ition without some subject for grumbling,--some matter on which
a minister may be attacked? No one really thought that the Prussians
and French combined would invade our shores and devastate our fields,
and plunder London, and carry our daughters away into captivity. The
state of the funds showed very plainly that there was no such fear.
But a good cry is a very good thing,--and it is always well to rub
up the officials of the Admiralty by a little wholesome abuse. Sir
Orlando was thought to have done his business well. Of course he did
not risk a division upon the address. Had he done so he would have
been "nowhere." But, as it was, he was proud of his achievement.

The ministers generally would have been indifferent to the very hard
words that were said of them, knowing what they were worth, and
feeling aware that a ministry which had everything too easy must lose
its interest in the country, had it not been that their chief was
very sore on the subject. The old Duke's work at this time consisted
almost altogether in nursing the younger Duke. It did sometimes occur
to his elder Grace that it might be well to let his brother retire,
and that a Prime Minister, malgre lui, could not be a successful
Prime Minister, or a useful one. But if the Duke of Omnium went the
Coalition must go too, and the Coalition had been the offspring of
the old statesman. The country was thriving under the Coalition, and
there was no real reason why it should not last for the next ten
years. He continued, therefore, his system of coddling, and was ready
at any moment, or at every moment, to pour, if not comfort, at any
rate consolation into the ears of his unhappy friend. In the present
emergency, it was the falsehood and general baseness of Sir Orlando
which nearly broke the heart of the Prime Minister. "How is one to
live," he said, "if one has to do with men of that kind?"

"But you haven't to do with him any longer," said the Duke of St.
Bungay.

"When I see a man who is supposed to have earned the name of a
statesman, and been high in the councils of his sovereign, induced
by personal jealousy to do as he is doing, it makes me feel that an
honest man should not place himself where he may have to deal with
such persons."

"According to that the honest men are to desert their country in
order that the dishonest men may have everything their own way." Our
Duke could not answer this, and therefore for the moment he yielded.
But he was un