What with arrangements about Lord Monmouth's boroughs, and the lucky
bottling of some claret which the Duke had imported on Mr. Rigby's
recommendation, this distinguished gentleman contrived to pay almost
hourly visits at Apsley House, and so bullied Tadpole and Taper that they
scarcely dared address him. About four-and-twenty hours before the result,
and when it was generally supposed that the Duke was in, Mr. Rigby, who
had gone down to Windsor to ask his Majesty the date of some obscure
historical incident, which Rigby, of course, very well knew, found that
audiences were impossible, that Majesty was agitated, and learned, from an
humble but secure authority, that in spite of all his slashing articles,
and Lucian Gay's parodies of the Irish melodies, Canning was to be Prime
Minister.

This would seem something of a predicament! To common minds; there are no
such things as scrapes for gentlemen with Mr. Rigby's talents for action.
He had indeed, in the world, the credit of being an adept in machinations,
and was supposed ever to be involved in profound and complicated
contrivances. This was quite a mistake. There was nothing profound about
Mr. Rigby; and his intellect was totally incapable of devising or
sustaining an intricate or continuous scheme. He was, in short, a man who
neither felt nor thought; but who possessed, in a very remarkable degree,
a restless instinct for adroit baseness. On the present occasion he got
into his carriage, and drove at the utmost speed from Windsor to the
Foreign Office. The Secretary of State was engaged when he arrived; but
Mr. Rigby would listen to no difficulties. He rushed upstairs, flung open
the door, and with agitated countenance, and eyes suffused with tears,
threw himself into the arms of the astonished Mr. Canning.

'All is right,' exclaimed the devoted Rigby, in broken tones; 'I have
convinced the King that the First Minister must be in the House of