re he was always received
with rampant enthusiasm, Newcastle and the extreme north accepted his
dictatorship. During a portion of two days, he obtained the consent of
shareholders to forty bills, involving an expenditure of ten millions;
and the engagements for one session alone amounted to one hundred and
thirty millions sterling.

Mr. Neuchatel shrugged his shoulders, but no one would listen even to
Mr. Neuchatel, when the prime minister himself, supposed to be the most
wary of men, and especially on financial subjects, in the very white
heat of all this speculation, himself raised the first sod on his own
estate in a project of extent and importance.

Throughout these extraordinary scenes, Mr. Vigo, though not free from
excitement, exhibited, on the whole, much self-control. He was faithful
to his old friends, and no one profited more in this respect than
Mr. Rodney. That gentleman became the director of several lines, and
vice-chairman of one over which Mr. Vigo himself presided. No one was
surprised that Mr. Rodney therefore should enter parliament. He came in
by virtue of one of those petitions that Tadpole was always cooking, or
baffling. Mr. Rodney was a supporter of the ministry, and Mr. Vigo was
a Liberal, but Mr. Vigo returned Mr. Rodney to parliament all the
same, and no one seemed astonished or complained. Political connection,
political consistency, political principle, all vanished before the
fascination of premiums.

As for Endymion, the great man made him friendly and earnest overtures,
and offered, if he would give his time to business, which, as he was
in opposition, would be no great sacrifice, to promote and secure his
fortune. But Endymion, after due reflection, declined, though with
gratitude, these tempting proposals. Ferrars was an ambitious man, but
not too imaginative a one. He had a main object in life, and that was to
regain the position which had been forfeited, not by his own fault. His
grandfather and his father before him had both been privy councillors
and ministers of state. There had, indeed, been more than the prospect
of his father filling a very prominent position. All had been lost, but
the secret purpose of the life of Endymion was that, from being a clerk
in a public office, he should arrive by his own energies at the station
to which he seemed, as it were, born. To accomplish this he felt
that the entire devotion of his labour and thought was requisite. His
character was ess