Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/75

Rh of business. I'm no fool myself; I'm forced to wink a good deal, for fear of seeing too much, for a neighbourly man must let himself be cheated a little. But though I've never been out of my own country, I know less about it than my nephew does. You may tell what he is, and only look at him. There's one sort of fellow sees nothing but the end of his own nose, and another sort that sees nothing but the hinder side of the moon; but my nephew Harold is of another sort; he sees everything that's at hitting distance, and he's not one to miss his mark. A good-looking man in his prime! Not a greenhorn; not a shrivelled old fellow, who'll come to speak to you and find he's left his teeth at home by mistake. Harold Transome will do you credit; if anybody says the Radicals are a set of sneaks, Brummagem halfpennies, scamps who want to play pitch and toss with the property of the country, you can say, 'Look at the member for North Loamshire!' And mind what you'll hear him say; he'll go in for making everything right—Poor-laws and Charities and Church—he wants to reform 'em all. Perhaps you'll say, 'There's that Parson Lingon talking about Church Reform—why, he belongs to the Church himself—he wants reforming too.' Well, well, wait a bit, and you'll hear by-and-by