The Council of Seven

by J. C. Snaith

As polling day drew on the fun grew faster and more furious. Newspaper bombast, of which the candidate of the Ring had a complete monopoly, could only be countered by the simple truth. And the clear facts of the case, presented with force and skill, were very effective. It was all very well to obscure the issues at stake by the arts of up-to-date journalism, but those in touch with the situation soon began to realize that what Sir Munt called “hot air by the cubit” had lost its virtue.

John Endor, in the meantime, was adding daily to the number of his friends. In the man himself there was something British, forthright and sincere, which did much to sustain the cause for which he was fighting. That cause was the honesty of public life. Such an ideal ceased to be possible the moment an all-powerful Trust was allowed to govern the country through its own nominees.

As defined by John Endor, there could be no mistaking the issue. Much was at stake. Democracy was not merely on its trial, it was fighting for its life. Could the shrewd sons and daughters of the Midlands, lulled like so many of their kind by false catchwords and pleasant sophistries, be roused in time from their sleep?

The question was now being asked by the wisest heads in the land. And a wave of relief flowed over the country when it was known that the new Home Secretary, his colors nailed to the mast in open defiance of the U. P. and all its works, had been returned for East Blackhampton by a majority of nearly five thousand votes.

XL

THE fight won, John and Helen went back to London, strong in a sense of victory. It was, of course, the business of the Ring to minimize what had occurred so far as it was able to do so. But facts are stubborn things; an enhanced majority in favor of one who had been bold enough to throw down the gage of battle to the U. P. could neither be ignored nor explained away.

At Westminster itself this could not be gainsaid. There was no escape from the blunt truth that the incredible had happened. The result of the Blackhampton election brought dismay to more than one nominee of the Ring on the Government benches. It was the writing on the wall with a vengeance.

Still for the accomplished trimmer all was not lost. He could still cling to his famous motto, “Nothing succeeds like success.” Part and parcel of the race of trimmers, flesh of its flesh, bone of its bone, it even takes precedence of its other famous motto “Honesty is the best policy.” “So glad, old man, you brought it off.” Slap on the back. “Quite sure you would.” Grasp of the hand. “Downed the dirty dogs, eh?” Punch in the ribs.

The blushing victor had much of this kind of thing to endure in the first few days of his return to town. He was in no sense a cynic, for his eyes looked steadily towards the future, but even he was aware that the most rejoicing voices were those which would have been still louder had the cat jumped the other way.

Watching the cat jump, that art, too, was ever important. Truly wonderful was the effect now wrought upon the Mother of Parliaments. The Slippery One had brought off the biggest thing since the Famous Lie in the middle of that prehistoric period of the Great War which had founded the fortune of more than one grave and reverend parliamentarian and had reduced the country to the verge of ruin. This new stroke of daring had been so cunningly timed that its success was said to be a masterpiece of strategy, a triumph of tactical insight by those who would have been the first to brand its failure, from whatever cause, as a lapse into premature senility on the part of a mind outwardly strong and vigorous.