THE PREMIER'S POWER.
Brief Fragment of a current Historical Romance.
[It is whispered that the Prime Minister has of late taken too much into his own hands the conduct of the foreign affairs of the Government.—Smoking-room Gossip.]
The Prime Minister stood upon the rug, with his back to the fire, and regarded his assembled colleagues with an imperious and angry scowl. There was a profound and significant silence for several minutes. At length it broke. He was addressing them once more.
"You understand the official relationship that exists between us. You are my creatures. I am your Master. What I originate, you accept. I act, you endorse. Do I," he continued, his voice rising to a shrill, piping treble, "do I make myself sufficiently clear?"
A sickly smile of abject acquiescence overspread the features of the now trembling Ministers. Their Chief noted it with a gloomy glare. Then with a furious gesture, he suddenly kicked a waste-paper basket into the air. "You may go!" he growled. They did not wait for a second permission. Swiftly, but obsequiously, they glided out of the room, and with traces of terror stamped on their blanched countenances, silently sought the little neighbouring Railway Station, and took the next train to London.
That night the Premier sat up late. But his work, when he began it, did not take him long. Yet it was not unimportant, for the departing mail-bag carried a set of sealed orders for the Admiral in Command of the British Squadron in East African Waters, another Ultimatum to the Government of Portugal, a threatening communication to the Porte, and disturbing despatches, threatening to the peace of Europe, to the Governments of Russia, France, and Germany respectively. He laughed long and loud when he thought of their contents. Then he went to bed.
Later on, his work bore fruit; and people then said that the Cabinet of the day must have been a strange one!
