Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/268

258 got no votes, and that's a shame. But you will have some day, if such men as Transome are returned; and then you'll be on a level with the first gentleman in the land, and if he wants to sit in Parliament, he must take off his hat and ask your leave. But though you haven't got a vote you can give a cheer for the right man, and Transome's not a man like Garstin; if you lost a day's wages by giving a cheer for Transome, he'll make you amends. That's the way a man who has no vote can yet serve himself and his country: he can lift up his hand and shout 'Transome for ever'—'hurray for Transome.' Let the working men—let colliers and navvies and stone-cutters, who between you and me have a good deal too much the worst of it, as things are now—let them join together and give their hands and voices for the right man, and they'll make the great people shake in their shoes a little; and when you shout for Transome, remember you shout for more wages, and more of your rights, and you shout to get rid of rats and sprats and such small animals, who are the tools the rich make use of to squeeze the blood out of the poor man."

"I wish there'd be a row—I'd pommel him," said Dredge, who was generally felt to be speaking to the question.