"But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern;—nor yet poison, nor anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew how, wouldn't I, Marie?"
"They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months," said Madame Goesler.
"And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated, they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one do?"
"Change your keepers," said Lord Chiltern energetically.
"It is easy to say,—change your keepers. How am I to set about it? To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested interests mean, Lord Chiltern?"
"Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?"
"Nobody can,—unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with the Government,—with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just the thing for Mr. Finn."
"There would be a salary, of course," said Phineas.
"Then I suppose that nothing can be done," said Lord Chiltern.
"My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory of the Brake Hunt. It won't cost the Duke above a thousand or two a year."