"But I don't want to get in at all," I said; "or at any rate, not for a long time yet. I would rather enjoy myself, for a year or two, and be an M.A., before being M.P."
"Not so. You must buckle to, at once. I have arranged it all, with the greatest care. Not another Session must be lost, before I have you, and Chumps, to back me. The enemy have several evil works on hand, and they will invent a lot more in the holidays. I shall have in Chumps for his great abilities; and you, beloved Tommy, for your flying powers."
"I do not like that way of putting it at all;" I replied, with my usual frankness. "I cannot fly now, any more than you can. And if I could, they would not let me, in the House of Commons."
"That shows how much you know about it. If you had been up in the gallery, as I have, to see what they were at, night after night, you would know that they were as larky as a lot of schoolboys. I got Professor Megalow down here, as he thinks, because of the pelvis (or whatever he calls it), of a mighty dragon, in the cliff at Happystowe. But really, and truly, my dear friend, that he might put you on your wings again, or else show me the proper way to do it."
"Then you have behaved very badly," I exclaimed, "and not like a friend, but a selfish politician."
CHAPTER XXIV. OLD BONES, AND YOUNG ONES.
So much was I vexed at this idea, that Sir Roland Towers-Twentifold valued me, only as a flying puppet, a machine to be started from a spiral spring, or a little boy's coloured balloon, that I assure you, although I was on a bed soft as a dew-cloud—for we did not lie upon cast-iron yet—scarcely a wink of sleep came near me, without being scattered into a fire-wheel of dreams. If it appeared to me a small thing—as it did in modest moments—that I should be brought from London, like a tailor to take orders, or a fellow to exhibit Punch, and Judy—yet how could I reconcile it with the fitness of things, that Professor Megalow should be tempted, with the very biggest dragon for his bait, to come down, upon the really ignoble errand of flipping me up, like a pith-ball of elder, between the plates positive and negative.
At first I thought of consulting him, as to what I should do in the morning; for who else could advise me, so kindly, or so well? But I saw that his counsel was not to be had, without a disclosure of everything; and I had no right to tell him of his own "mission" here. So that on the whole, I was compelled to act, (as I nearly always find to be the case with me) by the dim light only of my own perceptions. "I have no right to make any scene," I thought; "neither is it possible for me to leave abruptly, without giving reason; Lady Twentifold has been most wonderfully kind to me, ever since she first saw me; and she can have no paltry political motive, such as this one-idea'd Roland has. And then there is beautiful Laura, sweet Laura—I suppose I ought to call her Miss Twentifold, but consider the years I have known her—there never has been anybody like her, since the days of Paradise, and how dreadfully rude I should appear to her! Of course, I must never think of her at all, any more than I might of the pole-star. Still, I should like her to think of me, if she ever deigns to do it, with all kindness and good-will. Ah, ha! Lack is the luck! I am a most unhappy fellow. My mother said once, that I had no right to be born; and who should know so well as she?"