'Can't you find out anything about them? About their opinions, I mean.'
'Anything? My dear Lena, there's scarcely anything that I haven't found out about them.
They're both of them moderate Liberal, Evangelical, mildly opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the Falconer Report, and the Stewards' decision about Craganour. Thank goodness in this country we don't fly into violent passions about Wagner and Brahms and things of that sort. There is only one thorny subject that I haven't been able to make sure about, the only stone that I have left unturned. Are they unanimously anti-vivisectionist or do they both uphold the necessity for scientific experiment? There has been a lot of correspondence on the subject in our local newspapers of late, and the vicar is certain to preach a sermon about it; vicars are dreadfully provocative at times. Now, if you could only find out for me whether these two men are divergently for or against--'
'I!' exclaimed Lena; 'how am I to find out? I don't know either of them to speak to.'
'Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. Write to them, under as assumed name of course, for subscriptions to one or other cause--or, better still, send a stamped type-written reply postcard, with a request for a declaration for or against vivisection; people who would hesitate to commit themselves to a subscription will cheerfully write Yes or No on a prepaid postcard. If you can't manage it that way, try and meet them at some one's house and get into argument on the subject. I think Milly occasionally has one or other of them at her at-homes; you might have the luck to meet both of them there the same evening. Only it must be done soon. My invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, and to-day is Friday.
'Milly's at-homes are not very amusing, as a rule,' said Lena, 'and one never gets a chance of talking uninterruptedly to any one for a couple of minutes at a time; Milly is one of those restless hostesses who always seem to be trying to see how you look in different parts of the room, in fresh grouping effects. Even if I got to speak to Popham or Atkinson I couldn't plunge into a topic like vivisection straight away. No, I think the postcard scheme would be more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. How would it be best to word them?'
'Oh, something like this: 'Are you in favour of experiments on living animals for the purpose of scientific research--Yes or No?' That is quite simple and unmistakable. If they don't answer it will at least be an indication that they are indifferent about the subject, and that is all I want to know.'
'All right,' said Lena, 'I'll get my brother-in-law to let me have them addressed to his office, and he can telephone the result of the plebiscite direct to you.'
'Thank you ever so much,' said Lady Prowche gratefully, 'and be sure to get the cards sent off as soon as possible.'
On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, speaking through the telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the postcard poll showed unanimous hostility to experiments on living animals.
Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more fervent voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already sealed and addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course they were both accepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as the prospective hostess called it, was auspiciously launched.
Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having previously committed herself to another invitation. At the opening day of a cricket festival, however, she ran across Lady Prowche, who had motored over from the other side of the county. She wore the air of one who is not interested in cricket and not particularly interested in life. She shook hands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was a beastly day.
'The party, how has it gone off?' asked Lena quickly.
'Don't speak of it!' was the tragical answer; 'why do I always have such rotten luck?'
'But what has happened?'
'It has been awful. Hyaenas could not have behaved with greater savagery. Sir Richard said so, and he has been in countries where hyaenas live, so he ought to know. They actually came to blows!'
'Blows?'
'Blows and curses. It really might have been a scene from one of Hogarth's pictures. I never felt so humiliated in my life. What the servants must have thought!'
'But who were the offenders?'
'Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble about.'
'I thought they agreed on every subject that one could violently disagree about--religion, politics, vivisection, the Derby decision, the Falconer Report; what else was there left to quarrel about?'
'My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. One of them was Pro-Greek and the other Pro- Bulgar.'
Hyacinth
'The new fashion of introducing the candidate's children into an election contest is a pretty one,' said Mrs. Panstreppon; 'it takes away something from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interesting experience for children to look back on in after years.
Still, if you will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth with you down to Luffbridge on election day.'
'Not take Hyacinth!' exclaimed his mother; 'but why not? Jutterly is bringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubian donkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has been appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for a strong Navy a special feature in our campaign, and it will be particularly appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his sailor suit. He'll look heavenly.'
'The question is, not how he'll look, but how he'll behave. He's a delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I haven't.'
'I was in India at the time, and I've only a vague recollection of what happened; he was very naughty, I know.'
'He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their perambulator, and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the perambulator spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under the wreckage, and while the nurse had her hands full with the goat Hyacinth was laying into Jacky's legs with his belt like a small fury.'
'I'm not defending him,' said Matilda, 'but they must have done something to annoy him.'
