Then Ashe will
take his proper place, and if he doesn't make his mark on English
history, I'm a Dutchman. Oh! of course that affair last year was an
awful business--the two affairs! When Parliament opened in February
there were some of us who thought that Ashe would never get through the
session. A man so changed, so struck down, I have seldom seen. You
remember what a handsome boy he was, up to last year even! Now he's a
middle-aged man. All the same, he held on, and the House gave him that
quiet sympathy and support that it can give when it likes a fellow. And
gradually you could see the life come back into him--and the ambition.
By George! he did well in that trade-union business before Easter; and
the bill that's on now--it's masterly, the way in which he's piloting it
through! The House positively likes to be managed by him; it's a sight
worthy of our best political traditions. Oh yes, Ashe will go far; and,
thank God, that wretched little woman--what has become of her,
by-the-way?--has neither crushed his energy nor robbed England of his
services. But it was touch and go."
To all of which the Dean had replied little or nothing.
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