The Church?--that was more so still.
I had a try at politics--but you need money there as much
as anywhere else--money or big family connections.
I voted in practically every division for four years,
and I made the rottenest speeches you ever heard of at
Primrose League meetings in small places, and after all
that the best thing the whips could offer me was a billet
in India at four hundred a year, and even that you took
in depreciated rupees. When I tried to talk about
something at home, they practically laughed in my face.
I had no leverage upon them whatever. They didn't care
in the least whether I came up and voted or stopped at home.
Their majority was ten to one just the same--yes, twenty
to one. So that door was shut in my face. I've never
been inside the House since--except once to show it to an
American lady last summer--but when I do go again I rather
fancy"--he stopped for an instant, and nodded his handsome
head significantly--"I rather fancy I shall turn up on the
other side."
"I'm a Liberal myself, in English politics," interposed Thorpe.
Plowden seemed not to perceive the connection. They had left
London Bridge behind, and he put his feet up on the cushions,
and leant back comfortably. "Of course there was the City,"
he went on, speaking diagonally across to his companion,
between leisurely intervals of absorption in his cigar.
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