"You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke,

appearing to glance over the columns of the "Trumpet." "That's your

hobby, and you don't mind the expense."

"I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was standing for

Parliament," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "They said the last unsuccessful

candidate at Middlemarch--Giles, wasn't his name?--spent ten thousand

pounds and failed because he did not bribe enough. What a bitter

reflection for a man!"

"Somebody was saying," said the Rector, laughingly, "that East Retford

was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery."

"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Brooke. "The Tories bribe, you know:

Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot codlings, and that sort of

thing; and they bring the voters drunk to the poll. But they are not

going to have it their own way in future--not in future, you know.

Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit--the freemen are a little

backward. But we shall educate them--we shall bring them on, you

know. The best people there are on our side."

"Hawley says you have men on your side who will do you harm," remarked

Sir James. "He says Bulstrode the banker will do you harm."

"And that if you got pelted," interposed Mrs. Cadwallader, "half the

rotten eggs would mean hatred of your committee-man. Good heavens!

Think what it must be to be pelted for wrong opinions. And I seem to

remember a story of a man they pretended to chair and let him fall into

a dust-heap on purpose!"

"Pelting is nothing to their finding holes in one's coat," said the

Rector. "I confess that's what I should be afraid of, if we parsons

had to stand at the hustings for preferment. I should be afraid of

their reckoning up all my fishing days. Upon my word, I think the

truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with."

"The fact is," said Sir James, "if a man goes into public life he must

be prepared for the consequences. He must make himself proof against

calumny."

"My dear Chettam, that is all very fine, you know," said Mr. Brooke.

"But how will you make yourself proof against calumny? You should read

history--look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of

thing. They always happen to the best men, you know. But what is that

in Horace?--'fiat justitia, ruat . . . something or other."

"Exactly," said Sir James, with a little more heat than usual. "What I

mean by being proof against calumny is being able to point to the fact

as a contradiction."

"And it is not martyrdom to pay bills that one has run into one's

self," said Mrs. Cadwallader.




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