an orphan, and his uncle had brought him up--I've forgotten the
uncle's name, but he was in the Cabinet, and you can read his
speeches in the papers. He had gone round the world after leaving
Cambridge, and then, being short of a job, his uncle had advised
politics. I gathered that he had no preference in parties. 'Good
chaps in both,' he said cheerfully, 'and plenty of blighters, too. I'm
Liberal, because my family have always been Whigs.' But if he was
lukewarm politically he had strong views on other things. He
found out I knew a bit about horses, and jawed away about the
Derby entries; and he was full of plans for improving his shooting.
Altogether, a very clean, decent, callow young man.

As we passed through a little town two policemen signalled us to
stop, and flashed their lanterns on us.

'Beg pardon, Sir Harry,' said one. 'We've got instructions to
look out for a car, and the description's no unlike yours.'

'Right-o,' said my host, while I thanked Providence for the
devious ways I had been brought to safety. After that he spoke no
more, for his mind began to labour heavily with his coming speech.
His lips kept muttering, his eye wandered, and I began to prepare
myself for a second catastrophe. I tried to think of something to say
myself, but my mind was dry as a stone. The next thing I knew we
had drawn up outside a door in a street, and were being welcomed
by some noisy gentlemen with rosettes.
The hall had about five hundred in it, women mostly, a lot of
bald heads, and a dozen or two young men. The chairman, a
weaselly minister with a reddish nose, lamented Crumpleton's absence,
soliloquized on his influenza, and gave me a certificate as a