't to lose my temper. As one gets older," he added wearily, "one cares much less about these things."

"That's it," said Fitzgerald suddenly, determined to keep it alight. "You're ab-so-lute-ly right ... it's just because practical business men know the harm the first tariff did, that the Nationals want their help--help o' men like _you_. Rubber, for instance: Congo rubber. After all, you know more about it than twenty of the politicians put together. I tell you what," he added, "buzz down with me to-morrow and see Bozzy--Bozzy Delacourt. He's a sort of relation of mine, and he'll tell you a lot more about it than I could. We wouldn't have to go to the head offices in Peter Street: he'll give us lunch. I'll telephone through to him." And the happy but loquacious fellow went out upon that errand.

Mr. Clutterbuck, left alone to his own thoughts, carefully unravelled them and picked them out clearly strand from strand: that he was expected, to his own advantage, to subscribe a sum of money; that he was expected to subscribe it to a political party; that a man called Bozzy, who was also called Delacourt, was in the inner ring of such affairs, and that of the two Parties it would best suit a merchant of his standing to tender such financial support, through the said Bozzy, to the Party in power.

When he had put the thing thus to himself it seemed much simpler; he was prepared for the business before him, and next day Delacourt's perfectly lucid and very straightforward manner finished the affair. He found that so small a sum as a thousand pounds was received on behalf of the great organisation with the greatest dignity and courtesy, and that his support was as warmly acknowledged as though he had given twenty times that sum. When the formality was over, Delacourt, detaining him over the wine, said gravely:

"We all have to do what we can, Mr. Clutterbuck, but the real loss to the New Tariff nowadays isn't in money. You all come forward most generously. Our trouble is that we can't get the candidates we used to. We can't get the Old Commercial Member who could drive it down in the House with fact and grip and experience. We couldn't ask a man like you to stand, for instance, Mr. Clutterbuck, because the work has got so hard; but it's a great pity. It all gets handed over to the young journalists and the lawyers." He went on to rattle off with ease and familiarity a dozen great names in the City connected with the Liberal benches and with the Conservative in the old free trade days, names that were the names of gods to the astonished Mr. Clutterbuck, who had never heard them pronounced in so everyday a fashion before.

"There's where you'd have been in the old days, Mr. Clutterbuck," said Bozzy with ardour, "but we wouldn't dare to ask you now."

In Mr. Clutterbuck's experience this was but a delicate way of telling him that a seat in Parliament was quite out of his reach. But the suggestion had moved him, and moved him profoundly. Of Parliament, of men who stood for Parliament, of the Northern manufacturers especially and their qualifications, of the London members, and of a hundred other similar things, he talked eagerly to Fitzgerald through the afternoon, as the Limousine shot back to the Surrey Hills.

That night Charlie Fitzgerald, before going to bed, wrote a note containing the simple information that the old blighter would take it out of the hand. Then he bethought himself of the danger of written messages and of the advantages of modern invention. He burnt the note, rang up Bozzy on the telephone, found him in no very good humour just back from a boring play, and informed him in bad French that he had no need to shoot further: the opossum would come down when he was called.

Four days later Mr. Clutterbuck received a lengthy and very careful letter upon the official paper of Peter Street. It contained a statement and a proposal, both highly confidential. The statement was to the effect that the borough of Mickleton in North London would very probably be vacant in a few weeks; for what reasons could not easily be written. The proposition--made with infinite tact and with the most courteous recognition of the very high favour Mr. Clutterbuck would be doing the Party should he accede--was that he should accept the Prospective National Candidature at once in time to make himself familiar with the constituency, supposing always that the National Committee of that borough should be instructed by the General Meeting to urge their Executive Body to demand Mr. Clutterbuck's services.

The Opposition majority, Delacourt admitted, was a high one--no less than 851, as the books of reference would inform him. But a great part of this was due to the female vote, which had naturally been given to the Party who had pressed their claims during the recent administration; and though he did not pretend to prophesy victory, he could assure Mr. Clutterbuck that the proposition would never have been made to him had not the chances of victory been such as to make that proposal an honourable one.

As for Mr. Clutterbuck, he sat that night upon a throne.

