The snow was gone and the weather was open. There was the prospect of political changes in the air, and, in the event of a general election, his chiefs of party desired that he should represent his county instead of continuing member for that unsound and uncertain metropolitan division, which he did actually represent. To feel the way and introduce him politically in the borough before there should be any question of his being put up for it, those who were interested in the matter had got up a gathering of county notabilities on a foreign question of the moment, which was supposed, as all foreign questions always are, to involve the entire existence of England. He had been told what to say on these questions, and although it seemed to him “awful rot,” like everything inculcated by his leaders, he said it obediently, and refreshed himself afterwards by some personal statements. Amongst men, on public matters he always showed to advantage. He was common, ignorant, absurd, very often; but he was a man, a man who could hold his own and had a head on his shoulders. That mastery of fate which had made him what he was gave meaning to his dull features, and light to his dull eyes. No one, as modern existence is constituted, could separate him altogether from the weight of his ruthless will, and the greatness of his accomplished purpose; he stood on a solid basis of acquired gold. Before a fine lady he shook in his shoes, and before a prince he trembled; but at a mass-meeting he was still the terrible, the formidable, the indomitable, “bull-dozing boss” of Kerosene City. His stout hands gripped the rail in front of him, while their veins stood out like cords, and his rough rasping voice made its way through the wintry air of England, as it had done through a blizzard on the plains of the West. “I’ve been a workingman myself, gentlemen,” he said, amidst vociferous cheers, “and if I’m a rich man to-day it’s been by my own hand and my own head as I’ve become so. I’ve come home to die” (a voice in the crowd: “You’ll live a hundred years!”), “but before I die I want to do what good I can to my country and my fellow-countrymen.” (Vociferous cheers.) “Blood’s thicker than water, gentlemen----” The applause here was so deafening that he was forced to pause; this phrase never fails to raise a tempest of admiration, probably because no one can ever possibly say what it is intended to mean. “I know the institutions of my country, gentlemen,” he continued, “and I am proud to take my humble share in holding them steady through stormy weather. I have lived for over thirty years, gentlemen, in a land where the institutions are republican, and I wish to speak of that great republic with the sincere respect I feel. But a republican form of government would be wholly unfitted for Great Britain.” “Why so?” asked a voice in the crowd. Mr. Massarene did not feel called on to answer so indiscreet a question; he continued as though no one had spoken.