He was rather a good-looking fellow, a well-built, sound, red-bearded Englishman.  His ears were not quite so close against his head as they should be; his lips might have had a more urbane expression; his hand might have been a trifle less weighty; but when he stood up with his back to the fire and looked musingly along the cornice of the room, one felt that his appearance on a platform would conciliate those right-thinking electors who desire that Parliament should represent the comely, beef-fed British breed.  He was fairly well-to-do, though some held that he had speculated a little rashly of late; he felt very strongly, however, that his pedestal must be yet more solid before he could claim the confidence of his countrymen with the completeness that he desired.  Of late he had given thought to a particular scheme, and not at all a disagreeable one, for enhancing his social, and therefore political, credit.  He was thinking of her—­the scheme, I would say—­at present.

These chambers of his were in Westminster; they were spacious, convenient; he had received deputations from his constituents here.  Lambeth was only just over the water; he liked to be near, for it was one of his hobbies, one of the very few that he allowed himself, to keep thoroughly cognisant of the affairs of his borough—­which, as you are aware, includes the district of Lambeth—­even of its petty affairs.  Some day, he said to himself, he would in this way overlook Great Britain—­would have her statistics at his finger-ends, would change here, confirm there, guide everywhere.  In the meantime he satisfied himself with this section.  He knew what was going on in workmen’s clubs, in places of amusement, in the market streets.  There is a pleasure in surveying from a height the doing and driving of ordinary mortals; a member for Vauxhall studying his borough in this spirit naturally comes to feel himself a sort of Grand Duke.

It was one o’clock.  There came a knock at the door, followed by the appearance of a middle-aged man who silently proclaimed himself a secretary.  This was Mr. Tasker; he had served Mr. Dalmaine thus for three years, prior to which he had been employed as a clerk at the works in Lambeth.  Mr. Dalmaine first had his attention drawn to Tasker eight or nine years before, by an instance of singular shrewdness in the latter’s discharge of his duties.  From that day he kept his eye on him—­took Opportunities of advancing him.  Tasker was born with a love of politics and with a genius for detail; Mr. Dalmaine discovered all this, and, when the due season came, raised him to the dignity of his private scribe.  Tasker regarded his employer as his earthly Providence, was devoted to him, served him admirably.  It was the one instance of Mr. Dalmaine’s having interested himself in an individual; he had no thought of anything but his own profit in doing so, but none the less he had made a mortal happy.  You observe the beneficence that lies in practicality.