sed to his son, with some
trepidation, a hope that all this would lead to no great permanent
increase of expenditure.

That evening before he went to bed Lord Silverbridge wrote to his
father an account of what had taken place at Polpenno.

Polwenning, 15th December.

MY DEAR FATHER,

Among us all we have managed to return Tregear. I am
afraid you will not be quite pleased because it will be a
vote lost to your party. But I really think that he is
just the fellow to be in Parliament. If he were on your
side I'm sure he's the kind of man you'd like to bring
into office. He is always thinking about those sort of
things. He says that, if there were no Conservatives, such
Liberals as you and Mr. Monk would be destroyed by the
Jacobins. There is something in that. Whether a man is a
Conservative or not himself, I suppose there ought to be
Conservatives.

The Duke as he read this made a memorandum in his own mind that he
would explain to his son that every carriage should have a drag
to its wheels, but that an ambitious soul would choose to be the
coachman rather than the drag.

It was beastly work!

The Duke made another memorandum to instruct his son that no
gentleman above the age of a schoolboy should allow himself to use
such a word in such a sense.

We had to go about in the rain up to our knees in mud for
eight or nine days, always saying the same thing. And of
course all that we said was bosh.

Another memorandum--or rather two, one as to the slang, and another
as to the expediency of teaching something to the poor voters on such
occasions.

Our only comfort was that the Carbottle people were quite
as badly off as us.

Another memorandum as to the grammar. The absence of Christian
charity did not at the moment affect the Duke.

I made ever so many speeches, till at last it seemed to be
quite easy.

Here there was a very grave memorandum. Speeches easy to young
speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners.

But of course it was all bosh.

This required no separate memorandum.

I have promised to go up to town with Tregear for a day
or two. After that I will stick to my purpose of going to
Matching again. I will be there about the 22nd, and will
then stay over Christmas. After that I am going into the
Brake country for some hunting. It is such a shame to have
a lot of horses a