Lady Flumm. “Poor man!” I cannot pity him. His maxim is, that knowledge is power; and he thinks his {290} knowledge is all that can be known. He has to learn that our knowledge, also, is power; and that we know how to use it too.

Enter LORD FLUMM.

Lord Flumm. There, Lady Selina, so much for your philosophic friend. Poor Turnstile! What a business he has made of it. Here is the “Times,” with the report of the Shoreditch election meeting. Turnstile has no chance. The Scotchmen coalesce; Highway none of us can think of; and Smooth and MacLeech walk over the ground in triumph; and then, the Presidency of Man­u­fac­tures, the very appointment for which poor Turnstile was fitted (and, to do the poor devil justice, he could have filled it well), is given to MacLeech, a Scotch hanger on, or distant cousin of Smooth’s, and with the old salary, in spite of all that Hume could say against it.—Bravo! Reform, and the Whigs for ever!—We Tories could not have done the business in a better style.

Enter a Footman.

Footman. Mr. Turnstile, my Lady, sends up his card.

Lady Flumm. Oh, not at home! And Sleek, put a memorandum in the visiting-book, that we are “out of town,” whenever Mr. Turnstile calls.

SCENE XII.—TURNSTILE’S Parlour. Night. TURNSTILE alone.

Turnstile. Then all is up. What a fool have I been to embark upon this sea of trouble! Two years of trifling and lost time; while others have been making discoveries and adding to their reputation. Those rascal Whigs, my blood boils to think of them. I can forgive the Shoreditch {291} people—the greasy, vulgar, money-getting beasts;—but my friends, the men of principle—— (Getting up and walking about.)

Is it still too late to return? (Looking round upon his books and instruments.) There you are, my old friends, whom I have treated rather ungratefully. What a scene at that cursed meeting! Highway’s bullying; and the baseness of Smooth; the sleek, sly, steering of that knave MacLeech; and yet they must succeed. There’s no help for it. I am fairly beaten—thrown overboard, with not a leg to stand upon; and all I have to do is to go to bed now, to sleep off this fever; and to-morrow, take leave of politics, and try to be myself once more.

END OF THE EXTRACTS.