"
"And now I suppose you will turn him out?" asked the doctor, lazily. In
the beatitude induced by a completed article and an afternoon smoke, he
was for the moment incapable of taking a tragic view either of Marsham's
shortcomings or his prospects.
"Certainly, we shall turn him out."
"Ah!--a Labor candidate?" said the doctor, showing a little more energy.
Whereupon the Vicar, with as strong a relish for the _primeur_ of an
important piece of news as any secular fighter, described a meeting held
the night before in one of the mining villages, at which he had been a
speaker. The meeting had decided to run a miners' candidate; expenses
had been guaranteed; and the resolution passed meant, according to
Lavery, that Marsham would be badly beaten, and that Colonel Simpson,
his Conservative opponent, would be handsomely presented with a seat in
Parliament, to which his own personal merits had no claim whatever.
"But that we put up with," said the Vicar, grimly. "The joy of turning
out Marsham is compensation."
The doctor turned an observant eye on his companion's clerical coat.
"Shall we hear these sentiments next Sunday from the pulpit?" he asked,
mildly.
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