ir
obedient humble servant; but I shall be very much surprised, that's
all." Lord De Terrier was at this time recognized by all men as the
leader of the giants.

"And so shall I, deucedly surprised. They can't do it, you know.
There are the Manchester men. I ought to know something about them
down in my country; and I say they can't support Lord De Terrier. It
wouldn't be natural."

"Natural! Human nature has come to an end, I think," said Harold
Smith, who could hardly understand that the world should conspire to
throw over a Government which he had joined, and that, too, before
the world had waited to see how much he would do for it; "the fact
is this, Walker, we have no longer among us any strong feeling of
party."

"No, not a d----," said Green Walker, who was very energetic in his
present political aspirations.

"And till we can recover that, we shall never be able to have a
Government firm-seated and sure-handed. Nobody can count on men
from one week to another. The very members who in one month place a
minister in power, are the very first to vote against him in the
next."

"We must put a stop to that sort of thing, otherwise we shall never
do any good."

"I don't mean to deny that Brock was wrong with reference to Lord
Brittleback. I think that he was wrong, and I said so all through.
But, heavens on earth--!" and instead of completing his speech Harold
Smith turned away his head, and struck his hands together in token of
his astonishment at the fatuity of the age. What he probably meant to
express was this: that if such a good deed as that late appointment
made at the Petty Bag Office were not held sufficient to atone for
that other evil deed to which he had alluded, there would be an end
of all justice in sublunary matters. Was no offence to be forgiven,
even when so great virtue had been displayed? "I attribute it all to
Supplehouse," said Green Walker, trying to console his friend.

"Yes," said Harold Smith, now verging on the bounds of parliamentary
eloquence, although he still spoke with bated breath, and to one
solitary hearer. "Yes; we are becoming the slaves of a mercenary and
irresponsible press--of one single newspaper. There is a man endowed
with no great talent, enjoying no public confidence, untrusted as a
politician, and unheard of even as a writer by the world at large,
and yet, because he is on the staff of the _Jupiter_, he is able to
overturn the Government and throw the whole count