"I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an easy

air, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed him the

supposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke was an

abstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry quickly at no

great interval from the first was a surprise to his system which tended

to scatter his energies instead of collecting them. Pray pity him: so

many English gentlemen make themselves miserable by speechifying on

entirely private grounds! whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve his

country by standing for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done on

private grounds, but being once undertaken does absolutely demand some

speechifying.

It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at all

anxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have it

quite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope. Embarking

would be easy, but the vision of open sea that might come after was

alarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon just waking up in his

stomach, "somebody may put questions about the schedules.--Ladislaw,"

he continued, aloud, "just hand me the memorandum of the schedules."

When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were quite

loud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings, and other

expressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that Mr. Standish

(decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him, "This looks

dangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan than this." Still,

the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate could look more amiable

than Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum in his breast-pocket, his left

hand on the rail of the balcony, and his right trifling with his

eye-glass. The striking points in his appearance were his buff

waistcoat, short-clipped blond hair, and neutral physiognomy. He began

with some confidence.

"Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"

This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it seemed

natural.

"I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy in my

life--never so happy, you know."

This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing; for,

unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets from Pope

may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear clutches us, and a

glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among our ideas. Ladislaw, who

stood at the window behind the speaker, thought, "it's all up now. The

only chance is that, since the best thing won't always do, floundering

may answer for once." Mr. Brooke, meanwhile, having lost other clews,

fell back on himself and his qualifications--always an appropriate

graceful subject for a candidate.




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