From the benches behind him those who knew the truth applauded and those who did not applauded more loudly still.
With what genius had he not saved the situation! And the questions meandered on, and all was well, save for that last dreadful query of which he had had private notice.
It was put at the end of question-time, not, oddly enough, by the member who most coveted the apparently vacant Wardenship, nor even by any relative of that member, nay, not even by a friend: a member surely innocent of all personal motives put that question. He desired to know, whether rumours appearing in the papers upon the Wardenship of the Court of Dowry were well founded, whether the Wardenship of the Court of Dowry were not for the moment vacant, and if so what steps were being taken to fill that vacancy.
The reply was curt and sufficient: “The honourable member must not believe everything he reads in the newspapers.”
It is not often that wit of a lightning kind falls zigzag and blasts the efforts of anarchy in the National Council. Wit is very properly excluded from the exercise of legislative power; but when it appears—when there is good reason for its appearance—its success is overwhelming: and by the action of this one brilliant phrase, perhaps the most dangerous crisis through which the Constitution has passed since the flight of James II. was triumphantly passed.
Question-time was over. The young and popular Prime Minister, now wholly oblivious of his left lung, answered one or two minor questions, gave assurances as to the order of business, and left the House a happier man than he had entered it. He went straight to Downing Street. When he got to his room Edward was there awaiting him.
“They’ve got Demaine,” he said.
The luck had turned!
For half a minute Dolly couldn’t speak: then he gasped:
“Where?”