March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr Bott was heard to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn’t do. Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr Palliser would not be found wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the Government. That was Mr Bott’s opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr Palliser, and Mr Palliser’s friends, would —. Mr Bott did not say what they would do; but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr Palliser — and of Mr Palliser’s great follower.
“This kind of thing won’t do long, you know,” repeated Mr Bott for the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends round him.
“I suppose not,” said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we once met at Roebury. “Planty Pall won’t stand it, I should say.”
“What can he do?” asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to work.
“What can he do?” said Mr Bott, who on such an occasion as this could be very great — who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott Ministry. “What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do. He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn’t look about him, he’ll find that Mr Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help.”
“You don’t mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!” said the young Member.
“I mean to say that the Queen will send for any one that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon,” said Mr Bott, who conceived himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution. “How hard it is to make any one understand that the Queen has really nothing to do with it!”
“Come, Bott, draw it mild,” said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend.
“Not if I know it,” said Mr Bott, with something of grandeur in his tone and countenance. “I never drew it mild yet, and I shan’t begin now. All our political offences against civilization have come from men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it that Englishmen can’t read and write as Americans do? Why can’t they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been drawing it mild!” And Mr Bott made an action with his hand as though he were drawing up beer from a patent tap.
“But you can’t set aside Her Majesty like that, you know,” said the young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother’s old-world notions about the throne still clung to him.
“I should be very sorry,” said Mr Bott; “I’m no republican.” With all his constitutional lore, Mr Bott did not know what the word republican meant. “I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young Members should learn, and take to their hearts.”
“And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?” said Calder Jones.
“I haven’t said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this — that if Lord Brock doesn’t take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won’t long remain there himself.”
In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and the whole of the south-western part of the metropolis was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor’s name. “Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank.” That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr Scruby who invented the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the invention. There was a question in those days as to embanking the river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations of further Pimlico, and Mr Scruby recommended the coming Member to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to Battersea Bridge. “You must have a subject,” pleaded Mr Scruby. “No young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be local — that is to say, if you have anything of a constituency. Such a subject as that, if it’s well worked, may save you thousands of pounds — thousands of pounds at future elections.”
“It won’t save me anything at this one, I take it.”
“But it may secure the seat, Mr Vavasor, and afterwards make you the most popular metropolitan Member in the House; that is, with your own constituency. Only look at the money that would be spent in the districts if that were done! It would come to millions, sir!”
“But it never will be done.”
“What matters that?” and Mr Scruby almost became eloquent as he explained the nature of a good parliamentary subject. “You should work it up, so as to be able to discuss it at all points. Get the figures by heart, and then, as nobody else will do so, nobody can put you down. Of course it won’t be done. If it were done, that would be an end of it, and your bread would be taken out of your mouth. But you can always promise it at the hustings, and can always demand it in the House. I’ve known men who’ve walked into as much as two thousand a year, permanent place, on the strength of a worse subject than that!”
Vavasor allowed Mr Scruby to manage the matter for him, and took up the subject of the River Bank. Vavasor and the River Bank was carried about by an army of men with iron shoulder-straps, and huge pasteboards placards six feet high on the top of them. You would think, as you saw the long rows, that the men were being marshalled to their several routes; but they always kept together — four-and-twenty at the heels of each other. “One placard at a time would strike the eye,” said Mr Vavasor, counting the expense up to himself. “There’s no doubt of it,” said Mr Scruby in reply. “One placard will do that, if it’s big enough; but it takes four-and-twenty to touch the imagination.” And then sides of houses were covered with that shibboleth, “Vavasor and the River Bank”: the same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses. Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican’s wit. “Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it’s hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank,” said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr Scruby knew what he was about. “He is a sharp un, that he is,” said Grimes in the inside bar of the “Handsome Man”; and he almost regretted that he had left the leadership of Mr Scruby, although he knew that on this occasion he would not have gotten his odd money.
George Vavasor, with much labour, actually did get up the subject of the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men belonging to the Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. He was able ev............