"Where?" Amber asked again.
"In Huntingdonshire, before the property went to Algy—"
"No, no, Lady Chelmer; I mean, where is poor Walter Whatsaname now?"
"Why, right here," said Lady Chelmer, involuntarily borrowing from the vocabulary of her young American protégée.
"Walter Bassett!" said the Hon. Tolshunt, languidly. "Isn't that the chap that's always getting chucked out of Parliament?"
"But his name doesn't sound Irish?" queried Amber.
"What are you talking about, Amber!" cried Lady Chelmer. "Why, he comes of a good old Huntingdon family. If he had been his own elder brother, he'd have got in long ago."
"Oh, you mean he never gets into Parliament," said Amber.
"Serve him right. I believe he's one of those independent nuisances," said the old Marquis of Woodham. "How is one ever to govern the country, if every man is a party unto himself?" He said "one," but only out of modesty; for having once accepted a minor post in a Ministry that the Premier in posse had not succeeded in forming, he had retained a Cabinet air ever since.
"Well, the beggar will scarcely come up at Highmead for a third licking," observed the Hon. Tolshunt.