dates and localities, to discover the truth.'

'Your Grace was saying that your authority--' ventured to observe Mr.
Tadpole, emboldened by the presence of a duke, his patron, to struggle
against the despotism of a Rigby, his tyrant.

'Was the highest,' rejoined the Duke, smiling, 'for it was Lord Lyndhurst
himself. I came up from Nuneham this morning, passed his Lordship's house
in Hyde Park Place as he was getting into his carriage in full dress,
stopped my own, and learned in a breath that the Whigs were out, and that
the King had sent for the Chief Baron. So I came on here at once.'

'I always thought the country was sound at bottom,' exclaimed Mr. Taper,
who, under the old system, had sneaked into the Treasury Board.

Tadpole and Taper were great friends. Neither of them ever despaired of
the Commonwealth. Even if the Reform Bill were passed, Taper was convinced
that the Whigs would never prove men of business; and when his friends
confessed among themselves that a Tory Government was for the future
impossible, Taper would remark, in a confidential whisper, that for his
part he believed before the year was over the Whigs would be turned out by
the clerks.

'There is no doubt that there is considerable reaction,' said Mr. Tadpole.
The infamous conduct of the Whigs in the Amersham case has opened the
public mind more than anything.'

'Aldborough was worse,' said Mr. Taper.

'Terrible,' said Tadpole. 'They said there was no use discussing the