“I am very grateful for his kind estimate of me. It is, however, no more than I looked for at his hands.” This he said with a marked feeling, and then added, in a lighter tone, “I have also a debt of gratitude to yourself, of which I know not how to acquit myself better than by accepting this appointment, and taking the earliest opportunity to die afterwards.”
“No, don't do that; I don't mean that. You can do like that fellow they made Pope because he looked on the verge of the grave, and who pitched his crutch into the air when he had put on the tiara.”
“I understand; so that it is only in Baron Lendrick's eyes I am to look short-lived.”
“Just so; call on him,—have a meeting with him; say that his Excellency desires to act with every delicacy towards him,—that should it be discovered hereafter the right of nomination lies with the Court and not with us, we 'll give him an equivalent somewhere else, till—till—”
“Till I shall have vacated the post,” chimed in Sir Brook, blandly; “a matter, of course, of very brief space.”
“You see the whole thing,—you see it in all its bearings; and now if you only could know something about the man you have to deal with, there would be nothing more to tell you.”
“I have heard about him passingly.”
“Oh, yes, his eccentricities are well known. The world is full of stories of him, but he is one of those men who play wolf on the species,—he must be worrying somebody to keep him from worrying himself; he smashed the last two Governments here, and he 'd have upset us too if I had n't been here. He hates me cordially; and if you don't want to rouse his anger, don't let your lips murmur the name, Cholmondely Balfour.”
“You may rely upon me, sir,” said Sir Brook, bowing. “I have scarcely ever met a gentleman whose name I am not more likely to recall than your own.”
“Sharp, that; did you mean it?” said Balfour, with his glass to his eye.