You see how our venerable friend Bungay is affected,« Shandon said, slyly
looking up from his papers - »that's your true sort of test. I have used the
Duke of Wellington and the battle of Waterloo a hundred times; and I never knew
the Duke to fail.«
    The Captain then went on to confess, with much candour, that up to the
present time the gentlemen of England, confident of their right, and careless of
those who questioned it, had left the political interest of their order, as they
did the management of their estates, or the settlement of their legal affairs,
to persons affected to each peculiar service, and had permitted their interests
to be represented in the press by professional proctors and advocates. That time
Shandon professed to consider was now gone by; the gentlemen of England must be
their own champions. The declared enemies of their order were brave, strong,
numerous, and uncompromising. They must meet their foes in the field; they must
not be belied and misrepresented by hireling advocates; they must not have Grub
Street publishing Gazettes from Whitehall. - »That's a dig at Bacon's people,
Mr. Bungay,« said Shandon, turning round to the publisher.
    Bungay clapped his stick on the floor. »Hang him, pitch into him, Capting,«
he said with exultation; and turning to Warrington, wagged his dull head more
vehemently than ever, and said, »For a slashing article, sir, there's nobody
like the Capting - no-obody like him.«
    The prospectus-writer went on to say that some gentlemen, whose names were,
for obvious reasons, not brought before the public (at which Mr. Warrington
began to laugh again), had determined to bring forward a journal, of which the
principles were so-and-so. »These men are proud of their order, and anxious to
uphold it,« cried out Captain Shandon, flourishing his paper with a grin. »They
are loyal to their sovereign, by faithful conviction and ancestral allegiance;
they love their Church, where they would have their children worship, and for
which their forefathers bled; they love their country, and would keep it what
the gentlemen of England - yes, the gentlemen of England (we'll have that in
large caps., Bungay, my boy) have made it - the greatest and freest in the
world; and as the names of some of them are appended to the deed which secured
our liberties at Runnymede -«
    »What's that?« asked
