Harry, though duped by Silas, had never made him his confidant. He saw that Harry delighted in excitement, and took him once or twice to hear the debates in the House of Commons. They were pretty stormy sometimes, when Fox, and Pitt, and Wyndham were on their feet. Silas professed to be a "friend of the people." Harry's generous heart rose in rebellion against anything like tyranny and oppression, and Silas easily persuaded him that the French Revolution had been brought about by the tyrannical way in which the aristocracy had treated the people. "Let me ask you, Harry," he said, "are not our own people treated very much in the same way? Look at our ill-fed, ill-clad soldiers, robbed on all sides, and left to perish like dogs from neglect. Then see our sailors. Were you ever on board a man-of-war, Harry? I have been. Just see the tough dry meat, and weevily biscuit they are fed with; the fearful way in which they are flogged for the slightest offence, at the will, often capricious, of their captains; the little care taken of them in sickness; the ill-paid, half-educated men sent out as surgeons; and the wretched pensions they receive after, if they escape death, when wounded in battle." So Silas talked on. There was much truth in what he said, but his statements were often exaggerated. "However, I am but a poor speaker, Harry," he said; "come with me some evening, and you shall hear all that I have said put forth far more forcibly, and in far better language. Don't tell old Kyffin where you have been, that's all. He holds to old-fangled notions, and has no faith in Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. We will look in first at two or three of the clubs to which I belong, and there's no reason why he should not suppose that you have been to one of those. There's the Hums'; you remember my taking you there, at the Blue Posts, in Covent Garden, and the `Rights of Man' Club. I have belonged to that since I came to town. Then we can look in at the Pearl Drinkers', and if by chance our friend presses you, tell him what you saw there. He probably does not guess that I belong to more than one quiet club, and he may be a little astonished at first, but that won't matter. He has no power over me out of the office. Mr. Coppinger knows my merits, I flatter myself, too much to dispense with my services at Mr. Roger Kyffin's bidding." "I don't like those remarks," thought Harry to himself. "Ought I to go with this man?" He very often had thought as much, and yet had followed Sleech's lead. The day's work was over. Harry had thought of proposing to walk home with Mr. Kyffin, but he went out, and had no opportunity afterwards of speaking to him. Was Roger Kyffin pleased with his ward? Not altogether. He thought that he spent too much time in going to places of public amusement. He might more frequently have offered to go out to Hampstead. Still he did not like to lecture the young man.