Part 20 (1/2)
”Place on that table my letter-case and the inkstand. Look in, to help me to undress, at half-past one; I shall go to bed at that hour.
And--stay--be sure, Barlow, that my brother believes me retired for the night. He does not know my habits, and will vex himself if he thinks I sit up so late in my present state of health.”
Drawing the table with its writing appurtenances near to his master, the servant left Brandon once more to his thoughts or his occupations.
CHAPTER XIV.
Servant. Get away, I say, wid dat nasty bell.
Punch. Do you call this a bell? (patting it.) It is an organ.
Servant. I say it is a bell,--a nasty bell!
Punch. I say it is an organ (striking him with it). What do you say it is now?
Servant. An organ, Mr. Punch!
The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy.
The next morning, before Lucy and her father had left their apartments, Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, had disturbed the luxurious Mauleverer in his first slumber. Although the courtier possessed a villa some miles from Bath, he preferred a lodging in the town, both as being warmer than a rarely inhabited country-house, and as being to an indolent man more immediately convenient for the gayeties and the waters of the medicinal city. As soon as the earl had rubbed his eyes, stretched himself, and prepared himself for the untimeous colloquy, Brandon poured forth his excuses for the hour he had chosen for a visit.
”Mention it not, my dear Brandon,” said the good-natured n.o.bleman, with a sigh; ”I am glad at any hour to see you, and I am very sure that what you have to communicate is always worth listening to.”
”It was only upon public business, though of rather a more important description than usual, that I ventured to disturb you,” answered Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the bedside. ”This morning, an hour ago, I received by private express a letter from London, stating that a new arrangement will positively be made in the Cabinet,--nay, naming the very promotions and changes. I confess that as my name occurred, as also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the subject, as well as of your advice.”
”Really, Brandon,” said Mauleverer, with a half-peevish smile, ”any other hour in the day would have done for 'the business of the nation,'
as the newspapers call that troublesome farce we go through; and I had imagined you would not have broken my nightly slumbers except for something of real importance,--the discovery of a new beauty or the invention of a new dish.”
”Neither the one nor the other could you have expected from me, my dear lord,” rejoined Brandon. ”You know the dry trifles in which a lawyer's life wastes itself away; and beauties and dishes have no attraction for us, except the former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents invaded. But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have heard it before.”
”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.”
”You don't mean it!” cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed.
”A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to be made.
Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat Sarsden, is to have a silk gown; Cromwell is to be attorney-general; and, between ourselves, they have offered me a judges.h.i.+p.”