these banquets of ambrosia,--does she not cling retiring near the
doors, hardy able as yet to make her low voice heard among her
brother deities? But Jove, great Jove--old Jove, the King of Olympus,
hero among gods and men, how does he carry himself in these councils
summoned by his voice? Does he lie there at his ease, with his purple
cloak cut from the firmament around his shoulders? Is his thunderbolt
ever at his hand to reduce a recreant god to order? Can he proclaim
silence in that immortal hall? Is it not there, as elsewhere, in all
places, and among all nations, that a king of gods and a king of men
is and will be king, rules and will rule, over those who are smaller
than himself?

Harold Smith, when he was summoned to the august hall of divine
councils, did feel himself to be a proud man; but we may perhaps
conclude that at the first meeting or two he did not attempt to take
a very leading part. Some of my readers may have sat at vestries, and
will remember how mild, and, for the most part, mute is a new-comer
at their board. He agrees generally, with abated enthusiasm; but
should he differ, he apologizes for the liberty. But anon, when the
voices of his colleagues have become habitual in his ears--when the
strangeness of the room is gone, and the table before him is known
and trusted--he throws off his awe and dismay, and electrifies his
brotherhood by the vehemence of his declamation and the violence of
his thumping. So let us suppose it will be with Harold Smith, perhaps
in the second or third season of his Cabinet practice. Alas! alas!
that such pleasures should be so fleeting! And then, too, there came
upon him a blow which somewhat modified his triumph--a cruel, dastard
blow, from a hand which should have been friendly to him, from one to
whom he had fondly looked to buoy him up in the great course that was
before him. It had been said by his friends that in obtaining Harold
Smith's services the Prime Minister had infused new young healthy
blood into his body. Harold himself had liked the phrase, and had
seen at a glance how it might have been made to tell by some friendly
Supplehouse or the like. But why should a Supplehouse out of Elysium
be friendly to a Harold Smith within it? Men lapped in Elysium,
steeped to the neck in bliss, must expect to see their friends
fall off from them. Human nature cannot stand it. If I want to get
anything from my old friend Jones, I like to see him shoved up into a
high