ers,--a
dislike natural to a sensible man of moderate politics, who had
something to lose. For Mr. Slappe, the active member, who was
head-over-ears in debt, was one of the furious democrats--rare before
the Reform Bill,--and whose opinions were held dangerous even by the
mass of a Liberal constituency; while Mr. Sleekie, the gentleman member
who laid by L5000 every year from his dividends in the Funds, was one of
those men whom Richard justly pronounced to be "humbugs,"--men who curry
favour with the extreme party by voting for measures sure not to
be carried; while if there was the least probability of coming to a
decision that would lower the money market. Mr. Sleekie was seized with
a well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common enough now. Propose
to march to the Millennium, and they are your men. Ask them to march a
quarter of a mile, and they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling
for fear of the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no
chance of a victory. Did they beat the minister, they would be carried
out of the House in a fit.

Richard Avenel--despising both these gentlemen, and not taking kindly
to the Whigs since the great Whig leaders were lords--had looked with
a friendly eye to the government as it then existed, and especially
to Audley Egerton, the enlightened representative of commerce. But in
giving Audley and his colleagues the benefit of his influence, through
conscience, he thought it all fair and right to have a quid pro quo,
and, as he had so frankly confessed, it was his whim to rise up "Sir
Richard." For this worthy citizen abused the aristocracy much on the
same principle as the fair Olivia depreciated Squire Thornhill,--he had
a sneaking affection for what he abused. The society of Screwstown was,
like most provincial capitals, composed of two classes,--the commercial
and the exclusive. These last dwelt chiefly apart, around the ruins of
an old abbey; they affected its antiquity in their pedigrees, and
had much of its ruin in their finances. Widows of rural thanes in the
neighbourhood, genteel spinsters, officers retired on half-pay, younger
sons of rich squires, who had now become old bachelors,--in short,
a very respectable, proud, aristocratic set, who thought more of
themselves than do all the Gowers and Howards, Courtenays and Seymours,
put together. It had early been the ambition of Richard Avenel to
be admitted into this sublime coterie; and, strange to say,