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very high pitch.
    ‘Have you brought your greatcoat?’ he asked Tobias. Tobias shook his head. ‘What’s in that valise?’ asked Jack, shouting over the double peal.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Tobias, and as far as he knew this was true – he had put nothing in the valise: it had been there, strapped behind the saddle, as much part of the harness as the big horse-pistols in front, when he had mounted, and he had paid no attention to it. But in point of fact it was filled with necessaries. ‘The poor boy cannot go out into the world without so much as a clean shirt,’ had been Mrs Chaworth’s instant reply on hearing that Tobias was on the wing. She might disapprove of Tobias in some ways, but she had a real affection for him, and she anxiously rummaged the house for things of a suitable size – Jack’s were all far too big – and Georgiana, guided by who knows what unhappy chance, crowned the whole valise-full with another pair of strong list slippers, all bedewed with tears. But Tobias was unaware of this, and the excellent greatcoat behind him remained untouched: Jack therefore left his alone, and very soon both of them were so exceedingly wet that the water ran down inside their clothes, filled their shoes, and pouredfrom them in a stream that contended with the water and mud flung up from the road. The extreme fury of the storm was soon over: the thunder and the lightning moved away to terrify Huntingdon, Rutland and Nottingham, but the rain had set in for the day and it fell without the least respite from that moment onwards. However, Tobias was wonderfully indifferent to foul weather, and Jack, though he preferred a dry back, could put up with a wet one as well as anybody, so they rode steadily through the downpour, conversing as soon as the thunder would let them.
    ‘You have often mentioned interest,’ said Tobias. ‘What is this interest, I beg?’
    ‘Well,’ said Jack, considering, ‘it is interest, you know. That is to say, influence, if you understand me – very much the same thing as influence. Everything goes by interest, more or less. It is really a matter of doing favours: I mean, suppose you are in Parliament, and there is a fellow, a minister or a private member, who wants a bill to be passed – if he comes to you and says, “You would oblige me extremely by voting for my bill,” and you do vote for his bill, why then the fellow is bound to do as much for you, if he is a man of honour. And if you do not happen to want to do anything in the parliamentary line, but prefer to get a place under Government for one of your friends, then the fellow with the bill must do what he can to gratify you. Besides, if he don’t, he will never have your vote again, ha, ha. That is, he must do what he can within reason: if you want a thundering good place, like being the Warden of the Stannaries with a thousand a year and all the work done by the deputy-warden, you must do a great deal more for it than just vote once or twice; but if it is just a matter of having someone let into a place where he will have to work very hard every day and get precious little pay for it, which is the case in the Navy, why then there is no great difficulty.’
    ‘I do not understand how a private member can help you to a place.’
    ‘Why, don’t you see? You have two votes for the time being, your own and this other man’s: so when you go and ask your favour of the minister – the First Lord of the Admiralty, if it is the Navy – he knows that you are twice as important as if you were alone, so he is twice as willing to oblige you. And of course if you have a goodmany friends and relatives in the House, you are more important still, because if you were all to vote against the administration together you might bring them down and turn the ministers out. And then it is even better to be in the House of Lords, if you can manage it, because, do you see, a minister might decide that it was worth while offending a member of the