Slowgoe. I’ve no doubt—whatever it is—it’s quite right. (Reads.) “I have a letter bearing date the 31st August 1846, in which Lord Fitzhardinge for the first time informs me that he shall discontinue the support he had for so many years given to my representation of the county. You will, I am sure, pardon me for not touching on all the wild passages of that angry letter, and permit me to bring under your notice the only strictly public accusation it contains. In the sincerest sorrow, I assure you, that were I in the present instance to deem it worth my while to allude to other objectionable portions of that remarkable communication, I could do myself justice in refutation of them, without touching with a tenfold deeper tint certain and mischievously ruling or predominant shadows, that unhappily are already too well known as imperiously existing in the quarter from whence the aspersion comes.” “Shadows imperiously existing!” That’s fine writing, that is! Real pen-and-ink work!
Nutts. But why should the servant be discharged? What has the unhappy man done that he should be commanded to strip himself of the coat of the family—to take off his plush—to undo the Fitzhardinge gold-band from his hat—and leave Parliament in a plain suit?
Slowgoe. Why, he’s accused of “abusing Government patronage.”
Tickle. Well, that isn’t much—there’s so many to keep him in countenance. But what’s he done? ’Pointed himself to be Master of the Royal Poultry-yard?
Slowgoe. A mere nothing. All he’s done, poor fellow! is this. He got a cadetship from Government for a youth some years ago, and he’s just asked for another. Now, what’s in that, I should like to know? And yet on the 15th September, Lord Fitzhardinge—but here’s the resolution (reads): “A meeting of some of the influential supporters of the Liberal interest of the Western Division of Gloucestershire having taken place at Gloucester on the 15th September 1846, and a statement having been made by Earl Fitzhardinge as to his future intentions with regard to the representation of the Division, it was unanimously decided to support, in every possible way, the views and intentions of Lord Fitzhardinge as detailed to-day, and as a necessary consequence to deprecate every attempt which may be made to foil the Liberal interest in this Division.” And this is signed by a batch of the independent electors.
Nutts. Poor fellow! And what does Grantley say to that?
Slowgoe. Doesn’t like it at all—and doesn’t mean to put up with it. He says (reads): “On the field of politics, I stand precisely on the spot whereon he (Lord Fitzhardinge) placed me: I am so far and no further, by his immediate desire, and with his personal concurrence; and at present it is fair to presume that in his unexplained desertion of me, he either contemplates a retrograde movement, or he means to jump beyond me, leave me at a spot to which my obedience to his wishes led me, and to join the Free Traders to the widest extent of their wishes. At all events, by every law of courtesy and justice, he ought to give me the option of taking either step by his side.”
Nutts. Well, there’s a good deal of truth in that. If I was able to keep a footman, and he wasn’t to brush my clothes, or clean the plate, or to bring Mrs Nutts’ lapdog into the room in a manner I liked, I think I should first say to him, “Is that the way, Jeames, you take the dirt off my trousers? is that the style you have your forks in? is that the manner to lift a pug or a spaniel bitch (as the case might be) worth forty pounds—is that the way to do it?” I should say at first that he might try again, and not, no, not at once without a warning word, discharge him, but give him, as the unfortunate Mr Berkeley says, “the option” of trying his hand again. But so it is. Whether in a House of Commons, or a house of call for tailors, people have no pity on their servants.
Slowgoe. But Mr Berkeley intends to call a meeting in November next; for, speaking of the county, he says (reads): “I am ready to sacrifice myself, as I have long done, for her real interests, but not to an unworthy conspiracy, if one exists. I am in no way inclined to commit a political suicide, or to allow my public life to die by the hand of undiscovered assassination.” That’s noble—and like a sportsman!
Nutts. Poor gentleman! And he has long sacrificed himself—and nobody’s known it! Just as I’ve read of folks carrying iron spikes about their waists, when people have thought they wore nothing harder than fleecy hosiery. What a shame there shouldn’t be a House of Commons’ “Book of Martyrs”! Then we should know our real sufferers.