Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/85

Rh acquainted with the nude leg of the Prince Regent, and hinted at private reasons for believing that the Princess Charlotte ought not to have died—had conversational matter as special to his auditors as Marco Polo could have had on his return from Asiatic travel.

"My good sir," he said to Mr Wace, as he crossed his knees and spread his silk handkerchief over them, "Transome may be returned, or he may not be returned—that's a question for North Loamshire; but it makes little difference to the kingdom. I don't want to say things which may put younger men out of spirits, but I believe this country has seen its best days—I do indeed."

"I am sorry to hear it from one of your experience, Mr Nolan," said the brewer, a large happy-looking man. "I'd make a good fight myself before I'd leave a worse world for my boys than I've found for myself. There isn't a greater pleasure than doing a bit of planting and improving one's buildings, and investing one's money in some pretty acres of land, when it turns up here and there—land you've known from a boy. It's a nasty thought that these Radicals are to turn things round so as one can calculate on nothing. One doesn't like it for one's self, and one doesn't like it for one's neighbours.