"I spent the morning in going over the list of members with a parliamentary client of mine, who knows them all as a shepherd does his sheep. Majority for the Opposition at least twenty-five."
"And in that case must the government resign, sir?" asked the candid young placeman, who had been listening to the smart well-dressed Baron, 'his soul planted in his ears.'
"Of course, sir," replied the Baron blandly, and offering his snuff-box, (true Louis Quinze, with a miniature of Madame de Pompadour, set in pearls.) "You are a friend to the present ministers? You could not wish them to be mean enough to stay in?" Randal drew aside the Baron.
"If Audley's affairs are as you state, what can he do?"
"I shall ask him that question to-morrow," answered the Baron, with a look of visible hate. "And I have come here just to see how he bears the prospect before him."
"You will not discover that in his face. And those absurd scruples of his! If he had but gone out in time—to come in again with the New Men!"
"Oh, of course, our Right Honourable is too punctilious for that!" answered the Baron, sneering.
Suddenly the doors opened—in rushed the breathless expectants. "What are the numbers? What is the division!"
"Majority against ministers," said a member of Opposition, peeling an orange, "twenty-nine."
The Baron, too, had a Speaker's order; and he came into the House with Randal, and sate by his side. But, to their disgust, some member was talking about the other motions before the House.