course, Lord Wanstead 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 Duberly 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 arrangements with an indulgent eye, you are talked of instead of the Duke of for the vacant garter and the office of Chamberlain."
"You don't mean it!" cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed.
"A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) pro-