* * * * *

To Mr. Clutterbuck the stages by which a man may enter the Representative Chamber were far from familiar. Charlie Fitzgerald had indulged in political sport more than once, and though he would not compare it to motoring, or even to really good yachting, he confessed that it attracted him, and he would often go off for a day or two's electioneering when the occasion served, at the request of a friend; nay, on the last occasion he had given up a capital day's shooting to see cousin "Nobby" handsomely beaten in Derbyshire by 3286. It was excitement of which he did not easily tire. But as he described the first processes with gusto to Mr. Clutterbuck, that gentleman perceived that the road to Parliament was not as smooth or as simple as he had vaguely imagined: and of all the obstacles that lay between him and the final stages of a political career, none did he dread more than the first, which was fixed for October 5. For though the Mickleton National Committee had indeed, as Mr. Delacourt hoped, received orders for the General Meeting to instruct their Executive to approach the merchant, and though he had at once given a warm reply in the affirmative, it was still their public duty to examine Mr. Clutterbuck upon the orthodoxy of his political faith; it was this that appalled him. He prepared for the inquisition with sweat and agony. He read at Fitzgerald's order "The National Year Book," "A Thousand Points on Nationalism," "What is a Nationalist?" "Why I am a Nationalist," and was relieving himself with "Platform Jokes" when he was bidden leave that useful compendium to a later stage. There would be little joking on October 5!

He very humbly and sincerely followed the instructions of his secretary in the details of the interrogators he would have to meet; he noted the foreign wrongs which he desired redressed, the wickedness of European Governments and their particular crimes, the domestic evils whose mere existence darkened the sun, and the personal habits which were expected of him--notably total abstinence. One thing above all he learnt; it was drummed into him till he knew it by heart; no matter what the committee might say or think, no matter what pressure he might suffer, he was to pledge himself boldly against his party in the matter of the Offences Disenfranchisement Bill.

On that Charlie was adamant. "It looks easy now," he said (alas! did it?); "but it may be the devil and all on the 5th of October."

What precisely the measure might be, Fitzgerald, who had himself not studied it minutely, thought it as well to leave aside. The simpler the manly reply, the better. He was sure it was the Government's one mistake.

The programme was thoroughly threshed out, often repeated, fixed, and as the fatal day approached, Mr. Clutterbuck felt himself armoured; but not before he had, again on Charlie Fitzgerald's advice, written out, quite spontaneously, a note and a cheque for £100 to the United Sons of Endeavour. It was a religious association of young men which did strenuous work among the poor of Mickleton, distributed large sums every quarter in salaries to its vast organisation, and had upon its membership representatives of nearly every family of note in the borough.

October 5 was a glorious autumn day, and it was the open Renault which was chosen. The interview was to take place in the North Street schools at four; just after lunch Mr. Clutterbuck, already passably nervous, and Charlie Fitzgerald in the highest of high spirits, started northward.

As they left the more familiar parts of London behind them, and passed through miles of sordid and obscure streets, Mr. Clutterbuck's vitality steadily fell. Public engagements of every kind were ill suited to his temperament; the thought of public examination was abhorrent to him. He fortified himself by an occasional mental glance at his financial position and a comparison between it and that of the pigmies who would that day presume to be his Judges, but even this great balm for human woe hardly comforted him as the horrid perspective of North Street swung into view and the car stopped with a jerk in front of the dreary wall of the schools.

He was glad, from the very bottom of his heart, to be accompanied by Charlie Fitzgerald, whose exceedingly good grey clothes, very curly brown hair and frank boyish eyes, would have been a protection to any man in an ordeal even more severe than that which Mr. Clutterbuck had to face.

For a few minutes they sat together in a little bare room furnished as to the floor with a dead stove without a fire, and as to the walls with a glazed picture for the instruction of the young--a picture representing an elephant in his natural colours, and underneath it in large letters:

EL-E-PHANT (Mammal)

This huge crea-ture is an in-hab-i-tant of our In-di-an Em-pire.

At this work Mr. Clutterbuck mournfully gazed during his period of probation, whilst Charlie Fitzgerald first swung his clasped hands between his knees, then crossed his legs, leaned his head back, and hummed the old Gaiety _pas de quatre_ which had rejoiced his boyhood.

Suddenly the door opened and Mr. Clutterbuck and his companion were gravely summoned into the presence of the Executive.

