traordinary physical strength for his size--and one of the
cleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in the
country. His property joins mine. I knew his father--a little, dried-up
old chap of the old school--very elegant manners and very
obstinate--worried to death by his wife--oh, my goodness! such a woman!"

"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting.

"Wharton--H.S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, and
_her_ mother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage.
Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting,
which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! Old
Wharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered her
for her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for her
dress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room I
happened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts.
Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuff
of one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all the
rest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worst
of all."

"H.S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has been
speaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in the
_Evening Star_. A big meeting--called by a joint committee of the
leading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme as
it affects labour--that's the man--he's been at it hammer and
tongs--red-hot--all the usual devices for harrying the employer out of
existence, with a few trifles--graduated income-tax and land
nationalisation--thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?--they say he had
a great reception--spoke brilliantly--and is certainly going to get into
Parliament next week."

The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer,
put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. His
_vis-a-vis_--a stout country gentleman who had been in the army and
knocked about the world before coming into his estate--shrugged his
shoulders.

"So I hear--he daren't show his nose as a candidate in _our_ part of the
world, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember a
good story of his mother--she quarrelled with her husband and all her
relations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public,
accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at a
market town near us, and telling t