in that way, Ferdinand."

"I am sorry, sir," said Ferdinand. "I did not mean to be disrespectful.
You spoke of my daubing. I desired to admit the justice of the term.
Nothing more, I assure you."

His lordship, in his irritated mood, felt the tone to-be more irritating
and offensive than before.

"I tell you candidly, Ferdinand, that I do not approve of the manner in
which you spend your time here. If you imagine that you can walk over
the course here without an effort you are very much mistaken. I take
this idleness and indifference very ill, sir, very ill indeed, and if we
are beaten I shall know on whom the blame will rest. The times are not
what they were, Ferdinand, and constitutional principles are in danger."

"Really, sir," returned Ferdinand, "one can't be electioneering all the
year round. There can't be a dissolution before the autumn. When the
time comes I will work as hard as you can ask me to do."

"Pooh, pooh!" said his lordship, irritably. "I don't ask you to spout
politics. I ask you to show yourself to these people as a serious and
thoughtful fellow, and not as a mere dauber of canvas and scraper of
fiddles. You come here," he went on, irritated as much by his own speech
as by the actual circumstances of the case, "as if you were courting a
constituency of _dilettanti_, and expected to walk in by virtue of your
little artistic graces. They don't want a man like that. They won't have
a man like that. They're hard-headed fellows, let me tell you. These
South Stafford fellows are the very deuce, let me tell you, for knowing
all about Free-trade, and the Cheap Loaf, and the National Debt."

"Very well, sir," said Ferdinand, laughing, "I reform. Instead of
carrying easel and _porte-couleur,_ Harvey shall go about with a copy of
'The Wealth of Nations,' and when a voter passes I'll stop and consult
the volume and make a note. But _l'homme serieux_ is not the only man
for election times. I'll wager all I am ever likely to make out of
politics that I have secured a vote this afternoon, though I have done
nothing more than offer a farmer's wife a little artistic advice
about the choice of a bonnet. I told her that yellow was fatal to that
charming complexion, and advised blue. Old Holland is proud of his young
wife, and I hooked him to a certainty."

"Holland!" cried his lordship, more pettishly than ever--"Holland is
conservative to the backbone. We were always sure of Holland."

"Well, well," said Fer