ning, and it had come to be recognised as his desire,
and a part of the etiquette of the place, that he should be allowed this
exercise without receiving even the recognition of passersby. On this
occasion, however, he took the initiative, stopped Tallente and invited
him to talk with him.

"I thought of writing to you, Tallente," he said. "I cannot bring
myself to believe that you were in earnest on Wednesday morning."

"Absolutely," the other assured him. "I have an appointment with
Dartrey in an hour's time to close the matter."

The Prime Minister was shocked and pained.

"You will dig your own grave," he declared. "The idea is perfectly
scandalous. You propose to sell your political birthright for a mess of
pottage."

"I am afraid I can't agree with you, sir," Tallente regretted. "I am at
least as much in sympathy with the programme of the Democratic Party as
I am with yours."

"In that case," was the somewhat stiff rejoinder, "there is, I fear,
nothing more to be said."

There was a brief silence. Tallente would have been glad to make his
escape, but found no excuse.

"When we beat Germany," Horlock ruminated, "the man in the street
thought that we had ensured the peace of the world. Who could have
dreamed that a nation who had played such an heroic part, which had
imperiled its very existence for the sake of a principle, was all the
time rotten at the core!"

"I will challenge you to repeat that statement in the House or on any
public platform, sir," Tallente objected. "The present state of
discontent throughout the country is solely owing to the shocking
financial mismanagement of every Chancellor of the Exchequer and
lawmaker since peace was signed. We won the war and the people who had
been asked to make heroic sacrifices were simply expected to continue
them afterwards as a matter of course. What chance has the man of
moderate means had to improve his position, to save a little for his old
age, during the last ten years? A third of his income has gone in
taxation and the cost of everything is fifty per cent, more than it was
before the war. And we won it, mind. That is what he can't understand.
We won the war and found ruin."

"Legislation has done its best," the Prime Minister said, "to assist in
the distribution of capital."

"Legislation was too slow," Tallente answered bluntly. "Legislation is
only playing with the subject now. You sneer at the Democratic Party,
but they have a perfectly so