"What did the crowds outside the hotel care whether the boy was his or not?" cried Mr. Forrester. "They gave him their votes; and there was the other man thrown out, though he might have played off his two lovely little girls against the borrowed brat with every chance of success. Oh, children are simply thrown away upon superior men like that!"
But Wingfield showed himself superior to such ridiculous affectations of superiority and high-tonedness. He knew enough about practical politics to be aware of the affinity of the cult to the pastry industry of the roadside. To attain success in the making of mud pies one must not be over-careful of one's hands. There is no making mud pies without mud, and there is no dabbling in politics if you mean to devote your best energies to the culture of lilies--not the speckled variety nor even the golden, but the pure saint of flowerland, the snow-white sort.
Of this fact Jack Wingfield was well aware, so he did not resent--certainly not openly--Mr. Forrester's advice: "You must run your wife's connection with farming for all that it's worth."
"And it's worth a good deal," assented the candidate. "Yes, we'll rub it in, never fear."
And Priscilla also showed herself to be quite alive to the value of this connection.
"I'll give a practical lesson daily on 'How to make farming pay,'" she cried. "I'll take care that he has not a monopoly of the farm in his speeches."
"Oh! those speeches are what I dread," groaned Jack. "Psha! you've no idea how simple this part of it is," said Mr. Forrester. "All you've got to do is to get well grounded on about half a dozen topics and speak all you know of all of them at every meeting. Don't on any account commit anything to memory, for so long as you don't make use of the same words no one will recognize any sameness or repetition in what you say. I'll take care that you have a proper number of repartees made out for you upon every occasion. These will be typewritten on slips of paper, and placed in order on the table in front of you, so that when the conscientious objectors, for whom we will arrange, ask you their questions from the body of the hall or the gallery, you will have nothing to do but glance at the repartee before you and repeat it with whatever inflection you may think necessary. Only you mustn't forget to turn down each repartee when you have delivered it, or you'll find yourself at sea."