"I repeat," said I, slowly, "Is your only object in getting into Parliament that you may be of use to the country? or is it that the country may be of use to you?"
"I must ask you one in return," said Bodwinkle: "Will it depend upon my answer whether or not you exert yourself in my favour?"
"Entirely," said I.
"Then, my dear Lord Frank," said Bodwinkle, affectionately grasping my hand, "believe me, that so far as I am concerned, and I can say the same for Goldtip, our only single desire is to do that which England expects of every man at such a crisis,—our duty, entirely irrespective of all personal considerations."
I wrung Bodwinkle's hand warmly (I could have crushed every bone in it), and threw an expression of tender interest into my glance as I said, "I wonder, Bodwinkle, how many candidates are actuated by these lofty views in the coming election; but you must not let yourself be too much carried away by your Quixotic convictions. Remember, my friend, what you owe to your party."
"I never forget it," said Bodwinkle, readily. "I have four things to consider—my country, my party, my family, and my conscience. I begin by asking my conscience what are the interests of my country. My conscience replies promptly that my party should be in power. I then ask my conscience what are the interests of my family, and my conscience invariably says the same thing. I then ask my conscience whether it has any political views of its own, and my conscience responds that it is a mercantile conscience, which has always been absorbed in commerce, and that takes no interest in abstract politics; so that practically, you see, I have no difficulty, so far as my conscience is concerned."
"Wog is right," I mused as I walked home—"postiche is everywhere. We certainly do 'make up' well. I suppose this country never looked more fair and flourishing in the eyes of the world in general than it does at this moment. We have made a great succès by means of postiche—there is no denying it. But we shall fall to pieces all of a sudden like old Lady Pimlico; and the wrinkles will appear before long in the national cheeks in spite of the rouge. Ah, the taunts we shall have to endure when the postiche is discovered, from the rivals that have always been jealous and are still under the prestige of our former charms! Then the kings of the earth with whom we have lived delicately will turn against us, for they will remember our greed and our pride and our egotism, in the days when we sold our virtue for gold, and our honour for a mess of pottage. Is there no one who will cry aloud in the streets while there is yet time?—will there not be one man in these coming elections who will have the courage to tell the people that their senses are so drugged by prosperity that they are blind to the impending doom, and that the only way to avert it will be by a policy diametrically opposed to that which has fascinated the nation for the last few years, because it has conducted them so pleasantly along those smooth and flowery paths that lead to destruction? Be sure, oh my countrymen, that for you collectively, as well as individually, there is a broad and a narrow way, and that as surely as a nation ignores its duties towards God and its obligations towards its neighbours, so surely will a swift judgment overtake it!" I was interrupted by a policeman at this point, who kindly called my attention to the fact that in my prophetic fervour I had myself been crying aloud in the streets, and accompanying my denunciations with appropriate action. "I will throw off a few of these ideas for the benefit of my constituents, while the sacred fire is still upon me," thought I, as I stood at my bay-window, and watched the grey dawn of the June morning breaking over Green Park. Sleep at such a moment is impossible, and I pulled the addresses of Spiffy and Bodwinkle from my pocket.
"Gentlemen," says Spiffy to the independent electors of Shuffleborough, "in soliciting the favour of your suffrages at the approaching general election, I am aware that I labour under the disadvantage of coming before you as an untried man, but I ask you all the more confidently on this account to substitute me for one who has been tried and found wanting. Still more painfully conscious am I of the fact that I am open to the charge of causing a fatal split in that Liberal party to which I have the honour to belong. Gentlemen, I regret to say that in some instances the members of that party have not been true to the principles which they profess, and have issued addresses almost identical in the terms they employ and in the measures they advocate with those of the Liberal Conservative party. It is no satisfaction to me to be told that there are as many false Conservatives as there are false Liberals. As a friend of the people I am opposed to all compromises, and will unflinchingly expose treachery in the camp. You will find that my political views are clear and decided.
"Though a member of the Church of England, I am in favour of the total abolition of Church-rates, as I believe that you will spiritualise the Church precisely in proportion as you starve it.
"I am in favour of an extension of the franchise to such an extent as will comprise all the working-classes, and thus pave the way to that universal suffrage in which I myself shall be included, and for the first time enjoy the privilege of voting.