"He's a heavy ass," said Stanley.

Yes; but Clara did not wish to be narrow. That was why it was so
splendid to have got Mr. Sleesor. If anybody knew the Radical mind he
did, and he could give full force to what one always felt was at the
bottom of it--that the Radicals' real supporters were the urban classes;
so that their policy must not go too far with 'the Land,' for fear of
seeming to neglect the towns. For, after all, in the end it was out of
the pockets of the towns that 'the Land' would have to be financed, and
nobody really could expect the towns to get anything out of it. Stanley
paused in the adjustment of his tie; his wife was a shrewd woman.

"You've hit it there," he said. "Wiltram will give it him hot on that,
though."

Of course, Clara assented. And it was magnificent that they had got
Henry Wiltram, with his idealism and his really heavy corn tax; not
caring what happened to the stunted products of the towns--and they
truly were stunted, for all that the Radicals and the half-penny press
said--till at all costs we could grow our own food. There was a lot in
that.

"Yes," Stanley muttered, "and if he gets on to it, shan't I have a jolly
time of it in the smoking-room? I know what Cuthcott's like with his
shirt out."

Clara's eyes brightened; she was very curious herself to see Mr.
Cuthcott with his--that is, to hear him expound the doctrine he was
always writing up, namely, that 'the Land' was gone and, short of