game was the old Jesuit playing? was the question that Sir Joseph felt constrained to ask.
Sir Joseph found the question by no means easy to answer, and we must confess that we share his difficulty. It would be idle, my lords and gentlemen, for us to pretend to illuminate the official prescience. But candidly, we feel that the question might have been addressed to young Mrs. Philip without impropriety, although, of course, Sir Joseph could not be expected to know that, and he would have thought it ridiculous had anyone ventured to make the suggestion. Things don't happen in that way, he would have said.
Maybe, Sir Joseph; yet perchance in that case you would have affirmed but half a truth. It takes a pretty bold man these days to say exactly how things do happen, Monsieur Bergson seems to think.
Still, Sir Joseph certainly thought it was piquant that the son of S. of P. should desire to help the Party. His qualifications for public life appeared to be rather obscure, but being the eldest son of his father he was not without a face value for the enemy.
"And so, Mr. Shelmerdine," said the illustrious man, smiling over the club claret, "you think, with your wife's assistance, you might be able to win a seat like South-West Blackhampton for the party of progress."
