"Not much of a sc.r.a.pe,--can you give me five minutes?"
"Wells said one minute, and that"s why I came. The Castledowns and Eyres and the Ashes are here, and the Langrish girls, and d.i.c.k Upton."
"A very choice company, for robbing you of which even for a moment I owe every apology, but still my excuse is a good one. Are you as anxious to promote your Solicitor-General as you were a week or two ago?"
"If you mean Pemberton, I wish he was--on the Bench, or in Abraham"s bosom--I don"t much care which, for he is the most confounded bore in Christendom. Do you come to tell me that you"ll poison him?"
"No; but I can promote him."
"Why--how--in what way?"
"I told you a few days ago that I could manage to make the old man give in his resignation; that it required some tact and address, and especially the absence of everything like menace or compulsion."
"Well, well, well--have you done it--is it a fact?"
"It is."
"I mean, an indisputable, irrevocable fact,--something not to be denied or escaped from?"
"Just so; a fact not to be denied or escaped from."
"It must come through me, Sewell, mind that. I took charge of the negotiation two years ago, and no one shall step in and rob me of my credit. I have had all the worry and fatigue of the transaction, and I insist, if there be any glory in success, it shall be mine."
"You shall have all the glory, as you call it. What I aspire to is infinitely less brilliant."
"You want a place--hard enough to find one--at least to find something worth having. You "ll want something as good as the Registrarship, eh?"
"No; I"ll not pester you with my claims. I"m not in love with official life. I doubt if I am well fitted for it."
"You want a seat in the House,--is that it?"
"Not exactly," said Sewell, laughing; "though there is a good stroke of business to be done in private bills and railway grants. My want is the simplest of all wants,--money."
"Money! But how am I to give you money? Out of what fund is it to come?
You don"t imagine we live in the old days of secret-service funds, with unlimited corruption to back us, do you?"
"I suspect that the source from which it is to come is a matter of perfect indifference to me. You can easily squeeze me into the estimates as a special envoy, or a Crown Prosecution, or a present to the Emperor of Morocco."
"Nothing of the kind. You are totally in error. All these fine days are past and gone. They go over us now like a schedule in bankruptcy; and it would be easier to make you a colonial bishop than give you fifty pounds out of the Consolidated Fund."
"Well, I "d not object to the Episcopate if there was some good shooting in the diocese."
"I "ve no time for chaff," said Balfour, impatiently. "I am leaving my company too long, besides. Just come over here to-morrow to breakfast, and we "ll talk the whole thing over."
"No, I "ll not come to breakfast; I breakfast in bed: and if we are to come to any settlement of this matter, it shall be here and now."
"Very peremptory all this, considering that the question is not of _your_ retirement."
"Quite true. It is not _my_ retirement we have to discuss, but it is, whether I shall choose to hand you the Chief Baron"s, which I hold here,"--and he produced the packet as he spoke,--"or go back and induce him to reconsider and withdraw it. Is not that a very intelligible way to put the case, Balfour? Did you expect such a business-like tone from an idle dog like _me?_"
"And I am to believe that the doc.u.ment in your hand contains the Chief Baron"s resignation?"
"You are to believe it or not,--that"s at your option. It is the fact, at all events."
"And what power have you to withhold it, when he has determined to tender it?"
"About the same power I have to do this," said Sewell, as, taking up a sheet of note-paper from the table, he tore it into fragments, and threw them into the fire. "I think you might see that the same influence by which I induced him to write this would serve to make him withhold it.
The Judge condescends to think me a rather shrewd man of the world, and takes my advice occasionally."
"Well, but--another point," broke in Balfour, hurriedly. "What if he should recall this to-morrow or the day after? What if he were to say that on reconsideration he felt unwilling to retire? It is clear we could not well coerce him."
"You know very little of the man when you suggest such a possibility. He "d as soon think of suicide as doubt any decision he had once formally announced to the world. The last thing that would ever occur to him would be to disparage his infallibility."
"I declare I am quite ashamed of being away so long; could n"t you come down to the office to-morrow, at your own hour, and talk the whole thing over quietly?"
"Impossible. I "ll be very frank with you. I lost a pot of money last night to Langton, and have n"t got it to pay him. I tried twenty places during the day, and failed. I tossed over a score of so-called securities, not worth sixpence in a time of pressure, and I came upon this, which has been in my hands since Monday last, and I thought, Now Balfour would n"t exactly give me five hundred pounds for it, but there"s no reason in life that he might not obtain that sum for me in some quarter. Do you see?"
"I see,--that is, I see everything but the five hundred."
"If you don"t, then you"ll never see this," said Sewell, replacing it in his pocket.
"You won"t comprehend that I"ve no fund to go to; that there "s no bank to back me through such a transaction. Just be a little reasonable, and you "ll see that I can"t do this out of my own pocket. It is true I could press your claim on the party. I could say, what I am quite ready to say, that we owe the whole arrangement to _you_, and that, especially as it will cost you the loss of your Registrarship, you must not be forgotten."
"There"s the mistake, my dear fellow. I don"t want that. I don"t want to be made supervisor of mad-houses, or overlooker of light-ships.
Until office hours are comprised between five and six o"clock of the afternoon, and some of the cost of sealing-wax taken out in sandwiches, I don"t mean to re-enter public life. I stand out for cash payment. I hope that"s intelligible."
"Oh, perfectly so; but as impossible as intelligible."
"Then, in that case, there "s no more to be said. All apologies for having taken you so long from your friends. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Balfour. "I "m sorry we can"t come to some arrangement. Good-night."
"As this doc.u.ment will now never see the light, and as all action in the matter will be arrested," said Sewell, gravely, "I rely upon your never mentioning our present interview."
"I declare I don"t see why I am precluded from speaking of it to my friends,--confidentially, of course."
"You had better not."
"Better not! better in what sense? As regards the public interests, or my personal ones?"
"I simply repeat, you had better not." He put on his hat as he spoke, and without a word of leave-taking moved towards the door.
"Stop one moment,--a thought has just struck me. You like a sporting offer. I "ll bet you twenty pounds even, you "ll not let me read the contents of that paper; and I "ll lay you long odds--two hundred to one, in pounds--that you don"t give it to me."
"You certainly _do_ like a good thing, Balfour. In plain words, you offer me two hundred and twenty. I "ll be shot if I see why they should have higgled so long about letting the Jews into Parliament when fellows like _you_ have seats there."
"Be good enough to remember," said Balfour, with an easy smile, "that I "m the only bidder, and if the article be not knocked down to me there"s no auction."
"I was certain I"d hear that from you! I never yet knew a fellow do a stingy thing, that he had n"t a shabbier reason to sustain it."