"And he wears a wig."
"Yes;—he wears a wig," said Sir Marmaduke, hardly knowing in what spirit to accept this assertion.
"And nobody cares one brass button for him or his opinions," said Stanbury, bringing down his hand heavily on the little table for the sake of emphasis.
"What, sir?"
"If you'll think of it, it is so."
"Nobody cares for the Lord Chancellor!" It certainly is the fact that gentlemen living in the Mandarin Islands do think more of the Lord Chancellor, and the Lord Mayor, and the Lord-Lieutenant, and the Lord Chamberlain, than they whose spheres of life bring them into closer contact with those august functionaries. "I presume, Mr. Stanbury, that a connection with a penny newspaper makes such opinions as these almost a necessity."
"Quite a necessity, Sir Marmaduke. No man can hold his own in print, now-a-days, unless he can see the difference between tinsel and gold."
"And the Lord Chancellor, of course, is tinsel."
"I do not say so. He may be a great lawyer,—and very useful. But his lordship, and his wig, and his woolsack, are tinsel in comparison with the real power possessed by the editor of a leading newspaper. If the Lord Chancellor were to go to bed for a month, would he be much missed?"
"I don't know, sir. I'm not in the secrets of the Cabinet. I should think he would."