Of the various functions filled by an Executive, a Committee, a Body of Workers, a Confederation, and a Deputation to Choose in the organisation of our public life, I will not here treat. The vast machinery of self-government, passionately interesting as it must be to all free men, would take me too far from the purpose of my narrative. It must be enough for the reader to know that five gentlemen and one lady, of very different complexions, garb and demeanours, sat in a semicircle on six Windsor chairs, in the schoolroom which Mr. Clutterbuck entered. He was suffering--oh! suffering with the pangs men only experience upon reaching the turning-points of their lives. Upon this jury depended, not even his entry into the great council of the nation, but his bare opportunity for presenting himself as a candidate at all.

The chairman, or at any rate the gentleman who sat in the middle of the crescent, was a clergyman of gigantic stature, though of what denomination it would have been difficult to say, for above a Roman collar he carried an immense black beard, wore spectacles, and was bald. His voice was perhaps the most profound and awe-inspiring Mr. Clutterbuck had ever heard, and when he said, "Pray, gentlemen, be seated," it was as though a judge had pronounced sentence in the weightiest of criminal trials.

Mr. Clutterbuck felt uncertainly backwards for the chair which he hoped was there, found the target and expected the issue in an attitude of misfortune. Charlie Fitzgerald sat down upon the chair next him, smiled at the half-moon of faces, and threw up his trenches to receive the attack.

"The first thing we have to ask you, Mr. Clutterbuck," boomed out the terrible hierarch, "is your attitude upon the Irish question?"

"My attitude upon the Irish question," said Mr. Clutterbuck, in a dry, unnatural voice, "is that of the great Mr. Gladstone."

Four of the male heads approved of this reply by various expressions and signs, and the lady by a series of enthusiastic little nods, intended to reassure the candidate whose embarrassment she sincerely pitied.

But a man of apparently captious temper at the end of the line, said:

"Ah, now, but at what periud of the old djentlemun?"

Mr. Clutterbuck, recognising the accent, replied eagerly, "At the period most closely associated with his name."

"That won't do f'r my boys," said the interrupter cheerfully, "n'r f'r anny uv the Orange Temperance League that _I_ know, I can tell ye!"

And this was Mr. Clutterbuck's first introduction to the great truth that practical politics depend on compromise.

The Chairman bestowed a sorrowful look upon the gentleman from Ulster, and said severely:

"I _think_, Mr. Clutterbuck, most of us are satisfied with your reply."

Mr. Clutterbuck was grateful; he waited for the next question and braced himself to bear it. It was the lady who put it to him in a voice which some years earlier must have been a beautiful contralto, and which even yet retained notes of singular richness and power. She asked Mr. Clutterbuck in a manner suggesting persuasion rather than pressure, what his views might be upon the establishment of female courts of justice.

Mr. Clutterbuck replied that in this, as in every other matter concerning the sex, he should be guided by the opinion of the committee representing the lady electors.

"But I am here to represent the _Female_ Committee," said the lady sweetly.

"Well, Ma'am," said Mr. Clutterbuck, "ahem! I suppose you represent their views?"

"Certainly," said the lady with decision and in her richest tones.

"Quite so, quite so," said Mr. Clutterbuck.

At this point Charlie Fitzgerald looked up and said quietly:

"I can assure you Mr. Clutterbuck is heartily in favour."

His interruption was not very palatable to the committee, who found it a diversion from the pleasures of the chase. The chairman frowned at him, and Charlie Fitzgerald smiled back sadly in return.

"Mr. Clutterbuck," came forth the deep voice again, "I have now to ask you the gravest question of all: How would you vote in the matter of temperance reform?"

"Mr. Clutterbuck," said Charlie Fitzgerald briskly, "is a total abstainer."

"We are not here, sir," said a barber who had not yet spoken, and who was a deeply religious man, "to hear you, but to hear Mr. Clutterbuck."

To which rebuke Charlie Fitzgerald had the imprudence to murmur in a low tone: "Oh, my God!"

Luckily the expression did not reach the stern half-moon of inquisitors, and Mr. Clutterbuck was free to reply that he had the most ardent and complete sympathy with temperance reform in all its aspects.

"But to take a specific instance," said the clergyman, wagging a forefinger at Mr. Clutterbuck and fixing him with his two glass eyes, "would you or would you not vote for Sir William Cattermole's Bill?"

"I would vote for it," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a tone of ardent conviction, "though it should cost me my seat and the confidence of my party!"

A look of blank amazement passed over the clergyman's face, nor did any of the half circle smile, except the Orangeman, and he only with his eyes.

"You surely cannot have heard me aright," said the clergyman in astonishment and sorrow. "I said Sir William Cattermole's Bill. You would support that infamous measure?"

