said Everard,
'they have knocked the nation's head off, and dry-rotted the bone of the
people.'

'Don't they,' Nevil asked, 'belong to the Liberal party?'

'I'll tell you,' Everard replied, 'they belong to any party that upsets
the party above them. They belong to the GEORGE FOXE party, and my
poultry-roosts are the mark they aim at. You shall have a glance at the
manufacturing district some day. You shall see the machines they work
with. You shall see the miserable lank-jawed half-stewed pantaloons
they've managed to make of Englishmen there. My blood 's past boiling.
They work young children in their factories from morning to night. Their
manufactories are spreading like the webs of the devil to suck the blood
of the country. In that district of theirs an epidemic levels men like a
disease in sheep. Skeletons can't make a stand. On the top of it all they
sing Sunday tunes!'

This behaviour of corn-law agitators and protectors of poachers was an
hypocrisy too horrible for comment. Everard sipped claret. Nevil lashed
his head for the clear idea which objurgation insists upon implanting,
but batters to pieces in the act.

'Manchester's the belly of this country!' Everard continued. 'So long as
Manchester flourishes, we're a country governed and led by the belly. The
head and the legs of the country are sound still; I don't guarantee it
for long, but the middle's rapacious and corrupt. Take it on a question
of foreign affairs, it 's an alderman after a feast. Bring it upon home
politics, you meet a wolf.'

The faithful Whig veteran spoke with jolly admiration of the speech of a
famous Tory chief.

'That was the way to talk to them! Denounce them traitors! Up whip, and
set the ruffians capering! Hit them facers! Our men are always for the
too-clever trick. They pluck the sprouts and eat them, as if the loss of
a sprout or two thinned Manchester! Your policy of absorption is good
enough when you're dealing with fragments. It's a devilish unlucky thing
to attempt with a concrete mass. You might as well ask your head to
absorb a wall by running at it like a pugnacious nigger. I don't want you
to go into Parliament ever. You're a fitter man out of it; but if ever
you're bitten--and it's the curse of our country to have politics as well
as the other diseases--don't follow a flag, be independent, keep a free
vote; remember how I've been tied, and hold foot against Manchester. Do
it blindfold; you don't want counselling,