shaking hands with everybody indiscriminately. I heard an old navvy
protesting once that "Lady ---- never troubled to shake 'ands with him
any other time, but was generally that 'orty she'd step over you as
soon as look at you."

Poor old men are dragged out _nolens volens_ to add their mite to the
public voice, and are sometimes so aged that they scarcely know what
their opinions are. I hope I shall not live to be very old. It is a
terrible thing when you make such a prolonged stay on this earth that
you have to be helped off it.

It is very curious too, how exceedingly disobliging old people are. I
know a family who have never worn anything brighter than grey for
years. "In case we have to go into mourning soon--our poor old aunt,
you know. It's so very sad!" and they squeeze a tear out from
somewhere, but whether on account of their relative's illness, or her
prolonged life, is open to opinion. The old lady is flourishing still,
and the family is as soberly clothed as ever. When she has been dead
a few months what rainbows they will become, to make up for lost time!

"A disappointing man," I have heard a dutiful nephew term his uncle.
True, he (the uncle, I mean) is ninety-four, and therefore old enough
to know better than to rally so many times. But after all, he does
nothing, runs into no danger, is tended as carefully as a new-born
baby; I should not at all wonder if he still continued "disappointing"
and took a new lease of life for seven years. But I am digressing, and
must return to politics.

I went to a Primrose meeting once and the experience was not so happy
as to make me wish to try it again.