“He never had in his best day above four or five thousand, though he tells you of his twenty-seven or twenty-eight.”
“He had originally about six; but he always lived at the rate of twelve or fifteen, and in mere ostentation too.”
“So I 've always heard.” And then there followed a number of little anecdotes of Culduff's selfishness, his avarice, his meanness, and such like, told with such exactitude as to show that every act of these men's lives was scrupulously watched, and when occasion offered mercilessly recorded.
While they thus sat in judgment over him, Lord Culduff himself was seated at a fire in a dingy old room in Downing Street, the Chief Secretary for Foreign Affairs opposite him. They were talking in a tone of easy familiarity, as men might who occupied the same social station, a certain air of superiority, however, being always apparent in the manner of the Minister towards the subordinate.
“I don't think you can ask for this, Culduff,” said the great man, as he puffed his cigar tranquilly in front of him. “You've had three of these special missions already.”
“And for the simple reason that I was the one man in England who knew how to do them.”
“We don't dispute the way you did them; we only say all the prizes in the wheel should not fall to the same man.”
“You have had my proxy for the last five years.”
“And we have acknowledged the support—acknowledged it by more than professions.”
“I can only say this, that if I had been with the other side, I 'd have met somewhat different treatment.”