take it you have other views?"

"I have other views," said he, gravely.

"I'm not indiscreet, and I shall not ask you more on that head. By the
way, is n't your leave up, or nearly up?"

"It expired on Wednesday last, and I want it renewed for two months."

"Of course, if we send you on this mission, you 'll not want the leave.
I had something else to say. What was it?"

"I have not the very vaguest idea."

"Oh! I remember. It was to recommend you not to take your wife from the
stage. There's a strong prejudice in a certain quarter as to that--in
fact, I may say it couldn't be got over."

"I may relieve you of any apprehensions on that score. Indeed, I don't
know what fact in my life should expose me to the mere suspicion."

"Nothing, nothing--except that impulsive generosity of your
disposition, which might lead you to do what other men would stop short
to count the cost of."

"It would never lead me to derogate, my Lord," said he, proudly, as he
took his hat, and bowing haughtily left the room.

"The greatest ass in the whole career, and the word is a bold one,"
said the Minister, as the door closed. "Meanwhile, I must send in
his name for this mission, which he is fully equal to. What a happy
arrangement it is, that in an age when our flunkies aspire to be
gentlemen, there are gentlemen who ask nothing better than to be
flunkies!"

CHAPTER XV. WITH HIS LAWYER.

Though Colonel Bramleigh's visit to town was supposed to be in
furtherance of that speculation by which Lord Culduff calculated on
wealth and splendor, he had really another object, and while Culduff
imagined him to be busy in the City, and deep in shares and stock lists,
he was closely closeted with his lawyer, and earnestly poring over a
mass of time-worn letters and documents, carefully noting down dates,
docketing, and annotating, in a way that showed what importance he
attached to the task before him.

"I tell you what, Sedley," said he, as he threw his pen disdainfully
from him, and lay back in his chair, "the whole of this move is a party
dodge. It is part and parcel of that vile persecution with which the
Tory faction pursued me during my late canvass. You remember their
vulgar allusions to my father, the brewer, and their coarse jest about
my frothy oratory? This attack is but the second act of the same drama."

"I don't think so," mildly rejoined the other party. "Conflicts are
sharp enough while the struggle lasts; but they ra