at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment.
It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should
nearly carry it,--leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what
narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion all the
gentlemen assembled were jocund in their manner, and apparently
well satisfied,--as though they saw before them an end to all their
troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf
bit him beneath his frock, and these were all Spartan boys. Even the
Prime Minister, who had fortified himself for the occasion, and who
never wept in any company but that of his wife and his old friend,
was pleasant in his manner and almost affable. "We shan't make this
step towards the millennium just at present," he said to Phineas Finn
as they left the room together,--referring to words which Phineas had
spoken on a former occasion, and which then had not been very well
taken.

"But we shall have made a step towards the step," said Phineas, "and
in getting to a millennium even that is something."

"I suppose we are all too anxious," said the Duke, "to see some great
effects come from our own little doings. Good-day. We shall know all
about it tolerably early. Monk seems to think that it will be an
attack on the Ministry and not on the Bill, and that it will be best
to get a vote with as little delay as possible."

"I'll bet an even five-pound note," said Mr. Lupton at the Carlton,
"that the present Ministry is out to-morrow, and another that no one
names five members of the next Cabinet."

"You can help to win your first bet," said Mr. Beauchamp, a very
old member, who, like many other Conservatives, had supported the
Coalition.

"I shall not do that," said Lupton, "though I think I ought. I won't
vote against the man in his misfortunes, though, upon my soul, I
don't love him very dearly. I shall vote neither way, but I hope that
Sir Orlando may succeed."

"If he do, who is to come in?" said the other. "I suppose you don't
want to serve under Sir Orlando?"

"Nor certainly under the Duke of Omnium. We shall not want a Prime
Minister as long as there are as good fish in the sea as have been
caught out of it."

There had lately been formed a new Liberal club, established on a
broader basis than the Progress, and perhaps with a greater amount of
aristocratic support. This had come up since the Duke had been Prime
Minister. Certain busy men had never been quite c