the thing,--if
he could have been induced himself to care whether Chelsea was to be
embanked or no, the work would not have been so difficult to him.
In that case it would have done good to him, if to no one else. But
such belief was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable
of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious
of having a hand in the government of his country, but he was not
capable of caring even for that.

But he worked. He worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised
the men of Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton that the path of London
westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Sloane Street should be the
new Cheapside. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, with
sides open to the water, for which Belgravia would be deserted. There
should be palaces there for the rich, because the rich spend their
riches; but no rich man's palace should interfere with the poor man's
right to the River Bank. Three millions and a half should be spent
on the noble street to be constructed, the grandest pathway that the
world should ever yet have seen; three millions and a half to be
drawn from,--to be drawn from anywhere except from Chelsea;--from the
bloated money-bags of the City Corporation, Vavasor once ventured
to declare, amidst the encouraging shouts of the men of Chelsea. Mr
Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well.
"Upon my word, that was uncommon good," he said, almost patting
Vavasor on the back, after a speech in which he had vehemently
asserted that his ambition to represent the Chelsea districts had all
come of his long-fixed idea that the glory of future London would be
brought about by the embankment of the river at Chelsea.

But armies of men carrying big boards, and public-houses open at
every corner, and placards in which the letters are three feet long,
cost money. Those few modest hundreds which Mr Scruby had already
received before the work began, had been paid on the supposition that
the election would not take place till September. Mr Scruby made an
early request, a very early request, that a further sum of fifteen
hundred pounds should be placed in his hands; and he did this in
a tone which clearly signified that not a man would be sent about
through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till this request
had been conceded. Mr Scruby was in possession of two very distinct
manners of address. In his jovial moods, when he was instigating h