urned to his favour, that he never once abandoned hope, nor did
more than change the details in his main schemes. Out of calculations
apparently the most far-fetched and improbable, he had constructed a
patient policy, to which he obstinately clung. How far his reasonings
and patience served to his ends remains yet to be seen. But could
our contempt for the baseness of Randal himself be separated from the
faculties which he elaborately degraded to the service of that baseness,
one might allow that there was something one could scarcely despise in
this still self-reliance, this inflexible resolve. Had such qualities,
aided as they were by abilities of no ordinary acuteness, been applied
to objects commonly honest, one would have backed Randal Leslie against
any fifty picked prize-men from the colleges. But there are judges of
weight and metal who do that now, especially Baron Levy, who says to
himself as he eyes that pale face all intellect, and that spare form all
nerve, "This is a man who must make way in life; he is worth helping."

By the words "worth helping" Baron Levy meant "worth getting into my
power, that he may help me."

CHAPTER XIV.

But parliament had met. Events that belong to history had contributed
yet more to weaken the administration. Randal Leslie's interest became
absorbed in politics, for the stake to him was his whole political
career. Should Audley lose office, and for good, Audley could aid him no
more; but to abandon his patron, as Levy recommended, and pin himself,
in the hope of a seat in parliament, to a stranger,--an obscure
stranger, like Dick Avenel,--that was a policy not to be adopted at a
breath. Meanwhile, almost every night, when the House met, that pale
face and spare form, which Levy so identified with shrewdness and
energy, might be seen amongst the benches appropriated to those more
select strangers who obtain the Speaker's order of admission. There,
Randal heard the great men of that day, and with the half-contemptuous
surprise at their fame, which is common enough amongst clever,
well-educated young men, who know not what it is to speak in the House
of Commons. He heard much slovenly English, much trite reasoning, some
eloquent thoughts, and close argument, often delivered in a jerking
tone of voice (popularly called the parliamentary twang), and often
accompanied by gesticulations that would have shocked the manager of
a provincial theatre. He thought how much better th