Volume I Part 22 (1/2)

”Yes, but it does though,--I'm coming to it. I have a system of artificial memory, and I have just arrived at you now through Carlton House, milk-punch, and that story about Lord Grey and yourself riding postilions to Ascot, and you on the wheelers tipping up Grey with your whip till he grew frantic. Was n't that a fact?”

”I wait for the message, sir; or rather I grow impatient at not hearing it.”

”I remember it perfectly. It's a place he wants to offer you; it's a something under the Courts of Law. You are to do next to nothing,--nothing at all, I believe, if you prefer it, as the last fellow did. He lived in Dresden for the education of his children, and he died there, and we did n't know when he died,--at least they suspect he signed some dozen life certificates that his doctor used to forward at quarter-day. Mind, I don't give you the story as mine; but the impression is that he held the office for eight years after his death.”

”Perhaps, sir, you would now favor me with the name and nature of the appointment.”

”He was called the Deputy-a.s.sistant Sub-something of somewhere in the Exchequer; and he had to fill, or to register, or to put a seal, or, if not a seal, a stamp on some papers; but the marrow of the matter is, he had eight hundred a year for it; and when the Act pa.s.sed requiring two seals, he asked for an increase of salary and an a.s.sistant clerk, and they gave him two hundred more, but they refused the clerk. They do such shabby things in those short sittings over the Estimates!”

”And am I to understand that his Excellency makes me an offer of this appointment?”

”Well, not exactly; there's a hitch in it,--I may say there are two hitches: first of all, we 're not sure it's in our gift; and, secondly--”

”Perhaps I may spare you the secondly,--the firstly is more than enough for me.”

”Yes, but I'd like to explain. Here's how it is: the Chief Baron claimed the patronage about twenty years ago, and we made, or the people who were in power made, some sort of a compromise about an ultimate nomination, and he was to have the first. Now this man only died t' other day, having held the office, as I said, upwards of twenty years,--a most unconscionable thing,--just one of those selfish acts small official fellows are always doing; and so _I_ thought, as I saw your name down for something on his Excellency's list, that I 'd mention _you_ for the post as a sort of sop to Baron Lendrick, saying, 'Look at our man; we are not going to saddle the country with one of your long-annuity fellows,--_he_ 's eighty if he's a day.' I say, I 'd press this point, because the old Judge says he is no longer bound by the terms of the compromise, for that the office was abolished and reconstructed by the 58th of Victoria, and that he now insists on the undivided patronage.”

”I presume that the astute reasons which induced you to think of _me_ have not been communicated to the Viceroy.”

”I should think not. I mention them to you frankly, because his Excellency said you were one of those men who must be dealt with openly.

'Play on the square with Foss-brooke,' said he; 'and whether he win or lose, you 'll see no change in him. Try to overreach him, and you 'll catch a tiger.'”

”I am very grateful for his kind estimate of me. It is, however, no more than I looked for at his hands.” This he said with a marked feeling, and then added, in a lighter tone, ”I have also a debt of grat.i.tude to yourself, of which I know not how to acquit myself better than by accepting this appointment, and taking the earliest opportunity to die afterwards.”

”No, don't do that; I don't mean that. You can do like that fellow they made Pope because he looked on the verge of the grave, and who pitched his crutch into the air when he had put on the tiara.”

”I understand; so that it is only in Baron Lendrick's eyes I am to look short-lived.”

”Just so; call on him,--have a meeting with him; say that his Excellency desires to act with every delicacy towards him,--that should it be discovered hereafter the right of nomination lies with the Court and not with us, we 'll give him an equivalent somewhere else, till--till--”

”Till I shall have vacated the post,” chimed in Sir Brook, blandly; ”a matter, of course, of very brief s.p.a.ce.”

”You see the whole thing,--you see it in all its bearings; and now if you only could know something about the man you have to deal with, there would be nothing more to tell you.”

”I have heard about him pa.s.singly.”

”Oh, yes, his eccentricities are well known. The world is full of stories of him, but he is one of those men who play wolf on the species,--he must be worrying somebody to keep him from worrying himself; he smashed the last two Governments here, and he 'd have upset _us_ too if _I_ had n't been here. He hates _me_ cordially; and if you don't want to rouse his anger, don't let your lips murmur the name, Cholmondely Balfour.”

”You may rely upon me, sir,” said Sir Brook, bowing. ”I have scarcely ever met a gentleman whose name I am not more likely to recall than your own.”

”Sharp, that; did you mean it?” said Balfour, with his gla.s.s to his eye.

”I am never ambiguous, sir, though it occasionally happens to me to say somewhat less than I feel. I wish you a good day.”

CHAPTER XX. IN COURT.

When the day arrived that the Chief Baron was to resume his place on the Bench, no small share of excitement was seen to prevail within the precincts of the Four Courts. Many opined that his recovery was far from perfect, and that it was not his intention ever to return to the justice-seat. Some maintained that the illness had been far less severe than was pretended, and that he had employed the attack as a means of pressure on the Government, to accord to his age and long services the coveted reward. Less argumentative partisans there were who were satisfied to wager that he would or would not reappear on the Bench, and bets were even laid that he would come for one last time, as though to show the world in what full vigor of mind and intellect was the man the Government desired to consign to inactivity and neglect.

It is needless to say that he was no favorite with the Bar. There was scarcely a man, from the highest to the lowest, whom he had not on some occasion or another snubbed, ridiculed, or reprimanded. Whose law had he not controverted? Whose acuteness had he not exposed, whose rhetoric not made jest of? The mere presence of ability before him seemed to stimulate his combative spirit, and incite him to a pa.s.sage at arms with one able to defend himself. No first-rate man could escape the shafts of his barbed and pointed wit; it was only dulness, hopeless dulness, that left his court with praise of his urbanity and an eulogy over his courteous demeanor.