th an innocent
air, it now being notorious that the whig administration had a majority
of double that amount.

"I said Mr Tadpole gave us a majority of fifteen," said Lady Firebrace.
"I knew he was in error; because I had happened to see Lord Melbourne's
own list, made up to the last hour; and which gave the government a
majority of sixty. It was only shown to three members of the cabinet,"
she added in a tone of triumphant mystery.

Lady Firebrace, a great stateswoman among the tories, was proud of
an admirer who was a member of the whig cabinet. She was rather an
agreeable guest in a country-house, with her extensive correspondence,
and her bulletins from both sides. Tadpole flattered by her notice, and
charmed with female society that talked his own slang, and entered with
affected enthusiasm into all his dirty plots and barren machinations,
was vigilant in his communications; while her whig cavalier, an
easy individual who always made love by talking or writing politics,
abandoned himself without reserve, and instructed Lady Firebrace
regularly after every council. Taper looked grave at this connection
between Tadpole and Lady Firebrace; and whenever an election was
lost, or a division stuck in the mud, he gave the cue with a nod and a
monosyllable, and the conservative pack that infests clubs, chattering
on subjects of which it is impossible they can know anything, instantly
began barking and yelping, denouncing traitors, and wondering how the
leaders could be so led by the nose, and not see that which was flagrant
to the whole world. If, on the other hand, the advantage seemed to go
with the Canton Club, or the opposition benches, then it was the whig
and liberal hounds who howled and moaned, explaining everything by
the indiscretion, infatuation, treason, of Lord Viscount Masque, and
appealing to the initiated world of idiots around them, whether any
party could ever succeed, hampered by such men, and influenced by such
means.

The best of the joke was, that all this time Lord Masque and Tadpole
were two old foxes, neither of whom conveyed to Lady Firebrace a single
circumstance but with the wish, intention, and malice aforethought, that
it should be communicated to his rival.

"I must get you to interest Lord de Mowbray in our cause," said Sir
Vavasour Firebrace, in an insinuating voice to his neighbour, Lady Joan;
"I have sent him a large packet of documents. You know, he is one of us;
still one of us. Onc