On polling day, as a reward for his strenuous labours in the good cause, Alf was given a ride on the top of the coach among the very pick of England's aristocracy. In that fair company he meandered from public-house to public-house all a winter's afternoon, singing with his hosts hymns and spirituous songs. In Cornfield Road, opposite the _White Hart_, Mr. Pigott, red and dusty from the battle, saw him ensconced on that bad eminence among the crimson faces and flowery hats of the enemy. "You've changed your coat to some purpose," he bawled. Alf leaned down. "Yes, sir," he said quietly. "I've learned a bit, and I'm not ashamed to admit it." The beery riders raised an aggressive cheer. And the son and heir of the candidate, snatching the horn from the hand of a footman, blew a strident blast in the ear of the outraged schoolmaster. Alf's candidate was returned, to his no small chagrin--one of the few Tories to survive the democratic deluge of that year. "Just a remnant of us," as Alf remarked pathetically to the Archdeacon, "that 'as not bowed the knee to Bile." Thus earlier in life even than most of us, Alf joined the Big Battalions of those who, secure themselves, mean to make capital out of the insecurity of others. "I'm a high old Tory," he would tell Lady Augusta Willcocks truculently. "And I don't care who knows it." And finding quickly the necessity for, and advantage of, a religious sanction for a position that was morally untenable, he threw himself upon the bosom of the Church; and in that comfortable and accommodating community which opens wide its gates to all who prefer the Path of Compromise to the Road that leads up Calvary, he found the sustenance of which he stood in need. Alf effected the change of religious community with considerable tact. He began quite simply by touching his hat to the junior curate of the parish church, when he met him in the street. The Reverend Spink, who was a man of much the same class as Alf, was highly gratified and uplifted. Then Alf took to saying very shyly, "Good morning, sir," hurrying past in order not to impede by his unworthy presence the great man's view. Next he took to dropping in to the Reverend Spink's addresses for "men only." Here he made himself conspicuous by his thoughtfulness and the corrugations in his brow as he imbibed the teachings of his master. One day he asked, with some confusion and stumblings of speech, a question so easy that even the curate could answer it. Alf nodded, well satisfied. The curate swelled in the spirit. This catechumen at the least knew what was what. Next day Alf, greatly daring, stopped the evangelist in the street. "Beg pardon, sir," he began diffidently. "About what you was saying last night about them Proper Prefaces..." The curate amplified his explanation. Alf drank in the milk of the Word, nodding his head. "Ah, I never thought of that!" he said.