“‘Allow me to speak, me noble lord!’ [Great laughter. Then a pause.] Where’s my old chum, Jock Lawson?” The audience stilled. Gaston’s face went grave. He replied, in a firm, clear voice. “In Heaven, my man. You’ll never see him more.” There was silence for a moment, a murmur, then a faint burst of applause. Presently John Cawley, the landlord of “The Whisk o’ Barley,” made towards Gaston. Gaston greeted him, and inquired after his wife. He was told that she was very ill, and had sent her husband to beg Gaston to come. Gaston had dreaded this hour, though he knew it would come one day. A woman on a death-bed has a right to ask for and get the truth. He had forborne telling her of her son; and she, whenever she had seen him, had contented herself with asking general questions, dreading in her heart that Jock had died a dreadful or shameful death, or else this gentleman would, voluntarily, say more. But, herself on her way out of the world, as she feared, wished the truth, whatever it might be. Gaston told Cawley that he would drive over at once, and then asked who it was had called out at him. A drunken, poaching fellow, he was told, who in all the years since Jock had gone, had never passed the inn without stopping to say: “Where’s my old chum, Jock Lawson?” In the past he and Jock had been in more than one scrape together. He had learned from Mrs. Cawley that Gaston had known Jock in Canada. When Cawley had gone, Gaston turned to the other gentlemen present. “An original speech, upon my word, Belward,” said Captain Maudsley. Mr. Warren Gasgoyne came. “You are expected to lunch or something to-morrow, Belward, you remember? Devil of a speech that! But, if you will ‘allow me to speak, me noble lord,’ you are the rankest Conservative of us all.” “Don’t you know that the easiest constitutional step is from a republic to an autocracy, and vice versa?” “I don’t know it, and I don’t know how you do it.” “Do what?” “Make them think as you do.” He waved his hand to the departing crowd. “I don’t. I try to think as they do. I am always in touch with the primitive mind.” “You ought to do great things here, Belward,” said the other seriously. “You have the trick; and we need wisdom at Westminster.” “Don’t be mistaken; I am only adaptable. There’s frank confession.” At this point Mr. Babbs came up and said good-night in a large, self-conscious way. Gaston hoped that his campaign would not be wasted, and the fluffy gentleman retired. When he got out of earshot in the shadows, he turned and shook his fist towards Gaston, saying: “Half-breed upstart!” Then he refreshed his spirits by swearing at his coachman. Gaston and Jacques drove quickly over to “The Whisk o’ Barley.” Gaston was now intent to tell the whole truth. He wished that he had done it before; but his motives had been good--it was not to save himself. Yet he shrank. Presently he thought: