It would perhaps have been well for everybody if the measure could have been withdrawn and the Ministry could have resigned without the debate—as everybody was convinced what would be the end of it. Let the second reading go as it might, the Bill could not be carried. There are measures which require the hopeful heartiness of a new Ministry, and the thoroughgoing energy of a young Parliament—and this was one of them. The House was as fully agreed that this change was necessary, as it ever is agreed on any subject—but still the thing could not be done. Even Mr. Monk, who was the most earnest of men, felt the general slackness of all around him. The commotion and excitement which would be caused by a change of Ministry might restore its proper tone to the House, but in its present condition it was unfit for the work. Nevertheless Mr. Monk made his speech, and put all his arguments into lucid order. He knew it was for nothing, but nevertheless it must be done. For hour after hour he went on—for it was necessary to give every detail of his contemplated proposition. He went through it as sedulously as though he had expected to succeed, and sat down about nine o’clock in the evening. Then Sir Orlando moved the adjournment of the House till the morrow, giving as his reason for doing so the expedience of considering the details he had heard. To this no opposition was made, and the House was adjourned.
On the following day the clubs were all alive with rumours as to the coming debate. It was known that a strong party had been formed under the auspices of Sir Orlando, and that with him Sir Timothy and other politicians were in close council. It was of course necessary that they should impart to many the secrets of their conclave, so that it was known early in the afternoon that it was the intention of the Opposition not to discuss the Bill, but to move that it be read a second time that day six months. The Ministry had hardly expected this, as the Bill was undoubtedly popular both in the House and the country; and if the Opposition should be beaten in such a course, that defeat would tend greatly to strengthen the hands of the Government. But if the foe could succeed in carrying a positive veto on the second reading, it would under all the circumstances be tantamount to a vote of want of confidence. “I’m afraid they know almost more than we do as to the feeling of members,” said Mr. Roby to Mr. Rattler.
“There isn’t a man in the House whose feeling in the matter I don’t know,” said Rattler, “but I’m not quite so sure of their principles. On our own side, in our old party, there are a score of men who detest the Duke, though they would fain be true to the Government. They have voted with him through thick and thin, and he has not spoken a word to one of them since he became Prime Minister. What are you to do with such a man? How are you to act with him?”
“Lupton wrote to him the other day about something,” answered the other, “I forget what, and he got a note back from Warburton as cold as ice—an absolute slap in the face. Fancy treating a man like Lupton in that way—one of the most popular men in the House, related to half the peerage, and a man who thinks so much of himself! I shouldn’t wonder if he were to vote against us;—I shouldn’t indeed.”
“It has all been the old Duke’s doing,” said Rattler, “and no doubt it was intended for the best; but the thing has been a failure from the beginning to the end. I knew it would be so. I don’t think there has been a single man who has understood what a Ministerial Coalition really means except you and I. From the very beginning all your men were averse to it in spirit.”
“Look how they were treated!” said Mr. Roby. “Was it likely that they should be very staunch when Mr. Monk became Leader of the House?”
There was a Cabinet Council that day which lasted but a few minutes, and it may easily be presumed that the Ministers decided that they would all resign at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment. It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should nearly carry it—leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion all the gentlemen assembled were jocund in their manner, and apparently well satisfied—as though they saw before them an end to all their troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf bit him beneath his frock, and these were all Spartan boys. Even the Prime Minister, who had fortified himself for the occasion, and who never wept in any company but that of his wife and his old friend, was pleasant in his manner and almost affable. “We shan’t make this step towards the millennium just at present,” he said to Phineas Finn as they left the room together—referring to words which Phineas had spoken on a former occasion, and which then had not been very well taken.
“But
