es, and to be triumphant with melancholy forebodings. Now at
last there was a dead lock. Nobody could form a government. It
was asserted that Mr. Mildmay had fallen at her Majesty's feet
dissolved in tears, and had implored to be relieved from further
responsibility. It was well known to many at the clubs that the Queen
had on that morning telegraphed to Germany for advice. There were men
so gloomy as to declare that the Queen must throw herself into the
arms of Mr. Monk, unless Mr. Mildmay would consent to rise from his
knees and once more buckle on his ancient armour. "Even that would
be better than Gresham," said Barrington Erle, in his anger. "I'll
tell you what it is," said Ratler, "we shall have Gresham and Monk
together, and you and I shall have to do their biddings." Mr.
Barrington Erle's reply to that suggestion I may not dare to insert
in these pages.

On the Wednesday night, however, it was known that everything had
been arranged, and before the Houses met on the Thursday every place
had been bestowed, either in reality or in imagination. The _Times_,
in its second edition on the Thursday, gave a list of the Cabinet, in
which four places out of fourteen were rightly filled. On the Friday
it named ten places aright, and indicated the law officers, with only
one mistake in reference to Ireland; and on the Saturday it gave
a list of the Under Secretaries of State, and Secretaries and
Vice-Presidents generally, with wonderful correctness as to the
individuals, though the offices were a little jumbled. The Government
was at last formed in a manner which everybody had seen to be the
only possible way in which a government could be formed. Nobody was
surprised, and the week's work was regarded as though the regular
routine of government making had simply been followed. Mr. Mildmay
was Prime Minister; Mr. Gresham was at the Foreign Office; Mr. Monk
was at the Board of Trade; the Duke was President of the Council; the
Earl of Brentford was Privy Seal; and Mr. Palliser was Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Barrington Erle made a step up in the world, and went
to the Admiralty as Secretary; Mr. Bonteen was sent again to the
Admiralty; and Laurence Fitzgibbon became a junior Lord of the
Treasury. Mr. Ratler was, of course, installed as Patronage Secretary
to the same Board. Mr. Ratler was perhaps the only man in the party
as to whose destination there could not possibly be a doubt. Mr.
Ratler had really qualified himself for