A young man who had been interjecting remarks very freely here took the floor. "Of course," he said, "damn the party system. The whole mischief is the party system. It's rotten to the core. What we want in Parliament is the best men, not the machine-made men. But that's all that the voter can be allowed to vote for. How many independent, thinking men are there in Parliament to-day? Not half a dozen, and the few that there are steadily being frozen out. The machine can't endure them, and the machine is on top. I got a ticket for the House the other day and saw the conspiracy in action. There was an old man in our village who used to say that 'very few persons are better than anyone else,' and I thought of these words as I sat there and watched all those blighters at work. It was a terrible eye-opener. I knew that they were obsolete and stupid and pledged to the swindle, but I had no notion how stupid they were. No candour anywhere. On the one side bland red-tapism, and on the other the insincere acrimony of the Jack-out-of-office. Their manners, too, are an outrage--they chatter while speeches are going on; they shout offensive criticisms; there is never a moment when some one is not walking about. It's got to be changed." "All very well," said Rudson-Wayte; "but you'll never be without it. Men fall into parties as naturally as they fall into temptation. There must be pros and cons. If you want to know how deeply rooted the party system is you have only to read the papers that advocate its removal. Their objection to party is to the party that is in. I have observed that when a paper boasts of having no favour for one party or the other it makes up for it by having an increased hostility towards one party or the other. No; if you really wanted to lead a crusade you would call for a party pledged not to add another law to the Statute Book as long as it held office. That would be something like. Also it would automatically rid the party at any rate of the legal element. But this is shop. For Heaven's sake talk about something else." "We will," said Dabney, "but it will be shop all the same." Dabney was right. Everything came round to shop very quickly, and, tiring of the monotony, I slipped away. Dabney apologized for the dullness of the evening. "You see, this time," he said, "I had to ask everyone. We have better talk at our smaller gatherings. Come when I entertain some novelists." I said that perhaps I would, and walked homewards correcting my estimates of our public men by the light of the evening's revelations. But by the time I reached the Euston Road I had decided to let them all stand as they were a little longer. Those fellows were only talking, I said. Strike London dumb for a year and how we should get on! Progress then! CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH AN HONEST COUPLE WHO NEVER DID ANYONE ANY HARM ARE SEEN ON THE BRINK OF THE STRUGGLE WITH PROSPERITY