My father shook his head.
"It is very kind of you to think of me," he said, hesitatingly, "but I fear that I must decline your offer. Politics have lost most of their interest for me—and—and, in short, I think I would rather not."
"I hope you will reconsider that," Mr. Cox said, pleasantly. "It will be a very slight tax upon you after all. You need only say a very few words. Come, think it over again. We really are at our wit's end or we would not have troubled you.
"There is Mr. Sothern," my father protested.
"He is in bed ill. An attack of pleurisy, I think."
"Mr. Brown, then?"
"A rank Radical."
"Mr. Jephcote?"
"Away."
"Mr. Hetton?"