“Your picture of political life is not fascinating,” said Heathcote, coldly.
“After all, do you know, I like it,” resumed O'Shea. “As long as you 've a seat in the House, there's no saying when you might n't be wanted; and then, when the session's over, and you go down to the country, you are the terror of all the fellows that never sat in Parliament. If they say a word about public matters, you put them down at once with a cool 'I assure you, sir, that's not the view we take of it in the House.'”
“I 'd say, 'What's that to me?'”
“No, you would n't,—not a bit of it; or, if you did, nobody would mind you, and for this reason,—it's the real place, after all. Why do you pay Storr and Mortimer more than another jeweller? Just because you're sure of the article. There now, that's how it is!”
“There's some one knocking at the door, I think,” said Heathcote; but at the same instant Joe's head appeared inside, with a request to be admitted. “'T is the telegraph,” said he, presenting a packet.
“I have asked for a small thing in Jamaica, some ten or twelve hundred a year,” whispered O'Shea to his friend. “I suppose this is the reply.” And at the same time he threw the portentous envelope carelessly on the table.
Either Heathcote felt no interest in the subject, or deemed it proper to seem as indifferent as his host, for he never took any further notice of the matter, but smoked away as before.
“You need n't wait,” said O'Shea to Joe, who still lingered at the door. “That fellow is bursting with curiosity now,” said he, as the man retired; “he 'd give a year's wages to know what was inside that envelope.”
“Indeed!” sighed out Heathcote, in a tone that showed how little he sympathized with such eagerness.
If O'Shea was piqued at this cool show of indifference, he resolved to surpass it by appearing to forget the theme altogether; and, pushing the bottle across the table, he said, “Did I ever tell you how it was I first took to politics?”