to do? I have never been a friend of
great measures, knowing that when they come fast, one after another,
more is broken in the rattle than is repaired by the reform. We have
done what Parliament and the country expected us to do, and to my
poor judgment we have done it well."

"I do not feel much self-satisfaction, Duke. Well;--we must see it
out, and if it is as you anticipate, I shall be ready. Of course I
have prepared myself for it. And if, of late, my mind has been less
turned to retirement than it used to be, it has only been because I
have become wedded to this measure, and have wished that it should be
carried under our auspices." Then the old Duke took his leave, and
the Prime Minister was left alone to consider the announcement that
had been made to him.

He had said that he had prepared himself, but, in so saying, he had
hardly known himself. Hitherto, though he had been troubled by many
doubts, he had still hoped. The report made to him by Mr. Rattler,
backed as it had been by Mr. Roby's assurances, had almost sufficed
to give him confidence. But Mr. Rattler and Mr. Roby combined were as
nothing to the Duke of St. Bungay. The Prime Minister knew now,--he
felt that he knew, that his days were numbered. The resignation of
that lingering old bishop was not completed, and the person in whom
he believed would not have the see. He had meditated the making of
a peer or two, having hitherto been very cautious in that respect,
but he would do nothing of the kind if called upon by the House of
Commons to resign with an uncompleted measure. But his thoughts soon
ran away from the present to the future. What was now to come of
himself? How should he use his future life,--he who as yet had not
passed his forty-seventh year? He regretted much having made that
apparently pretentious speech about Caesar, though he knew his old
friend well enough to be sure that it would never be used against
him. Who was he that he should class himself among the big ones of
the world? A man may indeed measure small things by great, but the
measurer should be careful to declare his own littleness when he
illustrates his position by that of the topping ones of the earth.
But the thing said had been true. Let the Pompey be who he might, he,
the little Caesar of the day, could never now command another legion.

He had once told Phineas Finn that he regretted that he had abstained
from the ordinary amusements of English gentlemen. But he ha