Читать книгу A Change in the Cabinet онлайн

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It was half-past one. He had just time to meet and to convince yet another fool upon another matter: the foreigner acting as agent for his Government, on the matter of the bridge: a bridge which the Foreign Government might or might not build, and, if they built, might or might not order from a firm which Repton had reason to befriend. Repton must lunch with that foreigner: he must persuade him to build: he must get the order—then he must be in his place in the House in time for questions.

The foreigner was as wax in his hands: not as good warm wax, adulterated wax, candle wax, but rather as beeswax, very ancient and hard. It was a full hour before that wax was pliable, but once again the unceasing, managed, strict watchfulness, the set face which had always in it something stern but never anything aggressive, the balance of judgment, conquered. Down to the smallest detail of that conversation Repton was the artist, his host at the lunch was the public, accepting and gradually convinced, and the bridge was ordered for the Foreign Government, though it was a useless bridge leading from nowhere to nowhere, and though it could have been built much more solidly and much better by the people of the place than by the English firm.