“I—ha! ha!—call to mind another mot of Mr. Disraeli’s; not at all a bad one, either,” continued the M.P., deliberately attacking a fresh decanter of claret—attacking it in that steady, methodical way which indicated a determination to reduce it by slow degrees to the last extremity. “Dizzy says a thing, sir, in a quaint, dry way peculiarly his own—Multum in parvo I call it—and he looks so demure, seated upon the Opposition bench in his short black velvet coat, and caressing his daintily-booted left foot upon his right knee. One night during the last session a very particular friend of mine, Sir Brisbane Bullflier, the junior member for Hants, happened to ask him what he thought of Mr. Gladstone. Dizzy turned his gaze toward the government benches, and coolly surveying the prime minister, who was parrying an adroit question, said, as he calmly surveyed him:
“‘Mr. Gladstone is a man without a single redeeming vice.’”
My heart was in the drawing-room, where I now imagined Harry Welstone leaning with his elbows upon the piano and his chin upon his hands (his favorite position when my mother played for him), gazing at Mabel—I had commenced to think of her by this gracious and winsome name—uttering some of his daring facetiæ, and being rewarded by a glance from those bewildering violet eyes, while I, bound in the iron fetters of a vile conventionalism, was compelled to listen to “I thus addressed the Speaker: ‘Mr. Speaker, sir,’” or, “I called for a division, sir, and insisted upon explaining to the House my motives for adopting this somewhat daring and untoward course,” and “Would you believe it, sir, the Times never noticed my speech upon the church disestablishment; it is positively amusing—ha! ha! ha!”; his face bore no traces of the amusement in question—“and that contemptible rag, the Daily Telegraph, merely mentioned that the honorable member for Doodleshire said a few words which were inaudible—this, sir, to a speech that cost me three weeks in the preparation and three hours in the delivery.” This sort of thing under ordinary circumstances, would have been dry and prosy enough, but under the special conditions of the case it became simply unbearable.
I suggested cigars; he didn’t smoke. A Bras Mouton instead of Château Lafitte; he preferred the existing vintage. Coffee I dared not venture upon, and I relinquished the hopeless struggle with a weary sigh. He was there for the evening, and in that spot he would remain until the contents of the decanter had disappeared.
“Do you take an active part in politics, Mr. Ormonde?” he asked after a prolonged silence, during which I had the dismal satisfaction of hearing the strains of a valse brillante, accompanied by an occasional ripple of laughter, wafted in through the windows.
“None whatever.”
“No?” uttered in a tone almost of dismay.
“No, sir. Our country is in the hands of an Orange clique, who will not allow a Catholic to hold a position of any consequence whatever. The representation is, as a matter of course, in their hands, and the family of De Ruthven have supplied the members since the sacking of Drogheda under Cromwell, and will continue so to do, although, perhaps, under the recent Ballot Act some outsider may get a chance, There are but two Catholics in the grand panel. I am one of them, and was never even summoned to attend until I threatened to horsewhip the high sheriff. My colleague is what we call in this country a ‘Cawtholic’—that is, one who invariably votes with the Orange party, and who would drink the great, glorious, pious, and immortal King William in preference to the health of Pius the Ninth.”
“You have done away with that absurd toast,” said Mr. Hawthorne.
“Not at all, sir; it is given at every dinner-party in the country, and it was once given in this very room.”