Mr. Greenwood sat down amidst loud cheers from the Tory party; and Sir Robert Peel turned round and gave him a patronising nod of most gracious approval. Indeed his speech must have created a very powerful sensation, for upwards of fifty members who had been previously stretched upon the benches in the galleries, comfortably snoozing, rose up in the middle of their nap to listen to him.
The Conservative papers next morning spoke in raptures of the brilliancy of the new talent which had thus suddenly developed itself in the political heaven; while the Liberal prints denounced Greenwood's language as the most insane farrago of anti-popular trash ever heard during the present century.
Mr. Greenwood cared nothing for these attacks. He had gained his aims: he had already taken a stand amongst the party with whom he had determined to act;—he had won the smiles of the leader of that party; and he chuckled within himself as he saw baronetcies and sinecures in the perspective.
That night he could not sleep. His ideas were reflected back to the time when, poor, obscure, and friendless, he had commenced his extraordinary career in the City of London. A very few years had passed;—he was now rich, and in a fair way to become influential and renowned. The torch of Fortune seemed ever to light him on his way, and never to shine obscurely for him in the momentous affairs of life:—like the fabled light of the Rosicrucian's ever-burning lamp, the halo of that torch appeared constantly to attend upon his steps.
Whether he thus prospered to the end, the sequel of our tale must show.
CHAPTER LXXII.
THE BLACK CHAMBER AGAIN.
IT was now the beginning of April, and the bleak winds had yielded to the genial breath of an early spring.
At ten o'clock, one morning, an elderly gentleman, with a high forehead, open countenance, thin white hair falling over his coat collar, and dressed in a complete suit of black, ascended the steps of the northern door, leading to the Inland Letter Department of the General Post Office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
He paused for a moment, looked at his watch, and then entered the building. Having ascended a narrow staircase, he stopped at a door in that extremity of the building which is the nearer to Aldersgate Street. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, glanced cautiously behind him, and then entered the Black Chamber.
Having carefully secured the door by means of a bolt and chain, he threw himself into the arm-chair which stood near the large round oaken table.