Thus was he thinking when a voice said:
‘Not got a job about you, sir?’
Michael quickened his steps, then stood still. He saw that the man who had spoken, having cast his eyes down again, had missed this sign of weakness; and he went back to him. They were black eyes in a face round and pasty like a mince-pie. Decent and shabby, quiet and forlorn, he wore an ex-Service-man’s badge.
‘You spoke to me?’ said Michael.
‘I’m sure I don’t know why, sir; it just hopped out of me.’
‘No work?’
‘No; and pretty low.’
‘Married?’
‘Widower, sir; two children.’
‘Dole?’
‘Yes; and fair sick of it.’
‘In the war, I see?’
‘Yes, Mespot.’
‘What sort of a job do you want?’
‘Any mortal thing.’
‘Give me your name and address.’
‘Henry Boddick, 4 Waltham Buildings, Gunnersbury.’
Michael took it down.
‘Can’t promise anything,’ he said.
‘No, sir.’
‘Good luck, anyway. Have a cigar?’
‘Thank you, and good luck to you, sir.’
Michael saluted, and resumed his progress; once out of sight of Henry Boddick, he took a taxi. A little more of this, and he would lose the sweet reasonableness without which one could not sit in ‘that House’!
‘For Sale or to Let’ recorded recurrently in Portland Place, somewhat restored his sense of balance.
That same afternoon he took Francis Wilmot with him to the House, and leaving him at the foot of the Distinguished Strangers’ stairway, made his way on to the floor.
He had never been in Ireland, so that the debate had for him little relation to reality. It seemed to illustrate, however, the obstacles in the way of agreement on any mortal subject. Almost every speech emphasized the paramount need for a settlement, but declared the impossibility of ‘going back’ on this, that, or the other factor which precluded such settlement. Still, for a debate on Ireland it seemed good-tempered; and presently they would all go out and record the votes they had determined on before it all began. He remembered the thrill with which he had listened to the first debates after his election; the impression each speech had given him that somebody must certainly be converted to something and the reluctance with which he had discovered that nobody ever was. Some force was at work far stronger than any eloquence, however striking or sincere. The clothes were washed elsewhere; in here they were but aired before being put on. Still, until people put thoughts into words, they didn’t know what they thought, and sometimes they didn’t know afterwards. And for the hundredth time Michael was seized by a weak feeling in his legs. In a few weeks he himself must rise on them. Would the House accord him its ‘customary indulgence’! or would it say: ‘Young fellow – teaching your grandmother to suck eggs – shut up!’
He looked around him.
His fellow members were sitting in all shapes. Chosen of the people, they confirmed the doctrine that human nature did not change, or so slowly that one could not see the process – he had seen their prototypes in Roman statues, in medieval pictures…. ‘Plain but pleasant,’ he thought, unconsciously reproducing George Forsyte’s description of himself in his palmy days. But did they take themselves seriously, as under Burke, as under Gladstone even?
The words ‘customary indulgence’ roused him from reverie; for they meant a maiden speech. Hal yes! the member for Cornmarket. He composed himself to listen. Delivering himself with restraint and clarity, the speaker seemed suggesting that the doctrine ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you’ need not be entirely neglected, even in Ireland; but it was long – too long – Michael watched the House grow restive. ‘Alas! poor brother!’ he thought, as the speaker somewhat hastily sat down. A very handsome man rose in his place. He congratulated his honourable friend on his able and well-delivered effort, he only regretted that it had nothing to do with the business in hand. Exactly! Michael slipped out. Recovering his ‘distinguished stranger’, he walked away with him to South Square.
Francis Wilmot was in a state of some enthusiasm.
‘That was fine,’ he said. ‘Who was the gentleman under the curtains?’
‘The Speaker?’
‘No; I mean the one who didn’t speak.’
‘Exactly; he’s the dignity of the House.’
‘They ought to feed him oxygen; it must be sleepy under there. I liked the delegate who spoke last. He would “go” in America; he had big ideas.’
‘The idealism which keeps you out of the League of Nations, eh?’ said Michael with a grin.