t."

"And you mean to go over in order that you may be justified in doing
so. I think I soar a little higher," said Tregear.

"Oh, of course. You're a clever fellow," said Silverbridge, not
without a touch of sarcasm.

"A man may soar higher than that without being very clever. If the
party that calls itself Liberal were to have all its own way who is
there that doesn't believe that the church would go at once, then
all distinction between boroughs, the House of Lords immediately
afterwards, and after that the Crown?"

"Those are not my governor's ideas."

"Your governor couldn't help himself. A Liberal party, with
plenipotentiary power, must go on right away to the logical
conclusion of its arguments. It is only the conservative feeling of
the country which saves such men as your father from being carried
headlong to ruin by their own machinery. You have read Carlyle's
French Revolution."

"Yes, I have read that."

"Wasn't it so there? There were a lot of honest men who thought
they could do a deal of good by making everybody equal. A good many
were made equal by having their heads cut off. That's why I mean
to be member for Polpenno and to send Mr. Carbottle back to London.
Carbottle probably doesn't want to cut anybody's head off."

"I dare say he's as conservative as anybody."

"But he wants to be a member of Parliament; and, as he hasn't thought
much about anything, he is quite willing to lend a hand to communism,
radicalism, socialism, chopping people's heads off, or anything
else."

"That's all very well," said Silverbridge, "but where should we have
been if there had been no Liberals? Robespierre and his pals cut off
a lot of heads, but Louis XIV and Louis XV locked up more in prison."
And so he had the last word in the argument.

The whole of the next morning was spent in canvassing, and the whole
of the afternoon. In the evening there was a great meeting at the
Polwenning Assembly Room, which at the present moment was in the
hands of the Conservative party. Here Frank Tregear made an oration,
in which he declared his political convictions. The whole speech was
said at the time to be very good; but the portion of it which was
apparently esteemed the most, had direct reference to Mr. Carbottle.
Who was Mr. Carbottle? Why had he come to Polpenno? Who had sent for
him? Why Mr. Carbottle rather than anybody else? Did not the people
of Polpenno think that it might be as well to send Mr. Carbottle back