present, and
was so understood by those who really knew her,--as did Mrs. Finn,
and Mr. Warburton, the private secretary. But Sir Orlando and Sir
Timothy and Mr. Rattler, who were all within hearing, thought that
the Duchess had intended to allude to the servile nature of their
position; and Mr. Boffin, who heard it, rejoiced within himself,
comforting himself with the reflection that his withers were unwrung,
and thinking with what pleasure he might carry the anecdote into the
farthest corners of the clubs. Poor Duchess! 'Tis pitiful to think
that after such Herculean labours she should injure the cause by one
slight unconsidered word, more, perhaps, than she had advanced it by
all her energy.

During this time the Duke was at the Castle, but he showed himself
seldom to his guests,--so acting, as the reader will I hope
understand, from no sense of the importance of his own personal
presence, but influenced by a conviction that a public man should not
waste his time. He breakfasted in his own room, because he could thus
eat his breakfast in ten minutes. He read all the papers in solitude,
because he was thus enabled to give his mind to their contents. Life
had always been too serious to him to be wasted. Every afternoon
he walked for the sake of exercise, and would have accepted any
companion if any companion had especially offered himself. But he
went off by some side-door, finding the side-door to be convenient,
and therefore when seen by others was supposed to desire to remain
unseen. "I had no idea there was so much pride about the Duke," Mr.
Boffin said to his old colleague, Sir Orlando. "Is it pride?" asked
Sir Orlando. "It may be shyness," said the wise Boffin. "The two
things are so alike you can never tell the difference. But the man
who is cursed by either should hardly be a Prime Minister."

It was on the day after this that Sir Orlando thought that the moment
had come in which it was his duty to say that salutary word to the
Duke which it was clearly necessary that some colleague should say,
and which no colleague could have so good a right to say as he who
was the Leader of the House of Commons. He understood clearly that
though they were gathered together then at Gatherum Castle for
festive purposes, yet that no time was unfit for the discussion of
State matters. Does not all the world know that when in autumn the
Bismarcks of the world, or they who are bigger than Bismarcks, meet
at this or that delic