e has abundant resources."

"So much I gathered," said Wratislaw. "But his designs?

"He knows the tribes in the North better than any living man, but
without a base at hand he is comparatively harmless. The devil in the
thing is that we do not know how close that base may be. Fifty thousand
men may be massed within fifty miles, and we are in ignorance."

"It is the lack of a secret service," said the other. "Had we that,
there are a hundred young men who would have risked their necks there
and kept us abreast of our enemies. As it is, we have to wait till news
comes by some roundabout channel, while that cheerful being, Marka,
keeps the public easy by news of hypothetical private expeditious."

"And meantime there is that thousand-mile piece of desert of which we
know nothing, and where our friends may be playing pranks as they
please. Well, well, we must wait on developments. It is the last
refuge of the ill-informed. What about the dissolution? You are safe,
I suppose?"

Wratislaw nodded.

"I have been asked my forecast fifty times to-day, and I steadily refuse
to speak. But I may as well give it to you. We shall come back with a
majority of from fifty to eighty, and you, my dear fellow, will not be
forgotten."

"You mean the Under-Secretaryship," said the other. "Well, I don't mind
it."

"I should think not. Why, you will get that chance your friends have
hoped so long for, and then it is only a matter of time till you climb
the last steps. You are a youngish man for a Minister, for all your
elderly manners."

Wratislaw smiled the pleased smile of the man who hears kind words from
one whom he admires. "It won't be a bed of roses, you know. I am very
unpopular, and I have the grace to know it."

The elder man looked on the younger with an air of kindly wisdom. "Your
pride may have a fall, my dear fellow. You are young and confident, I
am old and humble. Some day you will be glad to hope that you are not
without this despised popularity."

Wratislaw looked grave. "God forbid that I should despise it. When it
comes my way I shall think that my work is done, and rest in peace. But
you and I are not the sort of people who can court it with comfort. We
are old sticks and very full of angles, but it would be a pity to rub
them off if the shape were to be spoiled."

Lord Beauregard nodded. "Tell me more about your friend Haystoun."

Wratislaw's face relaxed, and he became communicative.

"He is a Scots lai