Two days afterwards Charlie Fitzgerald returned. His story was perfectly concise, too concise, alas, for that stricken household. He did not bother them with his visit to the Duke of Battersea and to Scotland—he spoke only of their own business. He had seen Peter Street yet once again. They were sorry, but it had happened from having too many names on the list; some had to wait; they admitted they had postponed Mr. Clutterbuck's name to Paardeberg Day, when there was a batch of thirty to bring out.
"But now there's the Petition," said Charlie Fitzgerald a little awkwardly; "you see under the circumstances——"
"I see," said Mr. Clutterbuck with a grim face.
"Don't take it like that," said Charlie Fitzgerald, "they can't prove anything. It's only a bit of spite."
"That's what I was saying to-day," said Mr. Clutterbuck. And the Anapootra Ruby Mines were forgotten—but Mr. Bailey had not forgotten them!
The horror of the Member—of the still Member for Mickleton, of the Member for Mickleton in the National Party interest—was as deep as hell when he received by post a marked copy of a low Socialist rag, whose name he barely knew, and there under the title "What We Don't Hear," was a jeering allusion to the Anapootra mines, coupled with a laudatory account of himself as the champion of popular rights. Next day a severe but obscure rebuke connecting his name with an unworthy piece of demagogy appeared in the Standard. A little later a fine defence of his courage was included in a letter to the Guardian. Mr. Clutterbuck was in terror of the unknown, and everywhere the dreadful sound of Anapootra haunted him. He walked over the Downs to clear his brain; he sat down in the little inn at Ragman's Corner, where they always gave him a private room and treated him as the chief gentleman of their neighbourhood. He had hardly tasted his glass of sherry when the publican said to him with cheerful respect:
"Well, sir, I see you've started another hare, and I wish you luck, sir. Here's to the People!"
Mr. Clutterbuck turned pale; but when the publican had finished his glass and wiped his mouth with his finger, he did not fail to add:
"Here's to you, sir, and the Putrid Ruby Mines, whatever they may be, and good luck to the lot!"
Oh the agony of an isolated man! Oh, passion of humanity, when it can find no fellow on whom to repose! The violent agitation of youth returned to his aged blood as he went home in the dark January evening, and he almost feared that the belated peasants whom he met so rarely as he hurried home, would each of them whisper as they passed the hateful name of Anapootra; that some evil shape would start from the darkness and scream it in his ear.