Sunday is not a good day for getting about. Mr. Bailey estimated things, and rightly judged that the motor-car, forlorn in those far Cotswold Hills, would be in no mood to return the eighty miles to town, and he saw that the trains of a Sunday were not the most convenient.
He let it stand till Monday, but that evening a figure worn with travel and shaken with unusual experience appeared before him. It was the figure of Mr. Clutterbuck.
He recited the adventure at large; he had not dared look at the Sunday papers; he had come because he could not rest until he had heard news of the dreadful affair. He was almost incoherent in his rapidity. Charlie was back at the Plâs; he had seen Mrs. Clutterbuck a moment—he had not told her. How had the constituency taken it, oh how had they taken it?
"Like a lot of animals," said William Bailey with vivid memories of the night, "and not quiet animals either; like a lot of wolves," he said.
Mr. Clutterbuck was heart-broken. "Couldn't something——" he began.
"Oh, no!" said William Bailey, really put out by the futility of the phrase that was coming. "No! Nothing! It's all over. When you're defeated, retreat in good order—keep your train intact. We're defeated all right!" Then he had the absurd irrelevance to add: "Come into the House with me on Tuesday?"
"But I'm not a member now," gasped Mr. Clutterbuck.
"Oh, I mean under the gallery, just to look at it," said William Bailey impatiently. "I'm not a member now either, thank God! It's one of the few things they can't force on a man nowadays." Such indeed is the cynical attitude of too many men who secretly know their own failure, and whom bad tactics, or more frequently adverse majorities, have driven from the House of Commons.