maddest folly ever talked!' he delivered
himself in wrath. 'The Whigs dead? You may as well say I'm dead.'

It was Beauchamp answering: 'Politically, you're dead, if you call
yourself a Whig. You couldn't be a live one, for the party's in pieces,
blown to the winds. The country was once a chess-board for Whig and Tory:
but that game's at an end. There's no doubt on earth that the Whigs are
dead.'

'But if there's no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it?'

'You know you're a Tory. You tried to get that man Dollikins from me in
the Tory interest.'

'I mean to keep him out of Radical clutches. Now that 's the truth.'

They came up to the group by the open window, still conversing hotly,
indifferent to listeners.

'You won't keep him from me; I have him,' said Beauchamp.

'You delude yourself; I have his promise, his pledged word,' said Grancey
Lespel.

'The man himself told you his opinion of renegade Whigs.'

'Renegade!'

'Renegade Whig is an actionable phrase,' Mr. Culbrett observed.

He was unnoticed.

'If you don't like "renegade," take "dead,"' said Beauchamp. 'Dead Whig
resurgent in the Tory. You are dead.'

'It's the stupid conceit of your party thinks that.'

'Dead, my dear Mr. Lespel. I'll say for the Whigs, they would not be seen
touting for Tories if they were not ghosts of Whigs. You are dead. There
is no doubt of it.'

'But,' Grancey Lespel repeated, 'if there's no doubt about it, how is it
I have a doubt about it?'

'The Whigs preached finality in Reform. It was their own funeral sermon.'

'Nonsensical talk!'

'I don't dispute your liberty of action to go over to the Tories, but you
have no right to attempt to take an honest Liberal with you. And that
I've stopped.'

'Aha! Beauchamp; the man's mine. Come, you'll own he swore he wouldn't
vote for a Shrapnelite.'

'Don't you remember?--that's how the Tories used to fight you; they stuck
an epithet to you, and hooted to set the mob an example; you hit them off
to the life,' said Beauchamp, brightening with the fine ire of strife,
and affecting a sadder indignation. 'You traded on the ignorance of a man
prejudiced by lying reports of one of the noblest of human creatures.'

'Shrapnel? There! I've had enough.' Grancey Lespel bounced away with both
hands outspread on the level of his ears.

'Dead!' Beauchamp sent the ghastly accusation after him.

Grancey faced round and said, 'Bo!' which was applauded for a smart
retort.