'That was the way to talk to them! Denounce them traitors! Up whip, and
set the ruffians capering! Hit them facers! Our men are always for the
too-clever trick. They pluck the sprouts and eat them, as if the loss of
a sprout or two thinned Manchester! Your policy of absorption is good
enough when you're dealing with fragments. It's a devilish unlucky thing
to attempt with a concrete mass. You might as well ask your head to
absorb a wall by running at it like a pugnacious nigger. I don't want
you to go into Parliament ever. You're a fitter man out of it; but if
ever you're bitten--and it's the curse of our country to have politics as
well as the other diseases--don't follow a flag, be independent, keep a
free vote; remember how I've been tied, and hold foot against Manchester.
Do it blindfold; you don't want counselling, you're sure to be right.
I'll lay you a blood-brood mare to a cabstand skeleton, you'll have an
easy conscience and deserve the thanks of the country.'

Nevil listened gravely. The soundness of the head and legs of the
country he took for granted. The inflated state of the unchivalrous
middle, denominated Manchester, terrified him. Could it be true that
England was betraying signs of decay? and signs how ignoble! Half-a-
dozen crescent lines cunningly turned, sketched her figure before the
world, and the reflection for one ready to die upholding her was that the
portrait was no caricature. Such an emblematic presentation of the land
of his filial affection haunted him with hideous mockeries. Surely the
foreigner hearing our boasts of her must compare us to showmen bawling
the attractions of a Fat Lady at a fair!

Swoln Manchester bore the blame of it. Everard exulted to hear his young
echo attack the cotton-spinners. But Nevil was for a plan, a system,
immediate action; the descending among the people, and taking an