‘What sort of a day did you have?’ Mr. Culbrett asked him; and several gentlemen fell upon him for an account of the day.

Palmet grimaced over a mouthful of his pie.

‘Bad!’ quoth Mr. Lespel; ’I knew it.  I know Bevisham.  The only chance there is for five thousand pounds in a sack with a hole in it.’

‘Bad for Beauchamp?  Dear me, no’; Palmet corrected the error.  ’He is carrying all before him.  And he tells them,’ Palmet mimicked Beauchamp, ’they shall not have one penny:  not a farthing.  I gave a couple of young ones a shilling apiece, and he rowed me for bribery; somehow I did wrong.’

Lord Palmet described the various unearthly characters he had inspected in their dens:  Carpendike, Tripehallow, and the radicals Peter Molyneux and Samuel Killick, and the ex-member for the borough, Cougham, posing to suit sign-boards of Liberal inns, with a hand thrust in his waistcoat, and his head well up, the eyes running over the under-lids, after the traditional style of our aristocracy; but perhaps more closely resembling an urchin on tiptoe peering above park-palings.  Cougham’s remark to Beauchamp, heard and repeated by Palmet with the object of giving an example of the senior Liberal’s phraseology:  ’I was necessitated to vacate my town mansion, to my material discomfort and that of my wife, whose equipage I have been compelled to take, by your premature canvass of the borough, Captain Beauchamp:  and now, I hear, on undeniable authority, that no second opponent to us will be forthcoming’—–­this produced the greatest effect on the company.

‘But do you tell me,’ said Mr. Lespel, when the shouts of the gentlemen were subsiding, ‘do you tell me that young Beauchamp is going ahead?’

‘That he is.  They flock to him in the street.’

‘He stands there, then, and jingles a money-bag.’

Palmet resumed his mimicry of Beauchamp:  ’Not a stiver; purity of election is the first condition of instruction to the people!  Principles!  Then they’ve got a capital orator:  Turbot, an Irishman.  I went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer in my life.  You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me like a top; and while he was orationing, a donkey calls, “Turbot! ain’t you a flat fish?” and he swings round, “Not for a fool’s hook!” and out they hustled the villain for a Tory.  I never saw anything like it.’

‘That repartee wouldn’t have done with a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,’ said Stukely Culbrett.  ‘But let us hear more.’

‘Is it fair?’ Miss Halkett murmured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel, who returned a flitting shrug.

‘Charming women follow Beauchamp, you know,’ Palmet proceeded, as he conceived, to confirm and heighten the tale of success.  ’There’s a Miss Denham, niece of a doctor, a Dr . . . .  Shot—­Shrapnel! a wonderfully good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half-a-dozen streets to ask how he’s getting on, and goes every night to his meetings, with a man who ’s a writer and has a mad wife; a man named Lydia-no, that’s a woman—­Lydiard.  It’s rather a jumble; but you should see her when Beauchamp’s on his legs and speaking.’