as Supplehouse all over, as was also the
realization of Utopia. "When he wants to be witty, he always talks
about Utopia," said Mr. Harold Smith--to himself: for Mrs. Harold was
not usually present in the flesh at these matutinal meals. And then
he went down to his office, and saw in the glance of every man that
he met an announcement that that article in the _Jupiter_ had been
read. His private secretary tittered in evident allusion to the
article, and the way in which Buggins took his coat made it clear
that it was well known in the messengers' lobby. "He won't have to
fill up my vacancy when I go," Buggins was saying to himself. And
then in the course of the morning came the Cabinet council, the
second that he had attended, and he read in the countenance of every
god and goddess there assembled that their chief was thought to have
made another mistake. If Mr. Supplehouse could have been induced to
write in another strain, then indeed that new blood might have been
felt to have been efficacious.

All this was a great drawback to his happiness, but still it could
not rob him of the fact of his position. Lord Brock could not ask him
to resign because the _Jupiter_ had written against him; nor was Lord
Brock the man to desert a new colleague for such a reason. So Harold
Smith girded his loins, and went about the duties of the Petty Bag
with new zeal. "Upon my word, the _Jupiter_ is right," said young
Robarts to himself, as he finished his fourth dozen of private notes
explanatory of everything in and about the Petty Bag Office. Harold
Smith required that his private secretary's notes should be so
terribly precise. But nevertheless, in spite of his drawbacks, Harold
Smith was happy in his new honours, and Mrs. Harold Smith enjoyed
them also. She certainly, among her acquaintance, did quiz the new
Cabinet minister not a little, and it may be a question whether
she was not as hard upon him as the writer in the _Jupiter_. She
whispered a great deal to Miss Dunstable about new blood, and talked
of going down to Westminster Bridge to see whether the Thames were
really on fire. But though she laughed, she triumphed, and though she
flattered herself that she bore her honours without any outward sign,
the world knew that she was triumphing, and ridiculed her elation.

About this time she also gave a party--not a pure-minded
conversazione like Mrs. Proudie, but a downright wicked worldly
dance, at which there were fiddles, ices,