“Come, that’s rather good, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, taking up the paper and trying to bear the attack as easily as his neighbor did, but coloring and smiling rather nervously; “that about roaring himself red at rotten boroughs—I never made a speech about rotten boroughs in my life. And as to roaring myself red and that kind of thing—these men never understand what is good satire. Satire, you know, should be true up to a certain point. I recollect they said that in The Edinburgh somewhere—it must be true up to a certain point.”
“Well, that is really a hit about the gates,” said Sir James, anxious to tread carefully. “Dagley complained to me the other day that he hadn’t got a decent gate on his farm. Garth has invented a new pattern of gate—I wish you would try it. One ought to use some of one’s timber in that way.”
“You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam,” said Mr. Brooke, appearing to glance over the columns of the Trumpet . “That’s your hobby, and you don’t mind the expense.”
“I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was standing for Parliament,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “They said the last unsuccessful candidate at Middlemarch—Giles, wasn’t his name?—spent ten thousand pounds and failed because he did not bribe enough. What a bitter reflection for a man!”
“Somebody was saying,” said the Rector, laughingly, “that East Retford was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery.”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Brooke. “The Tories bribe, you know: Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot codlings, and that sort of thing; and they bring the voters drunk to the poll. But they are not going to have it their own way in future—not in future, you know. Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit—the freemen are a little backward. But we shall educate them—we shall bring them on, you know. The best people there are on our side.”