njustice to that connection now that it was formed; and to
redeem the pledge you generously gave on my behalf, that there would be
no want of cordiality and zeal in the discharge of any duties which it
might fall to me to perform on behalf of such a government as was then
in your contemplation.'

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hours a day he toiled at his desk. Treasury
officials and trade experts, soap deputations and post-horse
deputations, representatives of tobacco and representatives of the West
India interest, flocked to Downing Street day by day all through March.
If he went into the city to dine with the Lord Mayor, the lamentable
hole thus made in his evening was repaired by working till four in the
morning upon customs reform, Australian mints, budget plans of all
kinds. It is characteristic that even this mountain load of concentrated
and exacting labour did not prevent him from giving a Latin lesson every
day to his second boy.

II

'Some days before the day appointed for my statement,' says Mr.
Gladstone, 'I recited the leading particulars to my able and intelligent
friend Cardwell, not in the cabinet but then holding office as president
of the board of trade. He was so bewildered and astounded at the bigness
of the scheme, that I began to ask myself, Have I a right to ask my
colleagues to follow me amidst all these rocks and shoals? In
consequence I performed a drastic operation upon the plan, and next day
I carried to Lord Aberdeen a reduced and mutilated scheme which might be
deemed by some politicians to be weaker but safer. I put to Lord
Aberdeen the question I had put to myself, and stated my readiness, if
he should think it called for, to make this sacrifice to the probable
inclinations of my colleagues. But he boldly and wisely said, "I take it
upon myself to ask you to bring your original and whole plan before the
cabinet." I thought this an ample warrant.'

THE BUDGET IN CABINET

At last, after Mr. Gladstone had spent an hour at the palace in
explaining his scheme to the Prince Consort, the budget was opened to
the cabinet (April 9) in a speech of three hours--an achievement, I
should suppose, unparalleled in that line, for a cabinet consists of men
each with pretty absorbing pre-occupations of his own. The exposition
was 'as ingenious,' Lord Aberdeen told Prince Albert, 'as clear, and for
the most part as convincing, as anything I have