When the proposition first
reached him it made his hair stand on end. He had never yet risen
to his feet in the House. He had spoken at those election meetings
in Cornwall, and had found it easy enough. After the first or
second time he had thought it good fun. But he knew that standing
up in the House of Commons would be different from that. Then
there would be the dress! 'I should so hate to fig myself out and
look like a guy,' he said to Tregear, to whom of course he
confided the offer that was made to him. Tregear was very anxious
that he should accept it. 'A man should never refuse anything of
that kind which comes his way,' Tregear said.
'It is only because I am the governor's son,' Silverbridge
pleaded.
'Partly so perhaps. But if it be altogether so, what of that? Take
the goods the gods provide you. Of course all these things which
our ambition covets are easier to Duke's sons than to others. But
not on that account should a Duke's son refuse them. A man when he
sees a rung vacant on the ladder should always put his foot
there.
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