“It was never on that I am aware of,” said William Massarene stiffly, with a look like that of a displeased bull on his face.
“Well, no, of course it wasn’t. Ronald wouldn’t know you. I’m afraid, my good Billy, there’ll be people who won’t know you to the very end of your day.”
He looked more displeased still, but he was accustomed to bear her insolence patiently.
“Every man has his price, they say,” he answered doggedly. “Seems as I haven’t hit on Lord Hurstmanceaux’s.”
He did not venture to say to her that he was delighted her project had failed.
“What funny things you say, Billy,” cried Mouse, with a peal of her enchanting laughter.
He was charmed, and began to believe himself a wit.
“I’m coming to hear you to-night,” she added.
He had been asked to speak on the Early Closing Bill; the bill was originally a Conservative measure, and so the Conservative party was obliged to support it in its Radical dress. The prospect made him nervous, but he was a man who knew how to control his nerves; and he had that solid sense of his own powers which when it is allied to good sense is the surest of all support. Moreover, Mouse knew exactly how to flatter whilst she bullied him; to flatter him enough, to make him happy, never enough to make herself ridiculous, or her kind words cheap.
“It’s darned rot,” thought William Massarene. “All this here kind of thing is socialism in disguise. The public is treated like a child, and an idiot child. If it wants shops open late, it’ll pay traders to keep ’em open, and if it wants ’em shut early, it won’t pay traders to keep ’em open. That’s all about it I reckon. ’Tis one of them things that should be left to the public. A trader don’t want to sit twiddling his thumbs, and why in hell’s name should the Government force him to twiddle his thumbs?”