more than I
should--but at least it was open to you to do it, without attracting
much attention. But with me placed in my ridiculous position--poverty
has been the most unbearable torture one can imagine. You see, there is
no way in which I can earn a penny. I had to leave the Army when I was
twenty-three--the other fellows all had plenty of money to spend, and it
was impossible for me to drag along with a title and an empty pocket. I
daresay that I ought to have stuck to it, because it isn't nearly so bad
now, but twelve years ago it was too cruel for any youngster who had any
pride about him--and, of course, my father having made rather a name in
the Army, that made it so much harder for me. And after that, what was
there? Of course, the bar and medicine and engineering and those things
were out of the question, in those days at least. The Church?--that was
more so still. I had a try at politics--but you need money there as
much as anywhere else--money or big family connections. I voted in
practically every division for four years, and I made the rottenest
speeches you ever heard of at Primrose League meetings in small places,
and after all that the best thing the whips could offer me was a billet
in India at four hundred a year, and even that you took in depreciated
rupees. When I tried to talk about something at home, they practically
laughed in my face. I had no leverage upon them whatever. They didn't
care in the least whether I came up and voted or stopped at home. Their
majority was ten to one just the same--yes, twenty to one. So that door
was shut in my face. I've never been inside the House since--except once
to show it to an American lady last summer--but when I do go again I
rather fancy"--he stopped for an instant, and nodded his handsome head
significantly--"I rather fancy I shall turn up on the other side."

"I'm a Liberal myself, in English politics," interposed Thorpe.

Plowden seemed not to perceive the connection. They had left London
Bridge behind, and he put his feet up on the cushions, and leant back
comfortably. "Of course there was the City," he went on, speaking
diagonally across to his companion, between leisurely intervals of
absorption in his cigar. "There have been some directors' fees, no
doubt, and once or twice I've come very near to what promised to be a
big thing--but I never quite pulled it off. Really, without capital what
can one do?--I'm curious to know--did you bring much ready mo