“No, no; of course not.”  Glazzard spoke with unwonted animation.  “You don’t know what my life is and has been.  Look I must do something to make my blood circulate, or I shall furnish a case for the coroner one of these mornings.  I want excitement.  I have taken up one thing after another, and gone just far enough to understand that there’s no hope of reaching what I aimed at—­superlative excellence; then the thing began to nauseate me.  I’m like poor Jackson, the novelist, who groaned to me once that for fifteen years the reviewers had been describing his books as ‘above the average.’  In whatever I have undertaken the results were ‘above the average,’ and that’s all.  This is damned poor consolation for a man with a temperament like mine!”

His voice broke down.  He had talked himself into a tremor, and the exhibition of feeling astonished his brother, who—­as is so often the case between brothers—­had never suspected what lay beneath the surface of Eustace’s dilettante life.

“I can enter into that,” said the elder, slowly.  “But do you imagine that in politics you have found your real line?”

“No such thing.  But it offers me a chance of living for a few years.  I don’t flatter myself that I could make a figure in the House of Commons; but I want to sit there, and be in the full current of existence.  I had never dreamt of such a thing until Stark suggested it.  But he’s a shrewd fellow, and he has guessed my need.”

“What about the financial matter?” asked William, after reflection.

“I see no insuperable difficulty.  You, I understand, are in no position to help me?”

“Oh, I won’t say that,” interrupted the other.  “A few hundreds will make no difference to me.  I suppose you see your way for the ordinary expenses of life?”

“With care, yes.  I’ve been throwing money away, but that shall stop; there’ll be no need for it when my nerves are put in tone.”

“Well, it strikes me in a comical light, but you must act as you think best.  I’ll go to work for you.  It’s a pity I stand so much apart, but I suppose my name is worth something.  The Radicals have often tried to draw me into their camp, and of course it’s taken for granted that I am rather for than against them.  By-the-bye, what is the date?  Ah! that’s fortunate.  To-morrow I am booked to take the chair at the Institute; a lecture—­I don’t know by whom, or about what.  A good opportunity for setting things astir.”

“Then you do take some part in town life?”

“Most exceptional thing.  I must have refused to lecture and to chairmanize twenty times.  But those fellows are persistent; they caught me in a weak moment a few days ago.  I suppose you realize the kind of speechifying that would be expected of you?  Are you prepared to blaze away against Beaconsfield, and all that sort of thing?”

“I’m not afraid.  There are more sides to my character than you suppose.”