“The deuce you do! Why, my good friend, these marks of our preference for your scheme have cost us some hundred angry addresses and recriminations from all parts of the kingdom, where, we are told, there is more picturesque scenery, more salubrious air, deeper water, and better anchorage. If you built a villa for every member of the Cabinet, and settled it on us in freehold there, it would not repay us for all we have suffered in your cause.”
“We should be both proud and happy to accommodate your Lordship's colleagues on Jedburg Crescent,” said Dunn, bowing with a well-assumed seriousness.
“But what do you want us to do?” said his Lordship, peevishly; for he had the dislike great men generally feel to have their joke capped. It is for them to be smart, if they please, but not for the Mr. Davenport Dunns of this world to take up the clew of the facetiousness.
Mr. Dunn seemed somewhat posed by the abrupt directness of this question. Lord Jedburg went on:—
“You surely never supposed that we could send you material assistance. You are far too conversant with the working of our institutions to expect such. These things are possible in France, but they won't do here. No, Dunn; perfectly impossible here.”
“And yet, my Lord, it is precisely in France that they ought to be impossible. Ministers in that country have no responsibility except towards their sovereign. If they become suddenly enriched, one sees at once how they have abused the confidence of their master.”
“I'll not enter upon that question,” said his Lordship, smartly. “Tell me, rather, something about Ireland; how shall we fare there in a general election?”
“With proper exertions you may be able to hold your own,” was the dry rejoinder.
“Not more? Not any more than this?”
“Certainly not, my Lord, nor do I see how you could expect it. What you are in the habit of calling concessions to Irish interests have been little other than apologies for the blunders of your colleagues. You remove some burden imposed by yourselves, or express sorrow for some piece of legislation your own hands have inflicted—”