The further-seeing man of affairs took him up sharply. “Don’t make any mistake, my boy. Charwomen have all got a vote these days, the same as you and me. That’s where the fun comes in. Aunt Mittie’s _Own Journal_ sells its millions of copies a week. And if you subscribe to it, you get reductions on everything from a nightgown edged with Honiton lace to a bottle of lime juice cordial. You can also ballot for free tickets to the movies, the Christmas Goose Club and the U. P. Burial Society. I tell you, my boy, you get your money’s worth with Aunt Mittie’s _Own Journal_.” “How they do it for twopence a week--that’s what gets me!” The mind of the linendraper Imperialist moved in a rather narrow orbit. “They don’t do it--not on the paper. But what they lose on the swings, they get back on the roundabouts. And don’t forget this, Murrell, if it comes to a showdown the U. P. can afford to lose on the swings _and_ on the roundabouts, because the cocoanuts, my boy, will get them home every time. And why, Murrell?” A touch of forensic passion had begun to work in the veins of Blackhampton’s first citizen. “Because Mugs like you and me are the cocoanuts. We are being milked dry, my boy--we, the Middle Classes, the folk who have a bit to lose and haven’t learnt to defend it. The Charwomen’s Conference is up-to-date Communism, my boy, with a certain newspaper Boss behind it all. He and his Ring, who have corralled the country’s power, are keeping the workers quiet by showing them how to dip their hands in the pockets of you and me.” XXXIX The news ran like wildfire through Imperialist circles of the City that Sir Munt had “ratted.” Moreover, the influence of a particularly honest and forcible man was such that he threatened to carry with him some of the acknowledged stays of his party. A situation at once arose that was a fitting prelude to the most significant by-election within living memory. No matter what the moral defects of the prime minister might be, he was a very old and sure hand at the parliament game. His choice of John Endor to throw down the gage of battle to the U. P. was almost inspired. It might thunder up and down the land, but there was no disguising that a prophet had arisen to fight the cause of the oppressed Middle Class. John Endor made a fine champion for the small trader, the struggling professional man, and the people whose moderate, fixed incomes were being taxed out of existence. The U. P. did not take long to realize the danger of its guns being spiked. Its batteries might thunder unceasingly, the real issues might be obscured in a cloud of poison gas, all its black arts might be called into play, but from the start there was no burking the fact that for once the Newspaper Ring was not going to have a walk-over.