"But will they vote? That's the point," returned Rames. "Will they vote against the government's bill on its second reading?"
"Oh, yes," Mr. Brook replied enthusiastically. "There are a lot of discontented people in our majority. We'll have voters--Challoner, for instance. Besides, you have friends."
Rames laughed.
"Yes, I know the kind of friends--fellows who come to you in your seat after you have spoken, pat you on the back, whisper that they are with you, and then troop like tame mice into the government lobby against you. I've watched them."
Brook, however, was not to be damped. He threw himself for the rest of that session into the work of organization. A halting speaker and an ineffectual personage, he had sat for twenty years in the House of Commons and was not tired of it. He was without distinction, he was the confidant of no minister, he was never caricatured, he was never the chairman of a committee, he rarely spoke. The recruits of each new Parliament took almost its duration before they assigned individuality to his features or honored him with a name. He was mediocrity's last word. But he had charming manners and won to a kind of friendly pity those whose acquaintance he gently made. He was born for private life, but the House of Commons had caught him as in a net. He had no other interests, he had no wife, he did not any longer even aspire to office. To be busy in the House of Commons--that was lifeblood to him and a renewal of youth. His chance had come now. He hurried from man to man, discreet and furtive. He arranged private meetings. He hooked his little wagon to Rames's star. He approached Colonel Challoner.
Challoner, the party hack, was instinctively outraged. Was the list of ministers closed forever? No! But as he was about to repel Robert Brook's advances, the very holder of the office which he coveted stung him into revolt.
It was quite toward the end of the session. Colonel Challoner was walking through the division lobby late at night when he saw the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Charles Bradley, in front of him. There was some stir at the time because certain Indian emigrants had suffered in one of the disturbances of southern Persia. Colonel Challoner hurried officiously to Mr. Bradley's side.
"Bradley," he said, "don't you think it would be good policy to repatriate those Indians at our expense. What?"
Mr. Bradley, a florid gentleman, youthfully middle-aged, with a sweet voice, a pompous manner, and perhaps a bare sufficiency of brains, turned to the colonel with condescending kindness.
"As a member of the government," he said importantly, "I can no longer speak freely. Ah, my dear Challoner, I tell you I regret day after day that corner seat on the front bench below the gangway, and the opportunity of supplementary questions. But that happy time has gone. You might, if you like, raise the question on the adjournment or the Appropriation Bill next week. I could then reply to you."