“But do you tell me,” said Mr. Lespel, when the shouts of the gentlemen were subsiding, “do you tell me that young Beauchamp is going ahead?”
“That he is. They flock to him in the street.”
“He stands there, then, and jingles a money-bag.”
Palmet resumed his mimicry of Beauchamp: “Not a stiver; purity of election is the first condition of instruction to the people! Principles! Then they’ve got a capital orator: Turbot, an Irishman. I went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer in my life. You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me like a top; and while he was orationing, a donkey calls, ‘Turbot! ain’t you a flat fish?’ and he swings round, ‘Not for a fool’s hook!’ and out they hustled the villain for a Tory. I never saw anything like it.”
“That repartee wouldn’t have done with a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,” said Stukely Culbrett. “But let us hear more.”
“Is it fair?” Miss Halkett murmured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel, who returned a flitting shrug.
“Charming women follow Beauchamp, you know,” Palmet proceeded, as he conceived, to confirm and heighten the tale of success. “There’s a Miss Denham, niece of a doctor, a Dr.... Shot—Shrapnel! a wonderfully good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half-a-dozen streets to ask how he’s getting on, and goes every night to his meetings, with a man who’s a writer and has a mad wife; a man named Lydia—no, that’s a woman—Lydiard. It’s rather a jumble; but you should see her when Beauchamp’s on his legs and speaking.”
“Mr. Lydiard is in Bevisham?” Mrs. Wardour-Devereux remarked.
“I know the girl,” growled Mr. Lespel. “She comes with that rascally doctor and a bobtail of tea-drinking men and women and their brats to Northeden Heath—my ground. There they stand and sing.”
“Hymns?” inquired Mr. Culbrett.