"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 document 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."