y St Julians does nothing but
abuse him."

"I suppose he is crotchetty," suggested the Warwickshire noble.

"That speech of Egremont was the most really democratic speech that I
ever read," said the grey-headed gentleman. "How was it listened to?"

"Oh capitally," said Mr Egerton. "He has very seldom spoken before and
always slightly though well. He was listened to with mute attention;
never was a better house. I should say made a great impression, though
no one knew exactly what he was after."

"What does he mean by obtaining the results of the charter without
the intervention of its machinery?" enquired Lord Loraine, a mild,
middle-aged, lounging, languid man, who passed his life in crossing
from Brookes' to Boodle's and from Boodle's to Brookes', and testing the
comparative intelligence of these two celebrated bodies; himself gifted
with no ordinary abilities cultivated with no ordinary care, but the
victim of sauntering, his sultana queen, as it was, according to Lord
Halifax, of the second Charles Stuart.

"He spoke throughout in an exoteric vein," said the grey-headed
gentleman, "and I apprehend was not very sure of his audience; but I
took him to mean, indeed it was the gist of the speech, that if you
wished for a time to retain your political power, you could only effect
your purpose by securing for the people greater social felicity."

"Well, that is sheer radicalism," said the Warwickshire peer,
"pretending that the People can be better off than they are, is
radicalism and nothing else."

"I fear, if that be radicalism," said Lord Loraine, "we must all take a
leaf out of the same book. Sloane was saying at Boodle's just now that
he looked forward to the winter in his country with horror."

"And they have no manufactures there," said Mr Egerton.

"Sloane was always a croaker," said the Warwickshire peer. "He always
said the New Poor Law would not act, and there is no part of the country
where it works so well as his own."

"They say at Boodle's there is to be an increase to the army," said Lord
Loraine, "ten thousand men immediately; decided on by the cabinet this
afternoon."

"It could hardly have leaked out by this time," said the grey-headed
gentleman. "The cabinet were sitting less than an hour ago."

"They have been up a good hour," said Lord Loraine, "quite long enough
for their decisions to be known in St James's Street. In the good old
times, George Farnley used always to walk from Downing