Thickset,
under middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like a bull,
he had strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he would wear
his heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if he chose to
be an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent. For some
time the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for criticism
of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
His speech began almost stumblingly, his h's ran loose, and his grammar
became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had that
to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a case
wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that he was
thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think and
speak.
He had waited for this hour. Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all
that he had become. The day in which David knocked him down saw the
depths of his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start
on a new life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all that.
He knew, from a true source, of Eglington's personal hatred of Claridge
Pasha, though he did not guess their relationship; and all his interest
was enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver to marry
himself--and Kate was his great ambition now. Above and beyond these
personal considerations was a real sense of England's duty to the man who
was weaving the destiny of a new land.
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