"They don't give you rheumatism, I grant you," said a fat man beside him; "but they aren't healthy. I don't care what a man's trade is, if he can discourse about it, it's improbable he can do his job. And yet we poor devils of politicians have to spin our brains into jaw——"
"True," said Kilgour. "You don't trust a glib fellow to dig your garden.... And yet you turn over your country to him."
The fat man grunted.
"I never want to open my mouth again," he said. "I'm addressing six meetings a week in my constituency, and nothing will go down with 'em but ranting. Tell you what, Kilgour, we're going on wrong principles altogether. What we want is Government by Minority. Just you get on a platform and look down on their silly faces—! The fools are in the majority in any walk of life; they swamp the sensible chaps, even Solomon noticed that. And it's the fools we must please, because they are many. We take their opinion; we let them settle things. The whole system is upside down."
"There's something in that," said Kilgour. "It always amuses me how you vote-catchers despise a man who works with his head; and bow down to your ignorant fetish the working man."
There was a slight disturbance in the cover, but nothing came of it. People shifted backwards and forwards; there was a smell of wet leather and steaming horses.
"Are you cold?" said Barnaby.
Susan smiled. He was between her and the worst of it; the rain beat on his upturned face as he sheltered her. She liked watching him ... she was not unhappy.
The lank man was trying to light a cigar. He glanced up between his hollowed fingers, his eyes twinkling in a creased red face.
"Our lives aren't worth living, Mrs. Barnaby," he said. "We are all made so painfully aware of our inferior status. The tail wagging the dog; that's what we have come to."