They all understand this, even Mr. Green Walker. “I don’t know that he is any good to any of us at all, now,” says the talented member for the Crewe Junction. “He’s a great deal too uppish to suit my book; and I know a great many people that think so too. There’s my uncle—”
“He’s the best fellow in the world,” said Mr. Fothergill, who felt, perhaps, that that coming revelation about Mr. Green Walker’s uncle might not be of use to them; “but the fact is one gets tired of the same man always. One does not like partridge every day. As for me, I have nothing to do with it myself; but I would certainly like to change the dish.”
“If we’re merely to do as we are bid, and have no voice of our own, I don’t see what’s the good of going to the shop at all,” said Mr. Sowerby.
“Not the least use,” said Mr. Supplehouse. “We are false to our constituents in submitting to such a dominion.”
“Let’s have a change, then,” said Mr. Sowerby. “The matter’s pretty much in our own hands.”
“Altogether,” said Mr. Green Walker. “That’s what my uncle always says.”
“The Manchester men will only be too happy for the chance,” said Harold Smith.
“And as for the high and dry gentlemen,” said Mr. Sowerby, “it’s not very likely that they will object to pick up the fruit when we shake the tree.”
“As to picking up the fruit, that’s as may be,” said Mr. Supplehouse. Was he not the man to save the nation; and if so, why should he not pick up the fruit himself? Had not the greatest power in the country pointed him out as such a saviour? What though the country at the present moment needed no more saving, might there not, nevertheless, be a good time coming? Were there not rumours of other wars still prevalent—if indeed the actual war then going on was being brought to a close without his assistance by some other species of salvation? He thought of that country to which he had pointed, and of that friend of his enemies, and remembered that there might be still work for a mighty saviour. The public mind was now awake, and understood what it was about. When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how great becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public. Vox populi vox Dei. “Has it not been so always?” he says to himself, as he gets up and as he goes to bed. And then Mr. Supplehouse felt that he was the master mind there at Gatherum Castle, and that those there were all puppets in his hand. It is such a pleasant thing to feel that one’s friends are puppets, and that the strings are in one’s own possession. But what if Mr. Supplehouse himself were a puppet?
Some months afterwards, when the much-belaboured head of affairs was in very truth made to retire, when unkind shells were thrown in against him in great numbers, when he exclaimed, “Et tu, Brute!” till the words were stereotyped upon his lips, all men in all places talked much about the great Gatherum Castle confederation. The Duke of Omnium, the world said, had taken into his high consideration the state of affairs, and seeing with his eagle’s eye that the welfare of his countrymen at large required that some great step should be initiated, he had at once summoned to his mansion many members of the Lower House, and some also of the House of Lords,—mention was here especially made of the all-venerable and all-wise Lord Boanerges; and men went on to say that there, in deep conclave, he had made known to them his views. It was thus agreed that the head of affairs, Whig as he was, must fall. The country required it, and the duke did his duty. This was the beginning, the world said, of that celebrated confederation, by which the ministry was overturned, and—as the Goody Twoshoes added,—the country saved. But the Jupiter took all the credit to itself; and the Jupiter was not far wrong. All the credit was due to the Jupiter—in that, as in everything else.