either."

"You might have scraped in if you hadn't carried Simon Crood's niece
away from under his very nose," said Tansley. "But now that you've
brought personal matters into the quarrel, the old chap'll move every
piece he has on the board to checkmate you. It won't do to have you on
the Council, Brent, you're too much of an innovator. Now this town--the
real town!--doesn't want innovation. Innovation in an ancient borough
like this is--unsettling and uncomfortable. See?"

"This world doesn't stand still," retorted Brent. "I'm going ahead!"

But he reflected, as he left the solicitor's office, that much of what
Tansley had said was true. There was something baffling in the very
atmosphere of Hathelsborough--he felt like a man who fights the wind.
Everything was elusive, ungraspable, evasive--he seemed to get no
further forward. And, if Tansley was right in affirming that
Hathelsborough people made promises which they had no intention of
redeeming, his chances of getting a seat on the Town Council and setting
to work to rebuild his late cousin's schemes of reformation were small
indeed. But once more he set his jaw and nerved himself to endeavour,
and, as the day of election was now close at hand, plunged into the task
of canvassing and persuading--wondering all the time, now that he had
heard Tansley's cynical remarks, if the people to whom he talked and who
were mostly plausible and ingratiating in their reception of him were
in reality laughing at him for his pains. He saw little of the efforts
of the other side; but Peppermore agreed with Tansley that the
opposition would leave no stone unturned in the task of beating him.

The _Monitor_ was all for Brent--Peppermore's proprietor was a
Progressive; a tradesman who had bought up the _Monitor_ for a mere
song, and ran it as a business speculation which had so far turned out
very satisfactorily. Consequently, Brent at this period went much to the
_Monitor_ office, and did things in concert with Peppermore, inspiring
articles which, to say the least of them, were severely critical of the
methods of the Crood regime. On one of these visits Peppermore, in the
middle of a discussion about one of these effusions, abruptly switched
off the trend of his thought in another direction.

"I'd a visit from Mrs. Saumarez this morning, Mr. Brent," he said,
eyeing his companion with a knowing look. "Pretty and accomplished
woman, that, sir; but queer, Mr. Brent, queer!"

"What