“I will challenge you to repeat that statement in the House or on any public platform, sir,” Tallente objected.  “The present state of discontent throughout the country is solely owing to the shocking financial mismanagement of every Chancellor of the Exchequer and lawmaker since peace was signed.  We won the war and the people who had been asked to make heroic sacrifices were simply expected to continue them afterwards as a matter of course.  What chance has the man of moderate means had to improve his position, to save a little for his old age, during the last ten years?  A third of his income has gone in taxation and the cost of everything is fifty per cent, more than it was before the war.  And we won it, mind.  That is what he can’t understand.  We won the war and found ruin.”

“Legislation has done its best,” the Prime Minister said, “to assist in the distribution of capital.”

“Legislation was too slow,” Tallente answered bluntly.  “Legislation is only playing with the subject now.  You sneer at the Democratic Party, but they have a perfectly sound scheme of financial reform and they undertake to bring the income tax down to two shillings in the pound within the next three years.”

“They’ll ruin half the merchants and the manufacturers in the country if they attempt it.”

“How can they ruin them?” Tallente replied.  “The factories will be there, the trade will be there, the money will still be there.  The financial legislation of the last few years has simply been a blatant nursing of the profiteer.”

“I need not say, Tallente, that I disagree with you entirely,” his companion declared.  “At the same time, I am not going to argue with you.  To tell you the truth, I spent a great part of last night with you in my thoughts.  We cannot afford to let you go.  Supposing, now, that I could induce Watkinson to give up Kendal?  His seat is quite safe and with a little reshuffling you would be able to slip back gradually to your place amongst us?”

Tallente shook his head.

“I am very sorry, sir,” he said, “but my decision is taken.  I have come to the conclusion that, with proper handling and amalgamation, the Democrats are capable of becoming the only sound political party at present possible.  If Stephen Dartrey is still of the same mind when I see him this morning, I shall throw in my lot with theirs.”

The Prime Minister frowned.  He recognised bitterly an error in tactics.  The ranks of his own party were filled with brilliant men without executive gifts.  It was for that reason he had for the moment ignored Tallente.  He realised, however, that in the opposite camp no man could be more dangerous.

“This thing seems to me really terrible, Tallente,” he protested gravely.  “After all, however much we may ignore it, there is what we might call a clannishness amongst Englishmen of a certain order which has helped this country through many troubles.  You are going to leave behind entirely the companionship of your class.  You are going to cast in your lot with the riffraff of politics, the mealy-mouthed anarchist only biding his time, the blatant Bolshevist talking of compromise with his tongue in his cheek, the tub-thumper out to confiscate every one’s wealth and start a public house.  You won’t know yourself in this gallery.”