of advancing his fortune, sleep was a
fearful inroad upon his worldly career.

He at once hastened home to read his letters and newspapers, and so
important did their intelligence seem, that he only delayed to change
his dress and eat a hurried breakfast, when he repaired to the Castle,
where a few minutes previously the secretary, Mr. Downie Meek, had
arrived from his lodge in the Park.

"Safe once more, Meek," said he, entering the official chamber, where,
immersed in printed returns, petitions, and remonstrances, sat the busy
secretary.

"Ah, Linton! you are the _bien venu_. We are to have another heat for
the race, though I own it scarcely looks promising."

"Particularly as you are going to carry weight," said Linton, laughing.
"It's true, I suppose, that the Irish party have joined you?"

"There was no help for it," said the secretary, with a despondent
gesture of the eyebrows; "we had no alternative save accepting the
greasy voices, or go out. Some deemed the former the better course, but
others remembered the story of the Brahmin, who engaged to teach the ass
to speak in ten years, or else forfeit his own head."

"And perfectly right," interrupted Linton. "The Brahmin had only three
chances in his favor. Now, your king may die too, and you have any
number of asses to be got rid of."

"Let us be serious, Tom. What are our prospects at a general election?
Are the landed gentry growing afraid of the O'Gorman party, or are they
still hanging back, resentful of Peel's desertion?"

"They are very conservative,--that is, they want to keep their
properties and pay the least possible taxation. Be cautious, however,
and you have them all your own. The Irish party being now with you,
begin by some marked favor to the Protestant Church. Hear me out. This
will alarm the Romanists, and cause a kind of split amongst them. Such
as have, or expect to have place, will stand by you; the others will
show fight. You have then an opportunity of proclaiming yourselves a
strong Protestant Cabinet, and the ultras, who hate Peel, will at least
affect to believe you. While the country is thus agitated, go to the
elections. Your friends, amid so many unsettled opinions, cannot be
expected to take pledges, or, better still, they cannot accept any,
subject to various contingencies never to arise."

"I am sorely afraid of this splitting up the forces," said Meek,
doubtfully.

"It's your true game, depend upon it," said Linton. "Th