W. Pett Ridge

“ CHAPTER XV IF Erb's experience of life had been greater, if his knowledge of the trend of events had been more extensive, he would have been helped by the assurance that in this world, mist and sunshine alternate, and that rarely a fog descends on the life of an energetic man and remains there always. ”

“ On Aunt Emma asking whether these places were not in point of fact a long way off, Erb was forced to admit that they were a pretty tidy step, and that, everything else being equal, he would prefer to stay in the London where he had been born—the London that he knew, the London that he liked. ”

“ She's with a family travelling abroad now. Tall girl with eyes.”
“I'd forgotten all about her.”
“Ah!” sighed the cook. “That's a man all over. It's the old saying over again. 'Out of sight, out of mind.”
“And I told Lady Frances,” continued Alice, leaving cook to mutter to a large joint of beef turning before a desperately fierce fire, “and you're to see her, Erb, directly after dinner.”
“What's in the wind?”
“Last time you was here, Mr. Barnes,” said cook, over her shoulder from the fire, “you came as a friend of the family. Funny world isn't it? Upstairs one day, downstairs the next.” ”

“ Erb read a slip of paper that Doubleday had left on the desk. Doubleday had addressed it to the committee, and it told them that, finding his health was giving way under the stress of the few days' work, he had decided to take a holiday. If there should be any little trifle short in the cash accounts, that would be replaced as soon as he could make it convenient to do so. He added that he had drawn the sum standing to the Society's credit, because there was not enough money in the safe to enable him to take the somewhat lengthened holiday which he felt was necessary. ”

“ Four railway carmen he met, driving their vans, instead of the “Hello!” and the mystic twist of the whip, there was first a glance of cautious recognition, then a steady look ahead, with an air of absorbed interest, as though realising for the first time the horse's presence. ”

“ At the station itself, men of his old Society, on seeing him, hurried round to the tails of their vans, and commenced sorting parcels there with industry. All this sent Erb into the deeper depths, and it was not until he reached Worthing, and found on the platform Rosalind and Aunt Emma and his sister, Louisa, Louisa's white face becoming pink with excitement, that he forgot his worries. ”

“ All the expenses would be paid, and all the help that the party could give would be willingly afforded. It would be better to put up a man like Erb, who had never before submitted to the suffrages of a constituency, than a man who had elsewhere undergone the experience of rejection. ”

“ The white-haired Labour member wrote in cautious terms that a certain bye-election in a London constituency was imminent. It had been decided to run a Labour candidate; the other two sides were pretty evenly matched, and if the game were played well, and played out, there was good chance of the Labour man making a fair show; there was another chance, less probable, but possible, that the Liberal candidate, if he found he had no prospect of winning, might retire before the election. The point was (wrote the Labour M.P.) , would Erb consent to stand if he were selected? ”