‘But, then, in London there are no end of men who pass themselves off as working-men politicians, though it is precious little work they do. I believe they are to be had at a very moderate figure, and they can do the roaring part of the business first-rate. They are always trotted out when the Liberals want to get up a grand demonstration, more especially when the Conservatives are in place and power. Had not you better take one or two of them down with you? They’ll be sure to fetch the rest.’ ‘Alas, I’ve tried them,’ said the Baronet, ‘and I found they were of no use. As soon as they had fingered a fiver or two they began to give themselves such airs. I could not get on with them at all, and after all,’ said the speaker, looking down complacently at his well-dressed figure, ‘people prefer a gentleman.’ ‘Perhaps so; but real gentlemen are scarce nowadays,’ said Wentworth. ‘Where is the real gentleman now, brave, truthful, unsullied, with hands and heart clean, without fear or reproach? In political life, at any rate, he seems to me almost as extinct as the dodo.’ Wentworth was getting on dangerous ground. He had a faint suspicion that his visitor was not one of this class. The visitor felt it himself, and was getting rather uncomfortable in consequence. He had come on business to hire a speaker, and to pay him for his services, and to be helped in other ways. Fellows who wrote in newspapers had, he knew, many ways of obliging a friend. It was important to him to get into Parliament. If he carried Sloville he conferred a favour on Ministers, who would reward him in due time with a comfortable office, where the pay was heavy and the burden light, and just at that time money was an object to our Baronet, who as a gambler and man of the world managed to get rid of a good deal of it in the course of a year. At any rate he rather liked the look of M.P. after his name, and M.P. he was determined to be. All his life he had lived in excitement, and now he had reached an age when the excitement of politics in lieu of wine or women or horse-racing or gambling had special charms. ‘You see,’ he remarked, ‘we are an old family in the neighbourhood, and we have a certain amount of legitimate influence which will certainly be in my favour.’ He might have added that in the day of rotten boroughs it was as proprietor of Sloville, and as in that capacity a useful servant of the Government, that the first baronet of the family had been adorned with his hereditary rank. A Royal Duke had been guilty of gross misconduct—a slight indiscretion it was termed by his friends. The matter was brought before Parliament, and a vote by no means complimentary to H.R.H.—either as regards morals, or manners, or understanding—would have been carried, had not the Strahan of that day saved the Government by his casting vote. Government was grateful, and so was Strahan—in the sense of further favours to come.