‘Well, you did not seem very favourable to-night.’
‘No, and that’s why I am here. My party won’t think much of me unless I act an independent part, and there’s a good many of us; we wish to have a bit of a literary man. It is my belief, as I tells ’em, that there is nothing like eddication and the gift of the gab.’
‘Upon my word, you’re right, Mr. Johnson, though when one looks at Ireland and England, too, one is inclined to feel that we may have too much of a good thing, and that we should be all the better if we had a little less talk and a little more work.’
‘Capital! that’s the very thing for Sloville, only you must pitch it a little stronger, and fire away at the lazy parsons and the ’aughty haristocracy, and say something about the blood-sucking manufacturers who leave us—who make all their wealth—to starve and die. We’re agin ’em all, me and my pals.’
‘Well, we will talk of that presently. If I get into Parliament, how am I to live?’
‘Well, we must have paid members of Parliament; you’ll be all right then.’
‘Are you fond of professional parsons, Mr. Johnson?’
‘No, I hate ’em like p’ison.’
‘And yet you would have professional politicians. They are as odious to me as professional parsons. A man may mean well when he first sets out, but directly his political career becomes to him his bread-and-butter, he will cease to be an honest man. If he is paid by the people, he will be their slave, and not their representative. If he is paid by the State, he will so shape his conduct that he may secure his re-election. He cannot act honestly. By the necessity of his position he is bound to keep his place, because he needs his salary. It is as bad and infamous for a man to make politics his livelihood as religion. In America they have a class of men known as professional politicians, and what is the result? that respectable Americans rarely enter public life.’
‘Well, you do surprise me!’ said Johnson, smoking his pipe uneasily. ‘I knew you were a little crotchety when you came to our Chartist meeting, but I thought you went the whole hog.’