to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead
it. "If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr.
Bonteen.

"There's something they like a great deal better than the Church,"
said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at
all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that
if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and
establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like
sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another
that they don't care now for anything beyond their places."

"It's only a few of them get anything, after all."

"Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those
who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting the
counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They
like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the
Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't
hang on somewhere,--or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill
for the Corn Laws?"

"There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen.

"And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's
too many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up
among them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things
slide,--as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough
within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold
back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in
his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to
wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are
shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their
Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they
reconcile it to their conscience,--that's what I can't understand."
Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr.
Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the
Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too
hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter,
"but I think it'll be too heavy."

They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the
political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no
less astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally
disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their
disgust as plainly. Mr. Gres