The assembly shuddered; but, before new ground could be broken, Mr Travers, for the first time interested in somebody else’s electioneering experiences, said inquiringly:—
‘These squatters I presume, represent the landed interest; my party, in fact?’
‘Oh, I don’t know nothing about that,’ replied the Bride.
At this juncture Alfred announced, in an uncommonly loud and aggressive tone, that—what do you think?—the glass was going down!
‘Is it?’ cried Sir James, with a lively concern quite foreign to his habit. ‘Dear, dear! And Mr Travers just now assured me that the weather was quite settled. I fear that this will disappoint—er—Mr Travers!’
But it failed even to attract that gentleman’s attention; and Granville, in the background, chuckled satanically over the ingenuousness of the device. Mr Travers, in fact, was sufficiently interested elsewhere. ‘Yet, of course,’ he was saying, ‘there are two parties?’
‘My word, there are!’ returned the Bride.
‘And do you call them Whig and Tory?’
‘I don’t think it’—doubtfully.
‘Conservative and Liberal, perhaps?’