“In what respect?” inquired the lady, settling herself down on the settee, and awaiting, with raised eyebrows, her victim’s answer.
Poor Bloomfield was no match for this deliberate style of tactics.
“They were all yellow,” he replied, feebly.
“All what, sir?” demanded Mrs Patrick.
“All Whig, I mean,” he said.
“Exactly. What I mean to know is, do they any of them appreciate the distinction between a Whig (or, as Mr Riddell terms it, a Liberal)—”
Riddell winced.
”—Between a Whig and a Radical?”
“Oh, certainly not,” replied Bloomfield, wildly. “And yet you say that they decidedly attached a true importance to the issue of the contest? That is very extraordinary!”
And Mrs Patrick rose majestically to take her seat at the table, leaving Bloomfield writhing and turned mentally inside out, to recover as best he could from this interesting political discussion!