Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/58

48 good-humoured, yet energetic men, who have the gift of anger, hatred, and scorn upon occasion, though they are too healthy and self-contented for such feelings to get generated in them without external occasion. And in relation to Jermyn the gift was coming into fine exercise.

"A—pardon me, Mr Harold," said Jermyn, speaking as soon as Johnson went out, "but I am sorry—a—you should behave disobligingly to a man who has it in his power to do much service—who, in fact, holds many threads in his hands. I admit that—a—nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit, as we say—a"

"Speak for yourself," said Harold. "I don't talk in tags of Latin, which might be learned by a schoolmaster's footboy. I find the King's English express my meaning better."

"In the King's English, then," said Jermyn, who could be idiomatic enough when he was stung, "a candidate should keep his kicks till he's a member."

"O, I suppose Johnson will bear a kick if you bid him. You're his principal, I believe."

"Certainly, thus far—a—he is my London agent. But he is a man of substance, and"

"I shall know what he is if it's necessary, I daresay. But I must jump into the carriage again.