t I'm bound to get that man.
Talked to him yesterday for two hours and thirty-five minutes by the
parish church clock, just over his shop--I mean the clock is. The fellow
hasn't a conviction, yet he can talk you blue; if I had his powers of
speech--there it is I fail, you see. I have to address a meeting
tomorrow; Rapley 'll be up at me, and turn me inside out. He'd do as
much for the other man, if only I'd pay him. That isn't my idea; I'm
going to win the election clean-handed; satisfaction in looking back on
an honest piece of work; what? I'll have another talk with him
to-morrow. Now look at this map of the town; I've coloured it with much
care. There you see the stronghold of the Blues. I'm working that
district street by street--a sort of moral invasion. No humbug; I set my
face against humbug. If a man's a rogue, or a sot, or a dirty rascal, I
won't shake hands with him and pretend--you know--respect, friendship,
how are your wife and children, so on. He's a vote, and I've only to
deal with him as a vote. Can he see that two and two make four? Good;
I'm at him by that side. There are my principles; what have you to urge
against them? He urges damned absurdities. Good; I _prove_ to him that
they are damned absurdities.'

At times Wilfrid managed to lead the talk to other subjects, such as
were suggested by the books around the room. Baxendale had read not a
little, and entirely in the spheres of fact and speculation. Political
economy and all that appertained to it was his speciality, but he was
remarkably strong in metaphysics. Wilfrid had flattered himself that he
was tolerably familiar with the highways of philosophy, but Baxendale
made him feel his ignorance. The man had, for instance, read Kant with
extraordinary thoroughness, and discussed him precisely as he did his
electioneering difficulties; the problems of consciousness he attacked
with hard-headed, methodical patience, with intelligence, moreover,
which was seldom at fault. Everything that bore the appearance of a knot
to be unravelled had for him an immense attraction. In mere mental
calculation his power was amazing. He took Wilfrid over his manufactory
one day, and explained to him certain complicated pieces of machinery;
the description was not so lucid as it might have been, owing to lack of
words, but it manifested the completest understanding of things which to
his companion were as hard as the riddle of the universe. His modesty,
withal, was exc