Duke of Omnium was at
last resolute. Of this administration he would not at any rate be
a member. Whether Caesar might or might not at some future time
condescend to command a legion, he could not do so when the purple
had been but that moment stripped from his shoulders. He soon
afterwards left the house with a repeated request to Mr. Monk that
he would not follow his late chief's example.

"I regret it greatly," said Mr. Gresham when he was gone.

"There is no man," said Lord Cantrip, "whom all who know him more
thoroughly respect."

"He has been worried," said the old Duke, "and must take time
to recover himself. He has but one fault,--he is a little too
conscientious, a little too scrupulous." Mr. Monk, of course, did
join them, making one or two stipulations as he did so. He required
that his friend Phineas Finn should be included in the Government.
Mr. Gresham yielded, though poor Phineas was not among the most
favoured friends of that statesman. And so the Government was formed,
and the crisis was again over, and the lists which all the newspapers
had been publishing for the last three days were republished in an
amended and nearly correct condition. The triumph of the "People's
Banner," as to the omission of the Duke, was of course complete. The
editor had no hesitation in declaring that he, by his own sagacity
and persistency, had made certain the exclusion of that very unfit
and very pressing candidate for office.

The list was filled up after the usual fashion. For a while the
dilettanti politicians of the clubs, and the strong-minded women who
take an interest in such things, and the writers in newspapers, had
almost doubted whether, in the emergency which had been supposed to
be so peculiar, any Government could be formed. There had been,--so
they had said,--peculiarities so peculiar that it might be that the
much-dreaded deadlock had come at last. A Coalition had been possible
and, though antagonistic to British feelings generally, had carried
on the Government. But what might succeed the Coalition, nobody had
known. The Radicals and Liberals together would be too strong for Mr.
Daubeny and Sir Orlando. Mr. Gresham had no longer a party of his own
at his back, and a second Coalition would be generally spurned. In
this way there had been much political excitement, and a fair amount
of consequent enjoyment. But after a few days the old men had rattled
into their old places,--or, generally, old men into