en it to Lord Earlybird! It was,--he told himself, but not
correctly,--the only thing that he had done on his own undivided
responsibility since he had been Prime Minister.

The last days of July had passed, and it had been at last decided
that the Session should close on the 11th of August. Now the 11th
of August was thought to be a great deal too near the 12th to allow
of such an arrangement being considered satisfactory. A great many
members were very angry at the arrangement. It had been said all
through June and into July that it was to be an early Session, and
yet things had been so mismanaged that when the end came everything
could not be finished without keeping members of Parliament in town
up to the 11th of August! In the memory of present legislators there
had never been anything so awkward. The fault, if there was a fault,
was attributable to Mr. Monk. In all probability the delay was
unavoidable. A minister cannot control long-winded gentlemen, and
when gentlemen are very long-winded there must be delay. No doubt a
strong minister can exercise some control, and it is certain that
long-winded gentlemen find an unusual scope for their breath when the
reigning dynasty is weak. In that way Mr. Monk and the Duke may have
been responsible, but they were blamed as though they, for their own
special amusement, detained gentlemen in town. Indeed the gentlemen
were not detained. They grumbled and growled and then fled,--but
their grumblings and growlings were heard even after their departure.

"Well;--what do you think of it all?" the Duke said one day to Mr.
Monk, at the Treasury, affecting an air of cheery good-humour.

"I think," said Mr. Monk, "that the country is very prosperous.
I don't know that I ever remember trade to have been more evenly
satisfactory."

"Ah, yes. That's very well for the country, and ought, I suppose, to
satisfy us."

"It satisfies me," said Mr. Monk.

"And me, in a way. But if you were walking about in a very tight pair
of boots, in an agony with your feet, would you be able just then to
relish the news that agricultural wages in that parish had gone up
sixpence a week?"

"I'd take my boots off, and then try," said Mr. Monk.

"That's just what I'm thinking of doing. If I had my boots off all
that prosperity would be so pleasant to me! But you see you can't
take your boots off in company. And it may be that you have a walk
before you, and that no boots will be worse for your feet