boots. Whether or no his very skin will hold out, is
then his thought. And so it was now with Sir Henry. Or we may perhaps
say that he had advanced a step beyond that. He was pretty well
convinced now that his skin would not hold out.

He still owned his fine house in Eaton Square, and still kept his
seat for the Battersea Hamlets. But Baron Brawl, and such like men,
no longer came willingly to his call; and his voice was no longer
musical to the occupants of the Treasury bench. His reign had been
sweet, but it had been very short. Prosperity he had known how to
enjoy, but adversity had been too much for him.

Since the day when he had hesitated to resign his high office, his
popularity had gone down like a leaden plummet in the salt water. He
had become cross-grained, ill-tempered, and morose. The world had
spoken evil of him regarding his wife; and he had given the world
the lie in a manner that had been petulant and injudicious. The
world had rejoined, and Sir Henry had in every sense got the worst
of it. Attorneys did not worship him as they had done, nor did
vice-chancellors and lords-justices listen to him with such bland
attention. No legal luminary in the memory of man had risen so
quickly and fallen so suddenly. It had not been given to him to
preserve an even mind when adversity came upon him.

But the worst of his immediate troubles were his debts. He had boldly
resolved to take a high position in London; and he had taken it. It
now remained that the piper should be paid, and the piper required
payment not in the softest language. While that old man was still
living, or rather still dying, he had had an answer to give to all
pipers. But that answer would suffice him no longer. Every clause
in that will would be in the "Daily Jupiter" of the day after
to-morrow--the "Daily Jupiter" which had already given a wonderfully
correct biography of the deceased great man.

As soon as he reached the London station, he jumped into a cab, and
was quickly whirled to Eaton Square. The house felt dull, and cold,
and wretched to him. It was still the London season, and Parliament
was sitting. After walking up and down his own dining-room for half
an hour, he got into another cab, and was whirled down to the House
of Commons. But there it seemed as though all the men round him
already knew of his disappointment--as though Mr. Bertram's will had
been read in a Committee of the whole House. Men spoke coldly to him,
and loo