“I fancy, sir,” said St. George, “they are more indifferent than you suppose. A meeting held by individuals of a certain rank and property, and convened with a certain degree of ostentation, can scarcely ever be formidable to a government.”
“You forget the Volunteers,” said Heffernan.
“No, I remember their assembling well enough, and a very absurd business they made of it. The Bishop of Downe was the only man of nerve amongst them; and as for Lord Charlemont, the thought of an attainder was never out of his head till the whole association was disbanded.”
“They were very formidable, indeed,” said Heffernan, gravely. “I can assure you that the Government were far more afraid of their defenders than of the French.”
“A government that is ungrateful enough to neglect its supporters,” chimed in Hume, “men that have spent their best years in its service, can scarcely esteem itself very secure. In the department I belong to myself, for instance—”
“Yours is a very gross case,” interrupted Heffernan, who from old experience knew what was coming, and wished to arrest it.
“Thirty-four years, come November next, have I toiled as a commissioner.”
“Unpaid!” exclaimed St. George, with a well-simulated horror,—“unpaid!”
“No, sir; not without my salary, of course. I never heard of any man holding an office in the Revenue for the amusement it might afford him. Did you, Godfrey?”
“As for me,” said the lawyer, “I spurn their patronage. I well know the price men pay for such favors.”