an humble guest at a great man's
table; imagine one to whose pretensions the sentiments of the servants'
hall are hostile: he is served to all appearance like the rest of the
company; he gets his soup and his fish like those about him, and
his wine-glass is duly replenished,--yet what a series of petty
mortifications is he the victim of; how constantly is he made to
feel that he is not in public favor; how certain, too, if he incur an
awkwardness, to find that his distresses are exposed. The servants'
hall is the Office, my dear Harcourt, and its persecutions are equally
polished."

"Are you a favorite there yourself?" asked the other, slyly.

"A prime favorite; they all like _me!_" said he, throwing himself back
in his chair, with an air of easy self-satisfaction; and Harcourt stared
at him, curious to know whether so astute a man was the dupe of his own
self-esteem, or merely amusing himself with the simplicity of another.
Ah, my good Colonel, give up the problem; it is an enigma far above your
powers to solve. That nature is too complex for _your_ elucidation; in
its intricate web no one thread holds the clew, but all is complicated,
crossed, and entangled.

"Here comes a cabinet messenger again," said Upton, as a courier's
_caleche_ drove up, and a well-dressed and well-looking fellow leaped
out.

"Ah, Stanhope, how are you?" said Sir Horace, shaking his hand with what
from him was warmth. "Do you know Colonel Harcourt? Well, Frank, what
news do you bring me?"

"The best of news."

"From F. O., I suppose," said Upton, sighing.

"Just so. Adderley has told the King you are the only man capable to
succeed him. The Press says the same, and the clubs are all with you."

"Not one of them all, I'd venture to say, has asked whether I have the
strength or health for it," said Sir Horace, with a voice of pathetic
intonation.

"Why, as we never knew you want energy for whatever fell to your lot to
do, we have the same hope still," said Stanhope.

"So say I too," cried Harcourt. "Like many a good hunter, he 'll do his
work best when he is properly weighted."

"It is quite refreshing to listen to you both--creatures with crocodile
digestion--talk to a man who suffers nightmare if he over-eat a dry
biscuit at supper. I tell you frankly, it would be the death of me to
take the Foreign Office. I 'd not live through the season,--the very
dinners would kill me; and then, the House, the heat, the turmoil, the
worry of