"It seems to me," said I, "that, considering what you owe to Lady Broadhem," and I looked round the crowded room, "you ought not to be too hard upon her."
"Ah, well, I must admit that her ladyship and our friend Goldtip here are doing their best to balance the account; but I have made it a principle through life never to be satisfied with anything short of my full money's worth; and I don't even feel now, if you make my election a certainty, that we shall be more than square."
"What are your other principles besides that of getting your full money's worth?" said I, with a sneer, that was lost upon Bodwinkle.
"High Tory," he replied, promptly. "None of your Liberal Conservatives for me this time—that did well enough last election."
"But Stepton is an absolute Radical," said I.
"Exactly: that is why he is so important. You see the fact is—here, Goldtip, explain our little game; it is all his idea, and he can put it better than me."
I knew from the bold defiant way in which Spiffy raised his eyes to mine that his original and unscrupulous genius had conceived a coup d'état of some kind, so I listened curiously.
"I am going to stand for Shuffleborough, and it is I who want Sir John Stepton's vote and influence," he announced, calmly.
"You!" said I, amazed; "what are you going to stand as? and who is going to pay your expenses?"
"I am going to stand as an extreme Liberal, and Bodwinkle as a regular old Tory. He is going to pay my expenses. We are going to strike out an entirely new line, and have convictions. He can't come the Liberal Conservative this time, as one of the Liberals who is very popular has gone in rather extensively for the Moderate Conservatives. So there is nothing for it but to come forward as an out-and-out Tory, and put me up as a Radical; by these means we hope to floor both the fellows that are trying the trimming game. Of course I am not intended to come in—I only split the party."