‘Well, we’ve secured a good deal more for the people than you or I expected at that time.’
‘Maybe,’ said Johnson doggedly.
‘But what do you want?’
Johnson’s face brightened as he said:
‘That’s coming to the point—we do not want any more Whigs or Tories.’
‘But if a Tory comes to Sloville and offers to give the people land—we can’t say restore it, for we Anglo-Saxons never had an inch of the soil of England. If, further, he tell them that they have not had their fair share of the profits of capital—if he says he will get every one a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work—that the working men shall have decent homes built for them by Government—that every one shall have his three acres and a cow—that the parent shall be relieved of all responsibility as regards his children—that, in short, he will bring the millennium—don’t you think he will get returned whether he calls himself Whig or Tory?’
‘I believe you,’ said Johnson excitedly, giving the table an emphatic thump. ‘Leastways, I knows many as will vote for him, and this I knows, that no one opposed to him would have much chance. There’s none on ’em dare turn me out of a meetin’, and there’s none of ’em can drown my voice.’
‘Yes, I had a good proof of that to-night. But don’t you know that any man coming with such a programme is an impostor?’
‘No, hang me if I do! I say he is the man for me and the United Buffaloes, of which I am the president, and who will vote as I do. I repeat, he is the man for Sloville.’
‘Of course,’ said Wentworth sarcastically, ‘he is, and he is quite safe, because he knows he promises what he can never perform.’