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tion and at the election all the same, or rather not all the same, for they would be there against us; and instead of hustling people good-humouredly by way of a joke, and counterbalancing Debarry's cheers, they'd help to kick the cheering and the voting out of our men, and instead of being, let us say, half-a-dozen ahead of Garstin, you'd be half-adozen behind him, that's all. I speak plain English to you, Mr. Transome, though I've the highest respect for you as a gentleman of first-rate talents and position. But, sir, to judge of these things, a man must know the English voter and the English publican; and it would be a poor tale indeed " here Mr. Johnson's mouth took an expression at once bitter and pathetic "that a gentleman like you, to say nothing of the good of the country, should have gone to the expense and trouble of a canvass for nothing but to find himself out of Parliament at the end of it. I've seen it again and again; it looks bad in the cleverest man to have to sing small."

Mr. Johnson's argument was not the less stringent because his idioms were vulgar. It requires a conviction and resolution amounting to heroism not to wince at phrases that class our foreshadowed endurance among those common and ignominious troubles which the world is more likely to sneer at than to pity. Harold remained a few moments in angry silence looking at the floor, with one hand on his knee and the other on his hat, as if he were preparing to start up.

"As to undoing anything that's been done down there," said Johnson, throwing in this observation as something into the bargain, "I must wash my hands of it, sir. I could n't work knowingly against

your interest. And that young man who has just gone out, -you don't believe that he need be listened to, I hope? Chubb the publican hates him. Chubb would guess he was at the bottom of your having the treating stopped, and he'd set halfa-dozen of the colliers to duck him in the canal, or break his head by mistake. I'm an experienced man, sir. I hope I've put it clear enough."

"Certainly, the exposition befits the subject," said Harold, scornfully, his dislike of the man Johnson's personality being stimulated by causes which Jermyn more than conjectured. "It's a damned unpleasant, ravelled business that you and Mr. Jermyn have knit up between you. I've no more to say."

"Then, sir, if you've no more commands, I don't wish to intrude. I shall wish you good-morning, sir," said Johnson, passing out quickly.

Harold knew that he was indulging his temper, and he would probably have restrained it as a foolish move if he had thought there was great danger in it. But he was beginning to drop much of his caution and self-mastery where Jermyn was concerned, under the growing conviction that the attorney had very strong reasons for being afraid of him, reasons which would only be reinforced by any action hostile to the Transome interest. As for a sneak like this Johnson, a gentleman had to pay him, not to please him. Harold had smiles at command in the right place, but he was not going to smile when it was neither necessary nor agreeable. He was one of those good-humoured yet energetic men, who have the gift of anger, hatred, and scorn upon occasion, though they are too healthy and self-contented for such feelings to get generated

in them without external occasion; and in relation to Jermyn the gift was coming into fine exercise.

"A-pardon me, Mr. Harold," said Jermyn, speaking as soon as Johnson went out, "but I am sorry-a-you should behave disobligingly to a man who has it in his power to do much service, who, in fact, holds many threads in his hands. I admit that nemo mortalium omnibus horis

a

sapit, as we say—a

"Speak for yourself," said Harold. "I don't talk in tags of Latin, which might be learned by a schoolmaster's footboy. I find the King's English express my meaning better."

"In the King's English, then," said Jermyn, who could be idiomatic enough when he was stung, "a candidate should keep his kicks till he's a member."

"Oh, I suppose Johnson will bear a kick if you bid him. You're his principal, I believe."

"Certainly, thus far-a-he is my London agent. But he is a man of substance, and

"I shall know what he is if it's necessary, I dare say. But I must jump into the carriage again. I've no time to lose; I must go to Hawkins at the factory. Will you go?"

When Harold was gone, Jermyn's handsome face gathered blackness. He hardly ever wore his worst expression in the presence of others, and but seldom when he was alone, for he was not given to believe that any game would ultimately go against him. His luck had been good. New conditions might always turn up to give him new chances; and if affairs threatened to come to an extremity between Harold and himself, he trusted to finding some sure

resource.

"He means to see to the bottom of everything if

he can, that's quite plain," said Jermyn to himself. "I believe he has been getting another opinion; he has some new light about those annuities on the estate that are held in Johnson's name. He has inherited a deuced faculty for business, there's no denying that. But I shall beg leave to tell him that I've propped up the family. I don't know where they would have been without me; and if it comes to balancing, I know into which scale the gratitude ought to go. Not that he's likely to feel any, but he can feel something else; and if he makes signs of setting the dogs on me, I shall make him feel it. The people named Transome owe me a good deal more than I owe them."

In this way Mr. Jermyn inwardly appealed against an unjust construction which he foresaw that his old acquaintance the Law might put on certain items in his history.

I have known persons who have been suspected of undervaluing gratitude, and excluding it from the list of virtues; but on closer observation it has been seen that if they have never felt grateful, it has been for want of an opportunity; and that, far from despising gratitude, they regard it as the virtue most of all incumbent - on others towards them.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.

WORDSWORTH: Tintern Abbey.

JERMYN did not forget to pay his visit to the minister in Malthouse Yard that evening. The mingled irritation, dread, and defiance which he was feeling towards Harold Transome in the middle of the day depended on too many and far-stretching causes to be dissipated by eight o'clock; but when he left Mr. Lyon's house he was in a state of comparative triumph in the belief that he, and he alone, was now in possession of facts which, once grouped together, made a secret that gave him new power over Harold.

Mr. Lyon, in his need for help from one who had that wisdom of the serpent which, he argued, is not forbidden, but is only of hard acquirement to dovelike innocence, had been gradually led to pour out to the attorney all the reasons which made him desire to know the truth about the man who called himself Maurice Christian: he had shown all the precious relics, the locket, the letters, and the marriage certificate. And Jermyn had comforted him by confidently promising to ascertain, without scandal or premature betrayals, whether this man were really Annette's husband Maurice Christian Bycliffe.

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