“I do wish Brooke would leave that off,” said Sir James, with his little frown of annoyance.

“Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?” said Mr. Cadwallader.  “I saw Farebrother yesterday—­ he’s Whiggish himself, hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge; that’s the worst I know of him;—­and he says that Brooke is getting up a pretty strong party.  Bulstrode, the banker, is his foremost man.  But he thinks Brooke would come off badly at a nomination.”

“Exactly,” said Sir James, with earnestness.  “I have been inquiring into the thing, for I’ve never known anything about Middlemarch politics before—­the county being my business.  What Brooke trusts to, is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite.  But Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where, but dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man.  Hawley’s rather rough:  he forgot that he was speaking to me.  He said if Brooke wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the hustings.”

“I warned you all of it,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her hands outward.  “I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke is going to make a splash in the mud.  And now he has done it.”

“Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry,” said the Rector.  “That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with politics.”

“He may do that afterwards,” said Mrs. Cadwallader—­“when he has come out on the other side of the mud with an ague.”

“What I care for most is his own dignity,” said Sir James.  “Of course I care the more because of the family.  But he’s getting on in life now, and I don’t like to think of his exposing himself.  They will be raking up everything against him.”

“I suppose it’s no use trying any persuasion,” said the Rector.  “There’s such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke.  Have you tried him on the subject?”

“Well, no,” said Sir James; “I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate.  But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of.  Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything.  I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke’s standing this time.  I think he’ll turn him round:  I think the nomination may be staved off.”

“I know,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, nodding.  “The independent member hasn’t got his speeches well enough by heart.”

“But this Ladislaw—­there again is a vexatious business,” said Sir James.  “We have had him two or three times to dine at the Hall (you have met him, by the bye) as Brooke’s guest and a relation of Casaubon’s, thinking he was only on a flying visit.  And now I find he’s in everybody’s mouth in Middlemarch as the editor of the `Pioneer.’  There are stories going about him as a quill-driving alien, a foreign emissary, and what not.”