Part 78 (1/2)

It was some time before Walpole appeared, and when he did, it was with such a wasted look and careworn aspect as might have pleaded in his favour.

'Maude told me you wished to see me, my lord,' said he, half diffidently.

'Did I? eh? Did I say so? I forget all about it. What could it be? Let us see. Was it this stupid row they were making in the House? Have you read the debate?'

'No, my lord; not looked at a paper.'

'Of course not; you have been too ill, too weak. Have you seen a doctor?'

'I don't care to see a doctor; they all say the same thing. I only need rest and quiet.'

'Only that! Why, they are the two things n.o.body can get. Power cannot have them, nor money buy them. The retired tradesman--I beg his pardon, the cheesemonger--he is always a cheesemonger now who represents vulgarity and bank-stock--he may have his rest and quiet; but a Minister must not dream of such a luxury, nor any one who serves a Minister. Where's the quiet to come from, I ask you, after such a tirade of abuse as that?' And he pointed to the _Times_. 'There's _Punch_, too, with a picture of me measuring out ”Danesbury's drops to cure loyalty.” That slim youth handing the spoon is meant for _you_, Walpole.'

'Perhaps so, my lord,' said he coldly.

'They haven't given you too much leg, Cecil,' said the other, laughing; but Cecil scarcely relished the joke.

'I say, Piccadilly is scarcely the place for a man after that: I mean, of course, for a while,' continued he. 'These things are not eternal; they have their day. They had me last week travelling in Ireland on a camel; and I was made to say, ”That the air of the desert always did me good!” Poor fun, was it not?'

'Very poor fun indeed!'

'And you were the boy preparing my chibouque; and, I must say, devilish like.'

'I did not see it, my lord.'

'That's the best way. Don't look at the caricatures; don't read the _Sat.u.r.day Review_; never know there is anything wrong with you; nor, if you can, that anything disagrees with you.'

'I should like the last delusion best of all,' said he.

'Who would not?' cried the old lord. 'The way I used to eat potted prawns at Eton, and peach jam after them, and iced guavas, and never felt better!

And now everything gives acidity.'

'Just because our fathers and grandfathers would have those potted prawns you spoke of.'

'No, no; you are all wrong. It's the new race--it's the new generation.

They don't bear reverses. Whenever the world goes wrong with them, they talk as they feel, they lose appet.i.te, and they fall down in a state like your--a--Walpole--like your own!'

'Well, my lord, I don't think I could be called captious for saying that the world has not gone over well with me.'

'Ah--hum. You mean--no matter--I suppose the luckiest hand is not all trumps! The thing is to score the trick--that's the point, Walpole, to score the trick!'

'Up to this, I have not been so fortunate.'

'Well, who knows what's coming! I have just asked the Foreign Office people to give you Guatemala; not a bad thing, as times go.'

'Why, my lord, it's banishment and barbarism together. The pay is miserable! It _is_ far away, and it _is_ not Pall Mall or the Rue Rivoli.'