Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/253

Rh I? I might as well have let it alone. In this world it's better not to be too quick. But you know what it is, sir."

"Not I," said Felix, rubbing the back of his head, with a grimace. "I generally feel myself rather a blockhead. The world's a largish place, and I haven't turned everything inside out yet."

"Ah, that's your deepness. I think we understand one another. And about this here election, I lay two to one we should agree if we was to come to talk about it."

"Ah!" said Felix, with an air of caution,

"You're none of a Tory, eh, sir? You won't go to vote for Debarry? That was what I said at the very first go-off. Says I, he's no Tory. I think I was right, sir—eh?"

"Certainly; I'm no Tory."

"No, no, you don't catch me wrong in a hurry. Well, between you and me, I care no more for the Debarrys than I care for Johnny Groats. I live on none o' their land, and not a pot's-worth did they ever send to the Sugar Loaf. I'm not frightened at the Debarrys: there's no man more independent than me. I'll plump or I'll split for them as treat me the handsomest and are the most of what I call gentlemen; that's my idee. And in the way of