_Jaq._ (_aside_). Oh, knowledge oddly applied! Fancy Olympian Oracles in a
thatched cottage!

_Touch._ When a man's speeches cannot be understood, nor a man's good
platform wit seconded by the froward child popular understanding, it
strikes a man more dead than a small minority on a big Bill. Truly, I would
the gods had made thee political.

_Aud._ I do not know what political is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is
it a true thing?

_Touch._ (_with sardonic frankness_). No, truly; for the truest politics
show the most feigning; and Tories are given to politics; and what they
swear, in politics, may be said, as Tories, they do feign.

_Aud._ Do you wish, then, that the gods had made _me_ political?

_Touch._ I do, truly; for they swear to me thou art true Tory,
parson-and-squire-ridden Tory. Now, if thou wert political, I might have
some hope thou didst feign--to _them_!

_Aud._ Would you not have me Tory?

_Touch._ No, truly, unless thou wert fortune-favoured; for Toryism coupled
to poverty is to have folly a sauce to misery.

_Jaq._ (_aside_). A shrewd fool!

_Aud._ Well, I am not rich; and therefore I pray the gods to make me
Liberal.