freely from hand to hand,
no sooner comes under the scrutiny of a sharp-eyed functionary of the
bank than it is denounced and branded; and so Culdufif would speedily
have been treated by any one of those keen men who, as Ministers, grow
to acquire a knowledge of human nature as thorough as of the actual
events of the time.

The world at large, however, had not this estimate of him. They read
of him as a special envoy here, an extraordinary minister there, now
negotiating a secret treaty, now investing a Pasha of Egypt with the
Bath; and they deemed him not only a trusty servant of the Crown, but a
skilled negotiator, a deep and accomplished diplomatist.

He was a little short-sighted, and it enabled him to pass objectionable
people without causing offence. He was slightly deaf, and it gave him
an air of deference in conversation which many were charmed with; for
whenever he failed to catch what was said, his smile was perfectly
captivating. It was assent, but dashed with a sort of sly flattery, as
though it was to the speaker's ingenuity he yielded, as much as to the
force of the conviction.

He was a great favorite with women. Old ladies regarded him as a model
of good _ton_; younger ones discovered other qualities in him that
amused them as much. His life had been anything but blameless, but he
had contrived to make the world believe he was more sinned against
than sinning, and that every mischance that befell him came of
that unsuspecting nature and easy disposition of which even all his
experience of life could not rob him.

Cutbill read him thoroughly; but though Lord Culdufif saw this, it did
not prevent him trying all his little pretty devices of pleasing on the
man of culverts and cuttings. In fact, he seemed to feel that though he
could not bring down the bird, it was better not to spoil his gun by a
change of cartridge, and so he fired away his usual little pleasantries,
well aware that none of them were successful.

He had now been three days with the Bramleighs, and certainly had won
the suffrages, though in different degrees, of them all. He had put
himself so frankly and unreservedly in Colonel Bramleigh's hands about
the coal-mine, candidly confessing the whole thing was new to him, he
was a child in money matters, that the banker was positively delighted
with him.

With Augustus he had talked politics confidentially,--not questions of
policy nor statecraft, not matters of legislation or governmen