It's enough to say I am the failure
of the family."
"It seems queer to me that you should fail especially," remarked the
journalist. "As they say in the examinations, what did you fail in?"
"Politics," replied his friend. "I stood for Parliament when I was
quite a young man and got in by an enormous majority, with loud
cheers and chairing round the town. Since then, of course, I've been
rather under a cloud."
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand the 'of course,'" answered
March, laughing.
"That part of it isn't worth understanding," said Fisher. "But as a
matter of fact, old chap, the other part of it was rather odd and
interesting. Quite a detective story in its way, as well as the
first lesson I had in what modern politics are made of. If you like,
I'll tell you all about it." And the following, recast in a less
allusive and conversational manner, is the story that he told.
Nobody privileged of late years to meet Sir Henry Harland Fisher
would believe that he had ever been called Harry. But, indeed, he
had been boyish enough when a boy, and that serenity which shone on
him through life, and which now took the form of gravity, had once
taken the form of gayety. His friends would have said that he was
all the more ripe in his maturity for having been young in his
youth.
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