‘No, alas! that won’t do. How can I say what my agent was up to, or what was done by idiotic friends? The law is so particular. They make out everything to be bribery nowadays. It is precious hard nowadays for a gentleman to get into Parliament, and that is a rascally shame. We have been in the place for a hundred years. There is not a charity in it I don’t support. I have spent a fortune in nursing the town. All I can say is, next Christmas some of the free and independent will feel rather silly when they miss the coals and blankets, and find the key of the wine cellar lost.’ ‘I can’t make it out; there must be some other reason. Do you think that fellow Wentworth had anything to do with your defeat?’ asked the Baronet’s friend. ‘You know he seems to be rather high-minded, and these men are in the way at an election.’ ‘Well, he might, with his nonsense, have kept some of the voters away. I did hear some ill-natured gossip about myself, but I can’t trace it to him.’ ‘Oh!’ said his friend; ‘that’s what I was waiting for. The British mob won’t stand that sort of thing, though they ill-use their wives every day.’ ‘Why, I never said what the gossip was.’ ‘No, but I know. You’re not a saint, Sir Watkin.’ ‘Nor you either. The people, somehow or other, had got it into their heads that I behaved badly to a Sloville girl.’ ‘A thing you could never think of doing,’ said his friend, with affected indignation. ‘No, it is too near home,’ said the Baronet. ‘But you know I have always said to you that the way in which you went on with women would, one day or other, get you into a scrape. Stick to the married ones, and leave the young ones alone. That is my plan. If you get into a mess then, the woman is bound to help you out. The chances, you see, are two to one in your favour. But there is a better plan still.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘Leave ’em alone. They all mean mischief.’ ‘Well, it is not everyone who is such a cool hand as you are.’ ‘So much the worse for other people,’ was the reply. ‘But in the case of that Sloville girl, I really don’t see you have anything to reproach yourself with. She ran away from you, did she not? and I don’t see how any mischief could be made of that. I suppose she is still able to carry on the highly respectable calling of a dressmaker; I think she was that. She was an uncommonly fine girl; there was quite a style about her; and a girl like that can’t take much harm—that is, as long as she keeps her good looks.’ ‘Oh no, the girl is all right. She is now the popular Miss Howard, of the --- Theatre.’ ‘The deuce she is! Why, then, don’t you make it up with her? A bracelet and a dinner at the Star and Garter will do the trick.’ ‘I fear not. The fact is, I met her accidentally a short time ago, and she held her head as high as Lucifer.’ ‘Only acting, my dear boy. ’Tis only pretty Fanny’s way. ’Tis well—she might have come to you for money.’