After a few observations on the last debate, this gentleman said:
"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on Monday."
"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom, to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I respect so much."
"So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting—pleasant old-fashioned house."
"My dear Westbourne, his house is 'nimium vicina Cremonæ,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in effigy."
"Ha—ha—yes—I remember you first came into Parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes, did he?"
"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange."
"Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?"
"He comes, generally every year, for a few days, just to see his father and mother, and then goes back to the Continent."
"I never meet him."