When you come to London, I hope we shall see
more of each other, and it may be I can introduce you to some people
whom you would like to know."

It was long after midnight at this time, and they had met with a number
of men at a kind of social club which had no political bias. The
leading people of the town were there, and Paul also noticed that Ned
Wilson was among them. He fancied he had been drinking heavily. His
eyes were bloodshot, and his voice was loud and truculent.

"It's good of you to say so," said Paul. "And never do I want to fight
with a fairer opponent. I hope that neither of us will ever be able to
think of this election with a shadow of regret."

"Yes, but Brunford will!" interposed Wilson.

"Nay, nay, Ned," remarked someone near. "Hold your tongue. It's no
use probing old wounds now."

"I say Brunford will!" shouted Ned, heedless of the other's warning.
"The time will come when it will be ashamed of what it's done to-day.
For my own part, I think I will move out of the town. Politics have
become a dirty business now, when a nameless vagrant can become a
Member of Parliament. Still, we know the old adage, 'Give a beggar a
horse----'"

Paul did not speak. For one thing, he was in a great good humour. He
had been victorious and could afford to forgive Wilson for all he had
done. Besides, he remembered the last quarrel they had had in a public
place, and he did not want another scene now. But Wilson was evidently
bent upon a quarrel. He was deeply chagrined at the other's victory,
and this, added to the whisky he had been drinking, made him more than
ordinarily quarrelsome.

"If I had my way," he went on, "none but those of honourable birth, and
whose parentage was respectable, should legislate for a country like
this. As for this fellow's parentage----" And then he gave a sneering
laugh.

"Be quiet, now, Ned! Do be quiet! You'll get into trouble presently.

"Trouble!" cried the other. "I'm going to say my say. Why, if the
fellow had any sense of shame, he would at least have kept his mother
out of the town." And then he uttered words which I will not write
down--words which, had Paul's mother heard them, would have made her
long to fly the town.

This proved too much for Paul. Insults hurled at himself he did not
mind, but for such words to be uttered about his mother in a place like
this was beyond endurance. With a face as pale as ashes, and a voice
hoarse with passi