The early English specimen in the chair before him twinkled.
‘The Charwells, you know,’ went on Sir Lawrence, ‘were hoary when that rascally lawyer, the first Mont, founded us under James the First.’
‘Oh!’ said the squire. ‘Are you one of his precious creations? I didn’t know.’
‘You’re not familiar with the slums, sir?’ said Michael, feeling that they must not wander in the mazes of descent.
‘What! No. Ought to be, I suppose. Poor devils!’
‘It’s not so much,’ said Michael, cunningly, ‘the humanitarian side, as the deterioration of stock, which is so serious.’
‘M’m?’ said the squire. ‘Do you know anything about stock-breeding?’
Michael shook his head.
‘Well, you can take it from me that it’s nearly all heredity. You could fat a slum population, but you can’t change their character!’
‘I don’t think there’s anything very wrong with their character,’ said Michael. ‘The children are predominantly fair, which means, I suppose that they’ve still got the Anglo-Saxon qualities.’
He saw his father cock an eye. ‘Quite the diplomat!’ he seemed saying.
‘Whom have you got in mind for this committee?’ asked the squire, abruptly.
‘My father,’ said Michael; ‘and we’d thought of the Marquess of Shropshire –’
‘Very long in the tooth.’
‘But very spry,’ said Sir Lawrence. ‘Still game to electrify the world.’
‘Who else?’
‘Sir Timothy Fanfield –’
‘That fire-eating old buffer! Yes?’
‘Sir Thomas Morsell –’
‘M’m!’
Michael hurried on: ‘Or any other medical man you thought better of, sir.’
‘There are none. Are you sure about the bugs?’
‘Absolutely!’
‘Well, I should have to see Charwell. I’m told he can gammon the hind-leg off a donkey.’
‘Hilary’s a good fellow,’ put in Sir Lawrence; ‘a really good fellow, “squire”.’
‘Well, Mont, if I take to him, I’ll come in. I don’t like vermin.’
‘A great national movement, sir,’ began Michael, ‘and nobody–’
The squire shook his head.
‘Don’t make any mistake,’ he said. ‘May get a few pounds, perhaps – get rid of a few bugs; but national movements – no such things in this country.’…
‘Stout fellow,’ said Sir Lawrence when they were going down the steps again; ‘never been enthusiastic in his life. He’ll make a splendid chairman. I think we’ve got him, Michael. You played your bugs well. We’d better try the Marquess next. Even a duke will serve under Bentworth, they know he’s of older family then themselves, and there’s something about him.’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Well, he isn’t thinking about himself; he never gets into the air; and he doesn’t give a damn for anyone or anything.’
‘There must be something more than that,’ said Michael.
‘Well, there is. The fact is, he thinks as England really thinks, and not as it thinks it thinks.’
‘By Jove!’ said Michael. ‘ “Some” diagnosis! Shall we dine, sir?’
‘Yes, let’s go to the Parthenaeum! When they made me a member there, I used to think I should never go in, but d’you know, I use it quite a lot. It’s more like the East than anything else in London. A Yogi could ask for nothing better. I go in and I sit in a trance until it’s time for me to come out again. There’s no vulgar material comfort. The prevailing colour is that of the Ganges. And there’s more inaccessible wisdom in the place than you could find anywhere else in the West. We’ll have the club dinner. It’s calculated to moderate all transports. Lunch, of course, you can’t get if you’ve a friend with you. One must draw the line somewhere at hospitality.’
‘Now,’ he resumed, when they had finished moderating their transports, ‘let’s go and see the Marquess! I haven’t set eyes on the old boy since that Marjorie Ferrar affair. We’ll hope he hasn’t got gout…’
In Curzon Street, they found that the Marquess had finished dinner and gone back to his study.
‘Don’t wake him if he’s asleep,’ said Sir Lawrence.
‘His lordship is never asleep, Sir Lawrence.’
He was writing when they were ushered in, and stopped to peer at them round the corner of his bureau.
‘Ah, young Mont!’ he said. ‘How pleasant!’ Then paused rather abruptly. ‘Nothing to do with my granddaughter, I trust?’