“Timkins did—but what was the result. Some years afterwards Timkins decided, being a good Tory and the Mulligans being a good lunching club, to go up for election. He was turned down. Think of it, a man of Timkin’s brains and character being refused membership of the Mulligan Guards—”
“Rather thick,” commented Uncle.
“Time was when clubs were supposed to be homes for gentlemen. To-day, from such point of view our clubs are jokes. Politics, finance, and society are intimately interwoven. Our society is no better than our politics, and our finance is as rotten as its two associates. Colonel Sir Lancelot Pill was able to employ our legislature to put one over on the British Public. Timkins was kept out of the Mulligan Guards to wreck a personal spite, and all this in our enlightened age, our democratic age.”
“How did Sir Lancelot get his title?” I asked.
“He lent the Prince—”
“That be blowed for a story!” broke in Mr. Bang. “He carried a speculative account for one of Laurier’s Ministers, an old reprobate, and the game ended up two hundred thousand dollars to the bad. Pill accepted a knighthood as the only thing to be had in the premises. There is nothing in the white charger—Prince story.”
“I suppose,” ventured Uncle, meekly, “it is quite on the cards the knighthood was a complete ‘quid pro quo’?”
“Quite, oh quite,” agreed Mr. Bang, “most useful for stock market purposes.”
The bazaar, I found just like bazaars at home, only larger; and Lord and Lady Saffron had nothing remarkable about them, while Ladies Margaret, Muriel and Millicent were dressed quite dowdily. To me the three girls seemed ordinary, and one of them, Lady Muriel, stood talking to Mr. Bang before everybody for quite a long time. I know the people of Ottawa did not like it, from a conversation I overheard.
During the evening Mr. Bang went off by himself to play roulette and evidently after this had palled on him, wandered among the booths and soon met Lady Muriel, who was selling tickets for a lottery. I happened to see them meet, for Mumsie, who had fallen in with an old acquaintance was engaged, and so I had nothing to do but to see everything and hear everything I could. Two ladies were conversing in the most English of accents.