shall not in the least regret to find in all this
an opportunity of resigning. We have done our work, and if, as I
believe, a majority of the House would again support either Gresham
or Monk as the head of the entire Liberal party, I think that that
arrangement would be for the welfare of the country."

"Why should it make any difference to you? Why should you not return
to the Council?"

"I should not do so;--certainly not at once; probably never. But
you,--who are in the very prime of your life--"

The Prime Minister did not smile now. He knit his brows and a dark
shadow came across his face. "I don't think I could do that," he
said. "Caesar could hardly have led a legion under Pompey."

"It has been done, greatly to the service of the country, and without
the slightest loss of honour or character in him who did it."

"We need hardly talk of that, Duke. You think then that we shall
fail;--fail, I mean, in the House of Commons. I do not know that
failure in our House should be regarded as fatal."

"In three cases we should fail. The loss of any material clause in
Committee would be as bad as the loss of the Bill."

"Oh, yes."

"And then, in spite of Messrs. Rattler and Roby,--who have been wrong
before and may be wrong now,--we may lose the second reading."

"And the third chance against us?"

"You would not probably try to carry on the Bill with a very small
majority."

"Not with three or four."

"Nor, I think, with six or seven. It would be useless. My own belief
is that we shall never carry the Bill into Committee."

"I have always known you to be right, Duke."

"I think that general opinion has set in that direction, and general
opinion is generally right. Having come to that conclusion I thought
it best to tell you, in order that we might have our house in order."
The Duke of Omnium, who with all his haughtiness and all his reserve,
was the simplest man in the world and the least apt to pretend to be
that which he was not, sighed deeply when he heard this. "For my own
part," continued his elder, "I feel no regret that it should be so."

"It is the first large measure that we have tried to carry."

"We did not come in to carry large measures, my friend. Look back and
see how many large measures Pitt carried,--but he took the country
safely through its most dangerous crisis."

"What have we done?"

"Carried on the Queen's Government prosperously for three years. Is
that nothing for a minister