Endor really found himself at grips with Fate. Ushered into an armchair, strategically disposed so that the bust of Pitt should be on his right and a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica on his left, two adjuncts indispensable to the library of Number 10 Downing Street, and duly furnished with an excellent cigar, the neophyte settled himself to hear golden words.
In the delicate and judicious phrase of the prime minister, it seemed that one Bendish, an admirable man, was living now under the threat of Bright's disease, and that in the opinion of Mrs. Bendish, an admirable woman, only one place could hope to arrest the ravages of such a grave malady. That place was the House of Lords. Whether the air of the Gilded Chamber was more salubrious, whether its system of drainage was more modern, the central heating more efficient, the ventilation less inadequate, was one of those problems which the prime minister, having no first-hand knowledge of Another Place, did not offer to solve. But there the matter was. Mrs. Bendish, an admirable woman, was convinced that, for Bright's disease, the rarified atmosphere of the House of Lords was the only remedy. Alas, that Mr. Bendish should be smitten with so fell a malady!
The prime minister, however, was by no means averse from applying the antidote. Drastic, no doubt, but Mrs. Bendish, a Spartan wife, was adamant. Unhappily, Mr. Bendish would not be able to continue his signal work for the State. The Home Office and the