Charlie Fitzgerald was in a qualm, and it cannot be denied that Mr. Clutterbuck looked at him for aid and information. Like most honest men, Mr. Clutterbuck was not very ready to take hints or to observe expressions, but Charlie Fitzgerald's eyebrows were so unmistakable that he found his cue.

"You must have misunderstood me," he said. "My point was that I would vote for an amendment to that Bill though it should cost me my seat--that is," he added modestly, "supposing I had one."

After using this expression Mr. Clutterbuck was so miserable that the very publicans themselves would have pitied him had they seen the sweat gathering upon his temples, and the droop of his mouth which at every moment more and more resembled that of a child who is about to burst into tears.

"Well, Mr. Clutterbuck," said the chairman with a sigh, "that's not very satisfactory."

"No, it izunt," said the Orangeman offensively, though in a lower tone; while the lady, who had hitherto befriended the forlorn financier, now regarded him with a constrained reproach.

"I am afraid," stammered the unfortunate man, "that I must have expressed myself ill."

"No matter, Mr. Clutterbuck, no matter," said the chairman, lifting his hand benignly. "The time will come for all that, when this deplorable measure comes, if it ever does come, before the House.... And now, Mr. Clutterbuck," he added leaning forward, to the evident annoyance of his colleagues who desired to have a word, "what about the policy of Offences Disfranchisement?"

To the immense surprise of his six torturers, Mr. Clutterbuck, in a manly and decisive voice replied, or rather shouted:

"I will have nothing to do with it!"

"Ear-ear!" said the barber enthusiastically.

"Mr. Pickle," said the clergyman reprovingly, "your interruption is most improper."

"But the sentiment's all right," said a little man to the left of the chair, who had not yet spoken, and whose wizened face betrayed acute intelligence. He added: "And I con-gratulate you, Mr. Clutterbuck. You're a gentleman! What's more is _this_; I shall be happy to shake you heartily by the hand when all o' this is over."

The lady on the extreme left wing was visibly annoyed, the clergyman appeared indifferent, while the one member of the executive who had hitherto maintained a complete silence, and who yet was no less a person than the husband of the representative of the female committee of Mickleton, copied his wife's demeanour with that exactitude which is the outward symbol of a happy union. They had no children.

Mr. Clutterbuck, in a tone still strong, but with something of the monotony which comes from frequent repetition, added:

"There are some things, gentlemen, on which a Democrat cannot swerve, and I cannot see, with due deference to the mixed opinion before me, how a Democrat could have answered other than I did."

Here doubts of grammar rushed into his mind and he was silent.

The wizened little man said: "That's all roight," and the barber beamed at him.

The clergyman, rising, said:

"Well, Mr. Clutterbuck, you've done us a great honour by meeting us, I'm sure.... We shall have to consider our decision. We will let you know, Mr. Clutterbuck. May I have the honour and the pleasure of shaking you by the hand?"

Mr. Clutterbuck accorded him this felicity, and repeated it in the case of every other member of the crescent; they had now broken their formation and were standing in various attitudes before him, the lady with a notable pride which became her female representative position, her husband with an extremely quiet dignity. The ordeal was over.

As Charlie Fitzgerald and he went out past the elephant and the dead stove into the open air, and when they were well out of earshot, Mr. Clutterbuck asked nervously:

"Was that all right, Mr. Fitzgerald?"

For answer Fitzgerald felt in his breast pocket, looked really anxious and said:

"Good God! I forgot to post that letter."

"What letter?" asked Mr. Clutterbuck, a little pale.

"Nothing," said Fitzgerald, "nothing." He walked quickly to a pillar-box a few steps off, and dropped into it the envelope addressed to the United Sons of Endeavour which he should have posted the night before: his omission accounted for much, but he had rectified it and he knew that all would be well.

"It's all right," he said, slogging back, "but I was a big fool to forget it. That's the worst of being an Irishman," he added genially.

Mr. Clutterbuck was quite at sea. "But is it all _right_, Mr. Fitzgerald?" he insisted.

"It's all right _now_," said Fitzgerald. He hit his employer fairly in the back, jumped into the car and shouted for home.

Four days after a letter came to Caterham from the Acting Secretary of the Mickleton National Executive Deputation to choose.

It spoke in warm terms of Mr. Clutterbuck's character and genius, admitted differences of opinion upon more than one point and severely informed him at its close that he was admitted to the full title of Prospective National Candidate.