“Order, order,” he murmured with a clever adaptation of parliamentary procedure; and Mr. Massarene, whose ear was quick, and who was proud of his knowledge of the by-words of the benches, understood that he was irrelevant and on ticklish grounds, and brought forward a racy American anecdote with ready presence of mind and extreme success; whilst the crowd below roared with loud and delighted laughter. The gentlemen at his elbow breathed again. There had been, in a ducal house of the countryside, a very grave scandal a few months earlier; a scandal which had become town-talk, and even been dragged into the law courts. It would never do to have the yokels told their “character” was a patrician or political _sine qua non_. On the whole the speech was a very popular one; the new owner of Vale Royal was welcomed. Too egotistic in places, and too unpolished in others, it was vigorous, strong, and appealed forcibly to the mob by its picture of a herdsman with three pounds in his pocket become a capitalist and a patron of princes. To his own immediate and aristocratic supporters its effect was less inspiriting. He gave them distinctly to understand the _quid pro quo_ which he gave and expected. “If he don’t get what he wants from our side he’ll rat as sure as he lives,” thought the lord-lieutenant; and the mayor thought to himself that it would really have been better to have left the metropolitan division its member ungrudged. “What a fearful person,” said the lord-lieutenant, a tall slender man with fair hair turning grey, and a patrician face, blank and dreary in expression, though many years of conflict between a great name and a narrow income. “His speech was quite Radical. I really did not know how to sit still and hear it,” whispered the bishop in a tone of awe and horror. The marquis lighted a cigar. “Never mind that. It took with the yokels. He’ll vote straight for us. He wants a peerage.” “Gladstone would give him a peerage.” “Of course. But Gladstone’s peerages are like Gladstone claret--unpleasantly cheap. Besides, our man loves smart folks--the liberals are dowdy; our man loves ‘proputty,’ like the northern farmer, and the liberals are always nibbling into it like mice into cheese. Besides, Mouse Kenilworth’s godmother to this beast; she has put him in the way he should go.” “I wish she would write his speeches for him,” said the bishop. “Took with the yokels, took with the yokels,” repeated the marquis. “Ain’t that what speeches are made for? People who can read don’t want to be bawled at. Man will do very well, and we shall have him in the Lords; he’ll call himself Lord Vale Royal, I suppose--ha! ha!--poor Roxhall!” The lord-lieutenant, who could not accept the social earthquake with the serenity of his friend, shivered, and went to his carriage. “I shall go and ask our candidate for some money,” murmured the bishop, whose carriage was not quite ready.