“Are apt to cause disorder!” the Chancellor continued, smiling. “Rest assured that your friends, of whom, if I am the highest in office I am not the least in good-will, will not desert you.” “Hurrah! God bless you, my lord! Hurrah!” cried the tatterdemalions in various tones more or less drunken. And some held out their caps. “Hurrah! If your lordship would have the kindness to——” “Disgusting!” Cornelius repeated, wheeling about. Vaughan seized the opportunity to intervene. “May I,” he said, raising his hat and addressing the Chancellor as he turned, “consult you, my lord, for two minutes as you walk?” Brougham started on finding a gentleman of his appearance at his elbow; and looked as if he were somewhat ashamed of the guise in which he had been detected. “Ah!” he said. “Mr.—Mr. Vaughan? To be sure! Oh, yes, you can speak to me, what can I do for you? It is,” he added, with affected humility, “my business to serve.” Vaughan looked doubtfully at Mr. Cornelius, who raised his hat. “I have no secrets from Mr. Cornelius,” said the Chancellor pleasantly. And then with a backward nod and a tinge of colour in his cheek, “Gratifying, but troublesome,” he continued. “Eh? Very troublesome, these demonstrations! I often long for the old days when I could walk out of Westminster Hall, with my bag and my umbrella, and no one the wiser!” “Those days are far back, my lord,” Vaughan said politely. “Ah, well! Ah, well! Perhaps so.” They were walking on by this time. “I can’t say that since the Queen’s trial I’ve known much privacy. However, it is something that those whom one serves are grateful. They——” “Cry ‘Hosanna’ to-day,” Cornelius said gruffly, with his eyes fixed steadily before him, “and ‘Crucify him’ tomorrow!” “Cynic!” said the Chancellor, with unabated good-humour. “But even you cannot deny that they are better employed in cheering their friends than in breaches of the peace? Not that”—cocking his eye at Vaughan with a whimsical expression of confidence—“a little disorder here and there, eh, Mr. Vaughan—though to be deplored, and by no one more than by one in my position—has not its uses? Were there no apprehension of mob-rule, how many borough-mongers, think you, would vote with us? How many waverers, like Harrowby and Wharncliffe, would waver? And how, if we have no little ebullitions here and there, are we to know that the people are in earnest? That they are not grown lukewarm? That Wetherell is not right in his statement—of which he’ll hear more than he will like at Bristol, or I am mistaken—that there is a Tory re-action, an ebb in the tide which so far has carried us bravely? But of course,” he added, with a faint smile, “God forbid that we should encourage violence!” “Amen!” said Mr. Cornelius. And sniffed in a very peculiar manner. “But to discern that camomile,” the Chancellor continued gaily, “though bitter to-day makes us better tomorrow, is a different thing from——”