great bustle and excitement; they were immediately surrounded.

'Is it true?' 'Quite true; not the slightest doubt. Saw him myself. Not at
all hissed; certainly not hooted. Perhaps a little hissed. One fellow
really cheered him. Saw him myself. Say what they like, there is
reaction.' 'But Constitution Hill, they say?' 'Well, there was a sort of
inclination to a row on Constitution Hill; but the Duke quite firm;
pistols, and carriage doors bolted.'

Such may give a faint idea of the anxious inquiries and the satisfactory
replies that were occasioned by the entrance of this group.

'Up, guards, and at them!' exclaimed Tadpole, rubbing his hands in a fit
of patriotic enthusiasm.

Later in the afternoon, about five o'clock, the high change of political
gossip, when the room was crowded, and every one had his rumour, Mr. Rigby
looked in again to throw his eye over the evening papers, and catch in
various chit-chat the tone of public or party feeling on the 'crisis.'
Then it was known that the Duke had returned from the King, having
accepted the charge of forming an administration. An administration to do
what? Portentous question! Were concessions to be made? And if so, what?
Was it altogether impossible, and too late, 'stare super vias antiquas?'
Questions altogether above your Tadpoles and your Tapers, whose idea of
the necessities of the age was that they themselves should be in office.

Lord Eskdale came up to Mr. Rigby. This peer was a noble Croesus,
acquainted with all the gradations of life; a voluptuary who could be a
Spartan; clear-sighted, unprejudiced, sagacious; the best judge in the
world of a horse or a man; he was the universal referee; a quarrel about a