The twelve-hundred-a-yearers were in despair about the King’s death. Their loyal souls were sorely grieved that his gracious Majesty had not outlived the Registration. All their happy inventions about ‘hay-fever,’ circulated in confidence, and sent by post to chairmen of Conservative Associations, followed by a royal funeral! General election about to take place with the old registration; government boroughs against them, and the young Queen for a cry. What a cry! Youth, beauty, and a Queen! Taper grew pale at the thought. What could they possibly get up to countervail it? Even Church and Corn-laws together would not do; and then Church was sulky, for the Conservative Cause had just made it a present of a commission, and all that the country gentlemen knew of Conservatism was, that it would not repeal the Malt Tax, and had made them repeal their pledges. Yet a cry must be found. A dissolution without a cry, in the Taper philosophy, would be a world without a sun. A rise might be got by ‘Independence of the House of Lords;’ and Lord Lyndhurst’s summaries might be well circulated at one penny per hundred, large discount allowed to Conservative Associations, and endless credit. Tadpole, however, was never very fond of the House of Lords; besides, it was too limited. Tadpole wanted the young Queen brought in; the rogue! At length, one morning, Taper came up to him with a slip of paper, and a smile of complacent austerity on his dull visage, ‘I think, Mr. Tadpole, that will do!’ Tadpole took the paper and read, ‘OUR YOUNG QUEEN, AND OUR OLD INSTITUTIONS.’ The eyes of Tadpole sparkled as if they had met a gnomic sentence of Periander or Thales; then turning to Taper, he said, ‘What do you think of “ancient,” instead of “old”?’ ‘You cannot have “Our modern Queen and our ancient Institutions,”’ said Mr. Taper. The dissolution was soon followed by an election for the borough of Cambridge. The Conservative Cause candidate was an old Etonian. That was a bond of sympathy which imparted zeal even to those who were a little sceptical of the essential virtues of Conservatism. Every undergraduate especially who remembered ‘the distant spires,’ became enthusiastic. Buckhurst took a very decided part. He cheered, he canvassed, he brought men to the poll whom none could move; he influenced his friends and his companions. Even Coningsby caught the contagion, and Vere, who had imbibed much of Coningsby’s political sentiment, prevailed on himself to be neutral. The Conservative Cause triumphed in the person of its Eton champion. The day the member was chaired, several men in Coningsby’s rooms were talking over their triumph. ‘By Jove!’ said the panting Buckhurst, throwing himself on the sofa, ‘it was well done; never was any thing better done. An immense triumph! The greatest triumph the Conservative Cause has had. And yet,’ he added, laughing, ‘if any fellow were to ask me what the Conservative Cause is, I am sure I should not know what to say.’