Palmet gave his age; correcting the figures from six-and-twenty to one
year more. 'And never did a stroke of work in my life,' he said,
speaking genially out of an acute guess at the sentiments of the man he
walked with.

It seemed a farcical state of things.

There was a kind of contrition in Palmet's voice, and to put him at his
ease, as well as to stamp something in his own mind, Beauchamp said:
'It's common enough.'




CHAPTER XX

A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE

An election in Bevisham was always an exciting period at Itchincope, the
large and influential old estate of the Lespels, which at one time, with
but a ceremonious drive through the town, sent you two good Whig men to
Parliament to sit at Reform banquets; two unswerving party men, blest
subscribers to the right Review, and personally proud of its trenchancy.
Mr. Grancey Lespel was the survivor of them, and well could he remember
the happier day of his grandfather, his father, and his own hot youth.
He could be carried so far by affectionate regrets as to think of the
Tories of that day benignly:--when his champion Review of the orange and
blue livery waved a wondrous sharp knife, and stuck and bled them,
proving to his party, by trenchancy alone, that the Whig was the cause of
Providence. Then politics presented you a table whereat two parties