In Cornfield Road, opposite the White Hart, Mr. Pigott, red and dusty from the battle, saw him ensconced on that bad eminence among the crimson faces and flowery hats of the enemy.
"You've changed your coat to some purpose," he bawled.
Alf leaned down.
"Yes, sir," he said quietly. "I've learned a bit, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."
The beery riders raised an aggressive cheer. And the son and heir of the candidate, snatching the horn from the hand of a footman, blew a strident blast in the ear of the outraged schoolmaster.
Alf's candidate was returned, to his no small chagrin—one of the few Tories to survive the democratic deluge of that year.
"Just a remnant of us," as Alf remarked pathetically to the Archdeacon, "that 'as not bowed the knee to Bile."
Thus earlier in life even than most of us, Alf joined the Big Battalions of those who, secure themselves, mean to make capital out of the insecurity of others.
"I'm a high old Tory," he would tell Lady Augusta Willcocks truculently. "And I don't care who knows it."
And finding quickly the necessity for, and advantage of, a religious sanction for a position that was morally untenable, he threw himself upon the bosom of the Church; and in that comfortable and accommodating community which opens wide its gates to all who prefer the Path of Compromise to the Road that leads up Calvary, he found the sustenance of which he stood in need.