'He's well enough as far as I can see;--though he will be ill unless he can relieve himself from the strain of his nerves.'
'Do you mean by resigning?'
'Not necessarily.The fault is that he takes things too seriously.If he could be got to believe that he might eat, and sleep, and go to bed, and amuse himself like other men, he might be a very good Prime Minister.He is over troubled by his conscience.I have seen a good many Prime Ministers, Cantrip, and I've taught myself to think that they are not very different from other men.One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things.He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.These are the gifts we want, but we can't always get them, and have to do without them.
For my own part, I find that though Smith be a very good Minister, the best perhaps to be had at the time, when he breaks down Jones does nearly as well.'
'There will be a Jones, then, if your Smith does break down?'
'No doubt England wouldn't come to an end because the Duke of Omnium shut himself up at Matching.But I love the man, and, with some few exceptions, am contented with the party.We can't do better, and it cuts me to the heart when I see him suffering, knowing how much I did myself to make him undertake the work.'
'Is he going to Gatherum Castle?'
'No;--to Matching.There is some discomfort about that.'
'I suppose,' said Lord Cantrip,--speaking almost in a whisper, although they were closeted together,--'I suppose the Duchess is a little troublesome.'
'She's the dearest woman in the world,' said the Duke of St Bungay.'I love her almost as I do my own daughter.And she is most zealous to serve him.'
'I fancy she overdoes it.'
'No doubt.'
'And that he suffers from perceiving it,' said Lord Cantrip.
'But a man hasn't a right to suppose that he shall have no annoyances.The best horse in the world has some faults.He pulls, or he shies, or is slow at his fences, or doesn't like heavy ground.He has not right to expect that his wife shall know everything and do everything without a mistake.And then he has such faults of his own! His skin is so thin.Do you remember dear old Brock? By heavens,--there was a covering, a hide impervious to fire or steel! He wouldn't have gone into tantrums because his wife asked too may people to the house.
Nevertheless, I won't give up all hope.'
'A man's skin may be thickened, I suppose.'
'No doubt;--as a blacksmith's arm.'
But the Duke of St Bungay, though he declared that he wouldn't give up hope, was very uneasy on the matter.'Why don't you let me go?' the other Duke had said to him.
'What;--because such a man as Sir Orlando Drought throws up his office?'
But in truth the Duke of Omnium had not been instigated to ask the question by the resignation of Sir Orlando.At that very moment the "People's Banner" had been put out of sight at the bottom of a heap of other newspapers behind the Prime Minister's chair, and his present misery had been produced by Mr Quintus Slide.To have a festering wound and to be able to show the wound to no surgeon, is wretchedness indeed! 'It's not Sir Orlando, but a sense of general failure,' said the Prime Minister.Then his old friend had made use of that argument of the ever-recurring majorities to prove that there had been no failure.
'There seems to have come a lethargy upon the country,' said the poor victim.Then the Duke of St Bungay knew that his friend had read that pernicious article in the "People's Banner", for the Duke had also read it and remembered that phrase of a 'lethargy on the country', and understood at once how the poison had rankled.
It was a week before he would consent to ask any man to fill the vacancy made by Sir Orlando.He would not allow suggestions to be made to him and yet would name no one himself.The old Duke, indeed, did make a suggestion, and anything coming from him was of course borne with patience.Barrington Erle, he thought, would do for the Admiralty.But the Prime Minister shook his head.'In the first place he would refuse, and that would be a great blow to me.'
'I could sound him,' said the old Duke.But the Prime Minister again shook his head and turned the subject.With all his timidity he was becoming autocratic and peevishly imperious.
Then he went to Lord Cantrip, and when Lord Cantrip, with all the kindness which he could throw into his words, stated the reasons which induced him at present to decline office, he was again in despair.At last he asked Phineas Finn to move to the Admiralty, and, when our old friend somewhat reluctantly obeyed, of course he had the same difficulty in filling the office Finn had held.
Other changes and other complications became necessary, and Mr Quintus Slide, who hated Phineas Finn even worse than the poor Duke, found ample scope for his patriotic indignation.
This all took place in the closing week of the Session, filling our poor Prime Minister with trouble and dismay, just when other people were complaining that there was nothing to think of and nothing to do.Men do not really like leaving London before the grouse calls them,--the grouse or rather the fashion of the grouse.And some ladies were very angry at being separated so soon from their swains in the city.The tradesmen too were displeased,--so that there were voices to re-echo the abuse of the "People's Banner".The Duchess had done her best to prolong the Session by another week, telling her husband of the evil consequences above suggested, but he had thrown wide his arms and asked her with affected dismay whether he was to keep Parliament sitting in order that more ribbons might be sold! 'There is nothing to be done,' said the Duke almost angrily.
'Then you should make something to be done,' said the Duchess, mimicking him.