Martin Blaydes had become rather dull of car, and found it convenient to do most of the talking himself.

Now and then he turned his sneeze-menacing smile this way or that, and a remark always claimed his courteous attention, but in general his eyes were fixed on the glow of the fireplace, 'whilst he pursued a humorous ramble from thought to thought, topic to topic.

Evidently of local politics he knew nothing and recked not at all; he seemed to take for granted that Lashmar was about to sit in Parliament for Hollingford, and that the young man represented lofty principles rarely combined with public ambition.
"You may do something; I don't know, I don't know.

Things are bad, I fear, and likely to be worse.

We had hopes, Mr.Lashmar, when the world and I were young.