FARRANT. It has very little reference to the scandal.
BLACKBOROUGH. As that is at an end ... all the more reason we should hear
it.
HORSHAM. [_Ranging himself with_ FARRANT.] I called this quite informal
meeting, Blackborough, only to dispose of the scandal, if possible.
BLACKBOROUGH. Well, of course, if Farrant chooses to insult Percival so
gratuitously by burking his message to us....
_There is an unspoken threat in this_, HORSHAM _sees it and without
disguising his irritation...._
HORSHAM. Let us have it, Farrant.
FARRANT. [_With a sort of puzzled discontent._] Well ... I never got to
telling him of the O'Connell affair at all. He started talking to me ...
saying that he couldn't for a moment agree to Trebell's proposals for the
finance of his bill ... I couldn't get a word in edgeways. Then his wife
came up....
HORSHAM _takes something in this so seriously that he actually
interrupts._
HORSHAM. Does he definitely disagree? What is his point?
FARRANT. He says Disestablishment's a bad enough speculation for the party
as it is.
BLACKBOROUGH. It is inevitable.
FARRANT. He sees that. But then he says ... to go to the country again
having bolstered up Education and quarrelled with everybody will be bad
enough ... to go having spent fifty millions on it will dish us all for our
lifetimes.
HORSHAM. What does he propose?
FARRANT. He'll offer to draft another bill and take it through himself. He
says ... do as many good turns as we can with the money ... don't put it all
on one horse.
BLACKBOROUGH. He's your man, Horsham. That's one difficulty settled.
HORSHAM'S _thoughts are evidently beyond_ BLACKBOROUGH, _beyond the
absent_ PERCIVAL _even._
HORSHAM. Oh ... any of us could carry that sort of a bill.
CANTELUPE _has heard this last passage with nothing less than horror
and pale anger, which he contains no longer._
CANTELUPE. I won't have this. I won't have this opportunity frittered away
for party purposes.
BLACKBOROUGH. [_Expostulating reasonably._] My dear Cantelupe ... you'll get
whatever you think it right for the Church to have. You carry a solid thirty
eight votes with you.