“Well what is it?” asked Tinker, uneasily.
“Oh! It’s hardly worth retailing. Sorry I mentioned it; but they are saying in the village you are to be opposed at the next election.”
“Me! Opposed! Well, I’m ready, and pray, who is to be my ‘honourable opponent,’—that’s the expression, isn’t it? ’Pon my word, I’ll relish a good stand-up fight. I’ve been returned unopposed so often that a good, vigorous opposition will do me good.”
“Well,” said Wimpenny slowly, “I’m not sure you’ll think your honourable opponent a foeman worthy of your steel. You’ll never guess who they’re talking about.”
Mr. Tinker rapidly reviewed, mentally, all men of the neighbourhood likely to enter the lists against him.
“I’m a bad hand at conundrums,” he said, “I give it up.”
“What would you say to that insolent young upstart at Co-op Mill?”
“What! Tom Pinder! confound the puppy. Why, there’d be little honour in defeating him. D——n his impudence. But you’re joking, Wimpenny, and I tell you I like joking as little as conundrums. But there,—the fellow isn’t worth a thought. A nameless workhouse bastard oppose me! Well, you’ve had your joke, Wimpenny; next time we meet try and think of a better one.” And Tinker strode angrily away, without much ceremony.
As a matter of fact there had been talk of nominating Tom for a seat on the Board, and the matter had been even broached to Tom himself. But Tom had from the first scouted the idea. He had enough on his hands looking after his own concerns, and he had sense enough to know that if a man won’t stick to his business his business won’t long stick to him. But when it transpired that, had he consented, he would have had to fight his old master, Tom was indignant. What did people take him for, he wondered. He felt that for him to pit himself against Mr. Tinker would have been a gratuitous insult to the man who had been his master for so many years. He knew that it would be to wound that master in his most sensitive spot, and he had a respect for family pride all the greater, perhaps, because he himself had no family ties or traditions to be proud of. And he shuddered to think what Dorothy might say to his presumption and ingratitude should the mere suggestion of his possible candidature reach her ears.
But of Tom’s way of meeting the proposal Mr. Tinker was, of course, as yet, quite unaware. He had taken it for granted that Wimpenny was well informed, that he would not have repeated to him a vulgar canard.