And when the young ostrich stalked out of the shell, and in the course of time took up its position in the world as a superior bird, Aloysius Gleam looked on with undisguised satisfaction.
Once, in the early days of Goddard’s affluence, Gleam interrupted a warm discussion.
“Why don’t you take elocution lessons?”
“I never thought of it,” Goddard replied. “I have no desire to become an elegant orator.”
“It might be useful to you in your private speech,” said Gleam, looking at him in his shrewd way. Goddard frowned perplexedly. Then he understood and coloured slightly.
“I don’t want to pretend to be better than I am,” he said. “If my speech shows I belong to the people, so much the better. No one will think the worse of me.”
Gleam laid his hand kindly on the young democrat’s arm—they were walking up and down the lobby of the House—and broke out into an impetuous harangue. The young man’s argument was easily demolished.
The result was that in this, as in many other things, he took Gleam’s advice. He was no fool for angry pride to furnish him with cap and bells. He saw, when he came to consider the matter dispassionately, that though London Doric might be sweet in the ears of the proletariat, it grated on the finer susceptibilities of the House of Commons. Whereupon he set to work upon elocution with the tireless energy of a Demosthenes.
So in seven years he had gained for himself an ever-growing reputation. The great reviews had opened their pages to him. The League intrusted him with responsible work. He was on the London County Council, and a seat in Parliament awaited him at no distant future.
To please his wife, Daniel had not settled down in Sunington. He had bidden farewell reluctantly, for it meant the sundering of many ties, and the surrendering of many interests. But Lizzie had been insistent. Visions of domestic harmony, disturbed by incursions of Captain Jenkyns in an advanced state of profanity, had prompted earnest beseeching. Perhaps she was wise; for soon after her marriage the old reprobate, to the exceeding great scandal of the neighbourhood, took to himself a mistress-housekeeper in the shape of a flaunting, red-faced female of pugnacious instincts, who had retained possession of the house after his death. Their goings on, Emily and Sophie declared, had been something awful.