Splendid as was the opportunity just offered to Walter Joyce by the parliamentary agents, it is more than probable that he would have declined to profit by it had the scene of action been laid anywhere else than in Brocksopp, and his opponent been any one other than Mr. Creswell. Although utterly changed from the usher in a country school, who was accustomed to take life as it came,--or indeed from the young man who, when he obtained Lord Hetherington's private secretaryship, looked upon himself as settled for life,--Joyce had even now scarcely any ambition, in the common acceptation of the word. To most men brought up as he had been, membership of parliament would have meant London life in good society, excellent station of one's own, power of dispensing patronage and conferring favours on others, and very excellent opportunity for getting something pleasant and remunerative for one's self, when the chance offered. To Walter Joyce it meant the acceptance of a sacred trust, to the proper discharge and fulfilment of which all his energies were pledged by the mere fact of his acceptance of the candidature. Not, indeed, that he had ever had any thoughts of relinquishing his recently acquired profession, the press; he looked to that as his sole means of support; but he felt that should he be successful in obtaining a seat in the House, his work would be worth a great deal more than it bad hitherto been, and he should be able to keep his income at the same amount while he devoted half of the time thus saved to his political duties.