第42章

'That's very kind of you,' said Lord Silverbridge, who had not read as carefully as he should have done the letters which had been sent to him, and did not therefore quite understand the position.

'Mr Du Boung had intended to stand himself,' said Mr Sprout.

'But retired in your lordship's favour,' said Mr Spurgeon.

'I thought you gave it up because there was hardly a footing for a Liberal,' said his Lordship, very imprudently.

'The borough was always liberal till the last election,' said Mr Du Boung, drawing himself up.

'The borough wishes on this occasion to be magnanimous,' said Mr Sprout, probably having on his mind some confusion between magnanimity and unanimity.

'As your Lordship is coming among us, the borough is anxious to sink politics altogether for the moment,' said Mr Spurgeon. There had no doubt been a compact between the Spurgeon and the Sprout party and the Du Boung party in accordance with which it had been arranged that Mr Du Boung should be entitled to a certain amount of glorification in the presence of Lord Silverbridge.

'And it was in compliance with that wish on the part of the borough, my Lord,' said Mr Du Boung,--'as to which my own feelings were quite as strong as that of any other gentleman in the borough,--that I conceived it to be my duty to give way.'

'His Lordship is quite aware how much he owes to Mr Du Boung,' said Tregear. Whereupon Lord Silverbridge bowed.

'And now what are we to do?' said Lord Silverbridge.

Then there was a little whispering between Mr Sprout and Mr Spurgeon. 'Perhaps, Mr Du Boung,' said Spurgeon, 'his lordship had better call first on Dr Tempest.'

'Perhaps,' said the injured brewer, 'as it is to be a party affair after all I had better retire from the scene.'

'I thought all that was to be given up,' said Tregear.

'Oh, certainly,' said Sprout. 'Suppose we go to Mr Walker first?'

'I'm up to anything,' said Lord Silverbridge; 'but of course everybody understands that I am a Conservative.'

'Oh dear, yes,' said Spurgeon.

'We are all aware of that,' said Sprout.

'And very glad we've all of us been to hear of it,' said the landlord.

'Though there are some in the borough who could have wished, my Lord, that you had stuck to the old Palliser politics,' said Mr Du Boung.

'But I haven't stuck to the Palliser politics. Just at present I think that order and all that sort of thing should be maintained.'

'Hear, hear!' said the landlord.

'And now, as I have expressed my views generally, I am willing to go anywhere.'

'Then we'll go to Mr Walker first,' said Spurgeon. Now it was understood that in the borough, among those who really had opinions of their own, Mr Walker the old attorney stood first as a Liberal, and Dr Tempest the old rector as a Conservative.

'I am glad to see your Lordship in the town which gives you its name,' said Mr Walker, who was a hale old gentleman with silvery-white hair, over seventy years of age. 'I proposed your father for this borough on, I think, six or seven different occasions. They used to go in and out then whenever they changed their offices.'

'We hope you'll propose Lord Silverbridge now,' said Mr Spurgeon.

'Oh; well;--yes. He's his father's son, and I never knew anything but good of the family. I wish you were going to sit on the same side, my Lord.'

'Times are changed a little, perhaps,' said his Lordship.