" Mr. Quintus Slide
was a young man, under thirty, not remarkable for clean linen, and
who always talked of the "'Ouse." But he was a well-known and not
undistinguished member of a powerful class of men. He had been a
reporter, and as such knew the "'Ouse" well, and was a writer for the
press. And, though he talked of "'Ouses" and "horgans", he wrote good
English with great rapidity, and was possessed of that special sort
of political fervour which shows itself in a man's work rather than
in his conduct. It was Mr. Slide's taste to be an advanced reformer,
and in all his operations on behalf of the _People's Banner_ he
was a reformer very much advanced. No man could do an article on the
people's indefeasible rights with more pronounced vigour than Mr.
Slide. But it had never occurred to him as yet that he ought to care
for anything else than the fight,--than the advantage of having a
good subject on which to write slashing articles. Mr. Slide was an
energetic but not a thoughtful man; but in his thoughts on politics,
as far as they went with him, he regarded the wrongs of the people as
being of infinitely greater value than their rights. It was not that
he was insincere in all that he was daily saying;--but simply that
he never thought about it.
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