At dinner Mr. Clutterbuck very properly forebore to allude to such matters in the remotest manner before the very large and varied assembly of guests. Nor were he and his secretary alone together during any part of the remainder of the evening.
Next morning with the reticence that sits so well upon our wealthier men, he did no more than accompany Fitzgerald from the luncheon-room to the motor, help him in, and shake him warmly by the hand as he went off.
Fitzgerald, wisely remembering his cousin's somewhat petulant advice, sent no warning before him, but turned up at Downing Street a little before four. His reception was very cordial. They had known each other from the time when Charlie was in petticoats, a baby, in and out of Mary Smith's house in the height of its splendour, and the Prime Minister a young man, almost a boy himself, fresh from his victory in the Isle of Dogs and the idol of that Free Trade Unionist section which he had since triumphantly transformed into the National Party after his acceptance of the Round Table Tariff in 1909.
Charlie did not waste five minutes in coming to the point, and he put it with a simplicity that did him honour. He let the head of the Government talk upon the bigness of the Mickleton election and upon the way in which it had caught the Press, and when it was his turn to speak he quietly took it for granted that Mr. Clutterbuck's name would appear among the New Year's honours.
But there was a great deal more in the Prime Minister than met the naked eye; he shook his head with a determination of which the ballast was his big bulging forehead with its rare wisp of hair, and he said:
"All that's been thought about, Charlie."
Fitzgerald got quite red. He saw danger and was annoyed.
"You are making a fuss," he said.