se Paul saved her all the trouble in hunting up information. She
was a mere figurehead.

"Dearest lady," Paul would say, "if you send me about my business,
you'll write me a character, won't you, saying that you're dismissing
me for incorrigible efficiency?"

"You know perfectly well," she would sigh, "that I would be a lost,
lone woman without you."

Whereat Paul would laugh his gay laugh. At this period of his life he
had not a care in the world.

The game of politics also fascinated him. A year or so after he joined
the Winwoods there was a General Election. The Liberals, desiring to
drive the old Tory from his lair, sent down a strong candidate to
Morebury. There was a fierce battle, into which Paul threw himself,
heart and soul. He discovered he could speak. When he first found
himself holding a couple of hundred villagers in the grip of his
impassioned utterance he felt that the awakening of England had begun.
It was a delicious moment. As a canvasser he performed prodigies of
cajolery. Extensive paper mills, a hotbed of raging Socialism,
according to Colonel Winwood, defaced (in the Colonel's eyes) the
outskirts of the little town.

"They're wrong 'uns to a man," said the Colonel, despondently.

Paul came back from among them with a notebook full of promises.

"How did you manage it?" asked the Colonel.

"I think I got on to the poetical side of politics," said Paul.

"What the deuce is that?"

Paul smiled. "An appeal to the imagination," said he.

When Colonel Winwood got in by an increased majority, in spite of the
wave of Liberalism that spread over the land, he gave Paul a gold
cigarette case; and thenceforward admitted him into his political
confidence. So Paul became familiar with the Lobby of the House of
Commons and with the subjects before the Committees on which Colonel
Winwood sat, and with the delicate arts of wire-pulling and intrigue,
which appeared to him a monstrously fine diversion. There was also the
matter of Colonel Winwood's speeches, which the methodical warrior
wrote out laboriously beforehand and learned by heart. They were sound,
weighty pronouncements, to which the House listened with respect; but
they lacked the flashes which lit enthusiasm. One day he threw the
bundle of typescript across to Paul.

"See what you think of that."

Paul saw and made daring pencilled amendments, and took it to the
Colonel.

"It's all very funny," said the latter, tugging his drooping mous