th 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 arrangem