it must be acknowledged that some of them had become very effete—would come forth young, and round, and robust. A new energy would diffuse itself through every department; India would be saved and quieted; the ambition of France would be tamed; even-handed reform would remodel our courts of law and parliamentary elections; and Utopia would be realized. Such, it seems, is the result expected in the ministry from Mr. Harold Smith's young blood!"
This was cruel enough, but even this was hardly so cruel as the words with which the article ended. By that time irony had been dropped, and the writer spoke out earnestly his opinion upon the matter. "We beg to assure Lord Brock," said the article, "that such alliances as these will not save him from the speedy fall with which his arrogance and want of judgment threaten to overwhelm it. As regards himself, we shall be sorry to hear of his resignation. He is in many respects the best statesman that we possess for the emergencies of the present period. But if he be so ill-judged as to rest on such men as Mr. Harold Smith and Lord Brittleback for his assistants in the work which is before him, he must not expect that the country will support him. Mr. Harold Smith is not made of the stuff from which cabinet ministers should be formed."
Mr. Harold Smith, as he read this, seated at his breakfast-table, recognized, or said that he recognized, the hand of Mr. Supplehouse in every touch. That phrase about the effete limbs was Supplehouse all over, as was also the realization of Utopia. "When he wants to be witty, he always talks about Utopia," said Mr. Harold Smith—to himself; for Mrs. Harold was not usually present in the flesh at these matutinal meals.
And then he went down to his office, and saw in the glance of every man that he met an announcement that that article in the Jupiter had been read. His private secretary tittered in evident allusion to the article, and the way in which Buggins took his coat made it clear that it was well known in the messenger's lobby. "He won't have to fill up my vacancy when I go," Buggins was saying to himself. And then in the course of the morning came the cabinet council, the second that he had attended, and he read in the countenance of every god and goddess there assembled that their chief was thought to have made
