Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/74

64 his road'? No, there's not one of you such a Tom-noddy. What's good for one time is bad for another. If anybody contradicts that, ask him to eat pickled pork when he's thirsty, and to bathe in the Lapp there when the spikes of ice are shooting. And that's the reason why the men who are the best Liberals now are the very men who used to be the best Tories. There isn't a nastier horse than your horse that'll jib and back and turn round when there is but one road for him to go, and that's the road before him.

"And my nephew here—he comes of a Tory breed, you know—I'll answer for the Lingons. In the old Tory times there was never a pup belonging to a Lingon but would howl if a Whig came near him. The Lingon blood is good, rich, old Tory blood—like good rich milk—and that's why, when the right time comes, it throws up a Liberal cream. The best sort of Tory turns to the best sort of Radical. There's plenty of Radical scum—I say, beware of the scum, and look out for the cream. And here's my nephew—some of the cream, if there is any: none of your Whigs, none of your painted water that looks as if it ran, and it's standing still all the while; none of your spinning-jenny fellows. A gentleman; but up to all sorts