ics as the next best thing, thus
satisfying his appetite for action. He did what he had told Miss
Batchelor he should do; he dissipated himself in parochial patriotism.
He went to and fro, he presided at meetings, sat on committees, made
speeches on platforms. You would hardly have thought that one parish
could have contained so much fiery energy. Moreover, he found a field
for his journalistic talents in a passionate correspondence in the local
papers. Tyson could speak, Tyson could write, where other men maunder and
drivel. His tongue was tipped with fire and his pen with vitriol. Looking
about him for a worthy antagonist, he singled out Smedley, M.D., a local
practitioner given over to two ideals--sanitation and reform. Needless to
say, for sanitation and reform Tyson cared not a hang. It was a stand-up
fight between the man of facts and the man of letters. Smedley was solid
and imperturbable; he stood firm on his facts, and defended himself with
figures. Tyson, a master of literary strategy, was alert and ubiquitous.
Having driven Smedley into a tangled maze of controversy, Tyson pursued
him with genial irony. When Smedley argued, Tyson riddled his arguments
with the lightest of light banter; when Smedley hung back, Tyson lured
him on with some artful feint; when Smedley thrust, Tyson dodged.
Finally, when Smedley, so to speak, drew up all his facts and figures in
the form of a hollow square, Tyson charged with magnificent contempt of
danger. No doubt Tyson's method was extremely amusing and effective, and
his sparkling periods proved the enemy's dullness up to the hilt;
unfortunately, the prosy but responsible representations of Smedley had
more weight with committees.

Only two people really appreciated that correspondence. They were Mrs.
Nevill Tyson and Miss Batchelor. "At this rate," said the lady of
Meriden, smiling to herself, "my friend Samson will very soon bring
down the house."

Tyson, contemptuous of the gallery, had been playing to Sir Peter and Sir
Peter alone, and he flattered himself that this time he had caught the
great man's eye. It was in the first excitement of the elections; Tyson
had come in from Drayton, and was glancing as usual at the visiting cards
on the hall table. On the top of the dusty pile that had accumulated in
the days of his wife's illness there was actually a fresh card. Tyson's
face lost something of its militant expression when he read the name "Sir
Peter Morley," and he smil