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Commons’ house, for at the next election he may not come in again, but a peer, once he is in, is in for the rest of his life, and he could do you an ill turn for years and years. But it is all pretty complicated, and not at all as simple as that.’
    ‘How do the people without interest get along?’
    ‘They have to rely on merit.’
    ‘Does that answer?’
    ‘Well,’ said Jack slowly, ‘valour and virtue are very good things, I am sure: but I should be sorry to have to rely upon them alone, for my part.’
    Tobias made no reply, and they rode for a long way in silence through the rain. Jack looked at him from time to time, and regretted that he had been quite so talkative about the squalid side of political life.
    ‘You’re pretty shocked, an’t you?’ he said at last.
    ‘No,’ said Tobias. ‘I had always read that the world was like that. What I was thinking about was your poem which begins
Historic Muse, awake’
    ‘Were you indeed?’ said Jack, very pleased.
    ‘Yes. I was wondering whether “Spain’s proud nation, dreaded now no more” was quite right: “now” could mean
now,
and thus confuse the reader’s mind.’
    ‘Oh no, Toby. Think of what goes before –
    ‘Twas in Eliza’s memorable reign
    When Britain’s fleet, acknowledged, ruled the main,
    When Heav’n and it repelled from Albion’s shore
    Spain’s – and so on.
    It was
then
that it was not dreaded now, do you see? I have composed a great deal more of it, Toby.’
    Oh.’
    ‘Should you like to hear it?’
    ‘If you please.’
    ‘I will begin at the beginning, so that you lose none of the effect.’ ‘I know the beginning, Jack,’ said Toby piteously, ‘by heart.’ ‘Never mind,’ said Jack hurriedly, and in a very particular chant he began,
    ‘Historic Muse awake! And from the shade
    Where long forgotten sleep the noble dead (I am sorry that
don’t rhyme better)
    Some worthy chief select, whose martial flame
    May rouse Britannia’s sons to love of fame  …’
    The verse lasted until they were so close to London that the increased traffic made declamation impossible; but still the rain fell with the same steadiness, and Jack said, as they climbed Highgate Hill, ‘I am very sorry that it has not cleared up: I wanted to show you London from here – you can see it all spread out, and the river winding, and millions of lights in the evening. Besides, I thought that you would like to hear some lines I wrote about the prospect while we were actually looking at it. It is in praise of London, considered as a nest of singing-birds – poets, you know.’
    ‘A pretty wet nest, Jack?’
    ‘Of course, it was not like this in the poem,’ said Jack, reining in and peering through the darkening veils of drizzle, ‘but flowery, with meads and zephyrs. Nymphs, too. But I dare say you would like to hear it anyhow, and take the view on trust.’
    As Jack reached the last few lines he quietly loosened the flaps on his saddle-bow and brought out a long pistol, which he cocked: at the sound a lurking pair of shadows in the trees behind them walked briskly off.
    ‘We had better look to our priming,’ he said, sheltering his pistol as well as he could from the rain. ‘There are a terrible lot of thieves about. We don’t run much risk, being mounted, particularly as the rain usually keeps the poor devils indoors; but Cousin Charles got into a by-lane when he was trying to avoid the Holloway turnpike – you can just see it from here, right ahead – and half a dozen of them got about him and pulled him off his horse. They dragged him off towards Black Mary’s Hole, over the way there’ – pointing through the soaking twilight – ‘and used him most barbarously.’
    It was completely dark by the time they reached the town, and it must be confessed that Tobias was sadly disappointed with it; he had expected something splendid, definite and comprehensible, not perhaps so distinct as a walled city with light and splendour inside the