One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his "Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving, and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through Committee hung in the balance.
"Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to be questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will your Bill do for us? I have asked this person here,"—indicating her fiancé,—"but he says parish-pump politics aren't in his department. He licks stamps at the Foreign Office," she added in explanation.
"Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes me all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of Europe."
"I will tell you one thing the Bill will do, Miss Dilly," said Champion, a little heavily. (Dolly once said of him, "He's awfully clever and able and all that, but he hasn't got a light hand for conversational pastry.") "How many times have you noticed the streets up about here this year?"
"Heaps," said Dilly.
"They have hardly ever been down," corroborated Dolly.
"Let me see," continued Dilly. "Our side of the Square was repaved in January. Directly after that they took it up again and did something to the drains."
"In March they opened it again to lay down an electric light main," said I.
"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with wigwams and braziers."
"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement and relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt simply, oh——"