work well together, and keep other men down.'

'We will do our best,' said Taper. 'A dissolution you hold inevitable?'

'How are you and I to get into Parliament if there be not one? We must
make it inevitable. I tell you what, Taper, the lists must prove a
dissolution inevitable. You understand me? If the present Parliament goes
on, where shall we be? We shall have new men cropping up every session.'

'True, terribly true,' said Mr. Taper. 'That we should ever live to see a
Tory government again! We have reason to be very thankful.'

'Hush!' said Mr. Tadpole. 'The time has gone by for Tory governments; what
the country requires is a sound Conservative government.'

'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand:
Tory men and Whig measures.'




CHAPTER VII.


Amid the contentions of party, the fierce struggles of ambition, and the
intricacies of political intrigue, let us not forget our Eton friends.
During the period which elapsed from the failure of the Duke of Wellington
to form a government in 1832, to the failure of Sir Robert Peel to carry
on a government in 1835, the boys had entered, and advanced in youth. The
ties of friendship which then united several of them had only been