I only found this fact out by degrees, for nobody seemed to think it worth while to tell me. My uncle said afterward that my ignorance, in which he found it very difficult to believe, was entirely my own fault. I cannot deny this: though I still hold that I ought to have been plainly informed of my destiny and not left to infer it from the figures in the accounts which were sent to me from time to time. When I went to Portugal I left my money affairs very much in the hands of my mother and my uncle. I had what I wanted. They spent what they thought right in the management of my estate, in subscriptions and so forth. The accounts which they sent me, very different indeed from the spirited statements of Selby-Harrison, bored me, and I did not realize for some time that I was subscribing handsomely to a large number of local objects in places of which I had never even heard the names. I now know that they are towns and villages in the East Connor division of Down, and my uncle has told me that this kind of expenditure is called nursing the constituency. The first definite news of my candidature came to me, curiously enough, from Lalage. She wrote me a letter during the Christmas holidays: “There was a party (flappers, with dancing and a sit-down supper, not a Christmas tree) at Thormanby Park last night. I got a bit fed up with ‘the dear girls’ (Cattersby’s expression) at about nine o’clock and slipped off with Hilda in hope of a cigarette. (Hilda’s mother’s cook got scarlatina, so she had to give in about Hilda coming here for the hols after all. Rather a climb down for her, I should say.) It was jolly lucky we did, as it turned out, though we didn’t succeed in getting the whiff. Lord Thormanby and the Archdeacon were in the smoking room, so we pretended we’d come to look for Hilda’s pocket snuffler. The Archdeacon came to the party with a niece, in a green dress, who’s over from London, and stiff with swank, though what about I don’t know, for she can’t play hockey a bit, has only read the most rotten books, and isn’t much to look at, though the green dress is rather sweet, with a lace yoke and sequins on the skirt. Why didn’t you tell me you were going into Parliament? I’m frightfully keen on elections and mean to go and help you. So does Hilda now that she knows about it, and I wrote to Selby-Harrison this morning. We’ve changed the name of the society to the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying (A.S.P.L.). Rather appropriate, isn’t it, with a general election just coming on? Of course you’re still a life member. The change of name isn’t a constitutional alteration. Selby-Harrison made sure of that before we did it, so it doesn’t break up the continuity, which is most important for us all. Lord Thormanby and the Archdeacon were jawing away like anything while we were searching about for the hanker, and took no notice of us, although the Archdeacon is frightfully polite now as a rule, quite different from what he used to be.