"Why can't they thole you?" asked the Colonel curiously.
"Most Labour leaders rise to power at the expense of their wives," the other explained. "They go on; but the wives stay where they are—at the wash-tub. The women see that; and they don't like it. And they're right."
"What's the remedy?"
"There's nobbut one." Joe now not seldom honoured the Colonel by relapsing into dialect when addressing him. "And that's for the Labour leader to remain unmarried. They're the priests of Democracy—or should be."
"You'll never make a Labour leader out of Caspar," said the Colonel genially. "I've tried to make an N.C.O. of him before now and failed."
"A'm none so sure," Joe said, and added with genuine concern: "He's on the wobble. Might go up; might go down. Anything might happen to yon lad now. He's just the age. But he's one o ma best pupils—if he'll nobbut work."
"Ah," said the Colonel with interest. "So he's joined your class at St. Andrew's Hall, has he?"
"Yes," replied the other. "Mr. Chislehurst brought him along—the new curate in Old Town. D'ye know him?"
"He's my cousin," replied the Colonel. "I got him here. He'd been overworking in Bermondsey—in connection with the Oxford Bermondsey Mission."
"Oh, he's one of them!" cried the other. "That accounts for it. A know them. They were at Oxford when A was at Ruskin. They're jannock,—and so yoong with it. They think they're going to convert the Church to Christianity!" He chuckled.