“It wasn’t with Mr. Finn’s cognizance.  I’ve found that out.”

“Well,” said the agent, leaning back-in the luxurious limousine, “I don’t see why somebody, without your cognizance, shouldn’t call Mr. Finn the spoiled minion of the Almighty’s ante-chamber.  That’s a devilish good catch-phrase,” he added, starting forward in the joy of his newborn epigram:  “Devilish good.  ’The spoiled minion of the Almighty’s ante-chamber.’  It’ll become historical.”

“If it does,” said Paul, “it will be associated with the immediate retirement of the Conservative candidate.”

“Do you really mean that?”

It was Paul’s turn to start forward.  “My dear Wilson,” said he, “if you or anybody else thinks I’m a man to talk through his hat, I’ll retire at once.  I don’t care a damn about myself.  Not a little tuppenny damn.  What the devil does it matter to me whether I get into Parliament or not?  Nothing.  Not a tuppenny damn.  You can’t understand.  It’s the party and the country.  For myself, personally, the whole thing can go to blazes.  I’m in earnest, dead earnest,” he continued, with a vehemence incomprehensible to Wilson.  “If anybody doesn’t think so, I’ll clear out at once”—­he snapped his fingers.  “But while I’m candidate everything I say I mean.  I mean it intensely—­with all my soul.  And I say that if there’s a single insulting reference to Mr. Finn during this election, you’ll be up against the wreck of your own political career.”

The agent watched the workings of his candidate’s dark clear-cut face.  He was very proud of his candidate, and found it difficult to realize that there were presumably sane people who would not vote for him on sight.  A lingering memory of grammar school days flashed on him when he told his wife later of the conversation, and he likened Paul to a wrathful Apollo.  Anxious to appease the god, he said humbly: 

“It was the merest of suggestions, Mr. Savelli.  Heaven knows we don’t want to descend to personalities, and your retirement would be an unqualifiable disaster.  But—­you’ll pardon my mentioning it—­ you began this discussion by asking me whether the Almighty had common sense.”

“Well, has He or not?”

“Of course,” said Wilson.

“Then we’re going to win this election,” said Paul.

If he could have met enthusiasm with enthusiasm, all would have been well.  The awakener of England could have captivated hearts by glowing pictures of a great and glorious future.  It would have been a counter-blaze to that lit by his opponent, which flamed in all the effulgence of a reckless reformer’s promise, revealing a Utopia in which there would be no drunkenness, no crime, no poverty, and in which the rich, apparently, would have to work very hard in order to support the poor in comfortable idleness.  But beyond proving fallacies, Paul could do nothing—­and even then, has there ever been a mob since the world began susceptible to logical argument?  So, all through the wintry days of the campaign, Silas Finn carried his fiery cross through the constituency, winning frenzied adherents, while Paul found it hard to rally the faithful round the drooping standard of St. George.