_There_, seventy minutes from
Liverpool Street, you pose--yes, _pose_, Jack--as the urbane man,
Horatius Flaccus life-size; whereas your job as a citizen is confined
to cursing the rates, swearing if a pit in the wood pavement jolts
you on the way home from the theatre, supposing it's somebody's
business, supposing there's graft in it, and talking superciliously
of Glasgow and Birmingham, provincial towns, while you can't help to
cheapen the price of a cabbage in Covent Garden!"
"Dear Roddy," Foe answered--very tolerantly, I'll admit--"you'll get
elected, to a dead certainty."
"Oh, I'm all right," said I, cooling down. "Wish I could be so sure
of your man Farrell, across the bridge."
"Farrell?"
"That's his name. . . . Think you'll be able to remember it?"
Here Jimmy dropped the ash of his cigar into his coffee-cup and
chipped in judiciously.
"Otty has the right of it, Professor--though we shall have to cure
him of his platform style. _Somebody_ has to look after this country
and look after London; and if you despise the fellows who run the
show, then it's up to you, my intellectuals, to come in and do the
business better.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50