"Not I! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the day. Pray
Heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of a council. Begin!"

"In the first place Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless this
negotiation for peace be made a Cabinet question."

"Pshaw! let him resign. I have opposed the peace so long that it is out
of the question. Of course, Lord Wansted will not think of it, and he
may count on my boroughs. A peace!--shameful, disgraceful, dastardly
proposition!"

"But, my dear lord, my letter says that this unexpected firmness on the
part of Lord Daberly has produced so great a sensation that, seeing the
impossibility of forming a durable Cabinet without him, the king has
consented to the negotiation, and Duberly stays in!"

"The devil!--what next?"

"Raffden and Sternhold go out in favour of Baldwin and Charlton, and in
the hope that you will lend your aid to--"

"I!" said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily,--"I lend my aid to Baldwin, the
Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of a brewer!"

"Very true!" continued Brandon. "But in the hope that you might be
persuaded to regard the new arrangements with an indulgent eye, you are
talked of instead of the Duke of for the vacant garter and the office of
chamberlain."