"Let 'em unseat me!" shrieked Mr. Clutterbuck.
"You can't help it," said Mr. Bailey, "eh?"
"But they can't prove anything," said his guest. He was excited and defiant. "There's nothing to prove!"
"Oh, come," said Mr. Bailey, "come Mr. Clutterbuck. Don't go on like that. If they're going to unseat you, they're going to unseat you. And what's being unseated? Old Buffle was unseated three times."
"I should die of it!" said Mr. Clutterbuck with a groan.
"No you won't," said Mr. Bailey. "The Lord shall make your enemies your footstool; or, at any rate, His agent on earth will give you a good day's sport with them. Meanwhile you go on with those Ruby Mines. And, wait a minute, there's something to do to keep your mind off it meanwhile: there's a good agency in Fetter Lane; they have a lot of first-rate men. I remember a man called Bevan who did some very good work for an enemy of mine a little time ago. Go and give them a tenner and get them to find out who was behind that petition; though I think I know already. I'll come with you."
The two men went eastward together, Mr. Bailey talking of a thousand improbable things on the way, and they laid the task before the very courteous manager, who assured them it would be the simplest thing in the world. And so it was, for they learnt the same evening that though the petition had been lodged by a large grocer of the name of Hewlett in Mafeking Avenue, the real mover in the affair was a workman resident in a small street off the Crescent, a casual labourer of the name of Seale.
"That's all right," said Mr. Bailey when the news came to them as they sat at dinner together. "You won't find out that way. They been got at. That's a tenner wasted," he added anxiously, "but I'll pay it—I gave the advice. You go back home, and I'll let you know everything I hear within two days."
And Mr. Clutterbuck went home a little, but only a little, comforted; feeling that he had indeed one ally—but what an ally! A man who talked in enigmas, a dilettante with wild theories in which he himself only half believed; a man half ostracised, half tolerated, and wholly despised, but a man in the swim, anyhow: the memory of that consoled Mr. Clutterbuck.