THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY, M.P.
From a Young Man Still in the Country.
Eaton Hall, Saturday.
Dear Toby,—I write to you from here where I stay a day or two on my way to Dublin. I expect by the time it reaches you I will be installed in the Chief Secretary’s Lodge, and the National League may prepare to sit up. I have been spending a week or two very agreeably in Scotland, a little out of the way of letters or newspapers. I am told there has been quite a demand for me, a sort of popular outcry that I should forthwith proceed to Ireland. This is, of course, not unflattering. It indicates a general belief which I, for one, am not disposed to contest, that if Ireland is to be saved, I’m the man to do it. That’s all very well; but it is, doncha know, something of a boah to be thus bothered at a time when one had two or three pleasant engagements on hand. It used to be just the same in the House last Session. If I did not really live there, entering with the Mace and the Speaker, and leaving only at the cry of “Who goes home?” there were impetuous protests. I put in King-Harman at Question time, but they wouldn’t have him. Often, as I lay on the sofa in the Chief Secretary’s room, looking over Punch, or reading the proofs of the forthcoming new edition of my Defence of Philosophic Doubt, I have heard the distant growls of the Irish Members when King-Harman rose to answer a question addressed to me. Quite touching this personal attachment. At the same time a little embarrassing.
Now I am really going to Dublin, and shall spend a cheerful November there. Grandolph, in his genial way, has tried to make things pleasant by reminding me that from the drawing-room window of the Chief Secretary’s Lodge I can see the place where poor Freddy Cavendish fell. “They’re sure to take a pot shot at you,” he says; “but you’re all right. Unless a man can make sure of hitting a lamp-post at fifty paces, it will be no use his trying to bring you down.” A nice companionable man Grandolph. Always tries to say something pleasant. But really I don’t pay much attention to his kindly apprehensions. I shall be boahed, I daresay; but not by the passage of a bullet, or the thrust of a knife.
People evidently expect great things to follow on my arrival in Dublin. To the accident of my holiday absence in Scotland they attribute all the failures of the Executive. “If Balfour had been there,” they say, “W. O’Brien would now be comfortably in gaol and T. D. S., Lord Mayor, would be laid by the heels.” I weally don’t know. Fact is, I have not closely followed up affairs either in the newspapers or despatches. There have been some rows, I understand. But that is not unusual in Ireland. Where people are right in kindly looking to me to restore peace and order in Ireland is in the supposition that I have a plan. That is true, though I cannot claim personal and private property in it. Fact is the plan is Cromwell’s. It worked admirably when originally put in practice, and I do not see any reason why it should fail now. There are, of course, difficulties in the way; prejudice to be overcome, legal forms to be dealt with, and that sort of thing. There is also, next Session of Parliament to be met, and awkward questions by Tim Healy and the rest. But they need not think to intimidate me by such reflections. I shall put up King-Harman to answer all inconvenient questions. Besides, it is exceedingly probable that in the full development of my plan the Irish Members who last Session distinguished themselves by “wanting to know” will be unavoidably absent from their places. It is an awful nuisance breaking in upon a man’s holiday; but it is a difficulty that has to be faced, and as there seems a popular inclination to look to me to settle it, I suppose there is nothing to be done but to grapple with it.
One additional drawback from a quite unexpected source makes itself known by correspondence with my colleagues. They are all in a dreadful state of fussy alarm. My uncle the Markiss begs me to be careful. “Firmness without Rashness” is an excellent copy-head, which W. H. Smith sends me in fine round-hand from the distant Mediterranean. I wish they’d all mind their own affairs. In the intervals of my other occupations I can answer for Ireland, and if any awkwardness arises, I can put up King-Harman to answer for me. So, dear Toby, don’t you have any anxiety on my account. Some half-hour after dinner, with the contemplative toothpick at hand, and my heels on the table, I will, if the subject occurs to me, settle the Irish Question.