The Election for the Chelsea Districts
March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr. Bott was heard to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn’t do. Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr. Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr. Palliser would not be found wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the Government. That was Mr. Bott’s opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr. Palliser, and Mr. Palliser’s friends, would—. Mr. Bott did not say what they would do; but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr. Palliser—and of Mr. Palliser’s great follower.
“This kind of thing won’t do long, you know,” repeated Mr. Bott for the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends around him.
“I suppose not,” said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we once met at Roebury. “Planty Pall won’t stand it, I should say.”
“What can he do?” asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to work.
“What can he do?” said Mr. Bott, who on such an occasion as this could be very great—who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott Ministry. “What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do. He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn’t look about him, he’ll find that Mr. Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help.”
“You don’t mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!” said the young Member.
“I mean to say that the Queen will send for anyone that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon,” said Mr. Bott, who conceived himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution. “How hard it is to make anyone understand that the Queen has really nothing to do with it!”
“Come, Bott, draw it mild,” said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend.
“Not if I know it,” said Mr. Bott, with something of grandeur in his tone and countenance. “I never drew it mild yet, and I shan’t begin now. All our political offences against civilization have come from men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it that Englishmen can’t read and write as Americans do? Why can’t they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been drawing it mild!” And Mr. Bott made an action with his hand as though he were drawing up beer from a patent tap.
“But you can’t set aside Her Majesty like that, you know,” said the young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother’s old-world notions about the throne still clung to him.
“I should be very sorry,” said Mr. Bott; “I’m no republican.” With all his constitutional love, Mr. Bott did not know what the word republican meant. “I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young Members should learn, and take to their hearts.”
“And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?” said Calder Jones.
“I haven’t said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this—that if Lord Brock doesn’t take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won’t long remain there himself.”
In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and the whole of the southwestern part of the metropolis was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor’s name. “Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank.” That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr. Scruby who invented the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the invention. There was a question in those days as to embanking the river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations of further Pimlico, and Mr. Scruby recommended the coming Member to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to Battersea Bridge. “You must have a subject,” pleaded Mr. Scruby. “No young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be local;—that is to say, if you
