"As the dodo, I don't think," he replied. "The more you have to do with politics, the more you realize that human nature is human nature. Nothing ever changes. People tell you that Dickens was a caricaturist, an exaggerator. He may have been when he wrote about some things, but not when he described the Eatanswill election. That's as true as a Blue Book--every word of it--and always will be. Human nature doesn't get out of date. Bribery and corruption!--great Heavens, what else should there be? I don't say that money passes from hand to hand quite so crudely; but money's not the only medium of bribery. Every man has his price to-day, as ever, only he often prefers payment in kind. Why, you can bribe a man with virtue now and then. The big Nonconformist employers who carry a hatful of votes--lay preachers, you know--you can get at them by sitting under them one Sunday. They don't want money or promises: they want homage. Of course they do. Another man merely wants to be seen accepting a cigar from your own case; another to take your arm in public. It's after the election's over that this last type becomes such a nuisance." "It's a low game," Dabney said, "and you're a low lot, and I don't really know why I like you and ask you to sit under a decent roof." Rudson-Wayte smiled joyously. "No worse than editing a paper," he said, "and suppressing the truth about everything." "And who does that?" Dabney asked quiveringly. "You do, of course, every week. You attack one side for its turpitude and cynicism and applaud the other side for its high ideals and self-sacrifice, when you know there's not a penny to choose between them. They're just the same men, with different views as to how a business should be managed. You know that: you must know, because directly one of the big men on the other side--one of your blackest bugbears--retires, or dies, or loses his wife, you have an article on his personal charm and private integrity, the whole thing really proving him an arrant humbug ready to support against his conscience any policy forced upon him by his party or venal circumstance. You can't deny it. And again, every now and then when some non-party question brings two conspicuous opponents on the same platform in agreement, with compliments to each other, you say how delightful are these amenities of English political life which permit private friendliness to exist alongside public hostility; whereas that is, when looked into a little deeper, really a cause for shame, because men should be all of a piece. Well, what I say is that if you can write calmly like that of party politicians, and defend it, there is no need lor me to be troubled by your condemnation of me for being concerned in the making of party politics." Dabney really took it very well, and as a matter of fact I don't know that he could have made much of a defence even if he had not been our host. All he said was, "Well, damn the party system anyway."