Terrible was this break-down of the ministry, and especially to Harold Smith, who to the last had had confidence in that theory of new blood. He could hardly believe that a large majority of the House should vote against a government which he had only just joined. “If we are to go on in this way,” he said to his young friend Green Walker, “the Queen’s government cannot be carried on.” That alleged difficulty as to carrying on the Queen’s government has been frequently mooted in late years since a certain great man first introduced the idea. Nevertheless, the Queen’s government is carried on, and the propensity and aptitude of men for this work seems to be not at all on the decrease. If we have but few young statesmen, it is because the old stagers are so fond of the rattle of their harness. “I really do not see how the Queen’s government is to be carried on,” said Harold Smith to Green Walker, standing in a corner of one of the lobbies of the House of Commons on the first of those days of awful interest, in which the Queen was sending for one crack statesman after another; and some anxious men were beginning to doubt whether or no we should, in truth, be able to obtain the blessing of another cabinet. The gods had all vanished from their places. Would the giants be good enough to do anything for us or no? There were men who seemed to think that the giants would refuse to do anything for us. “The House will now be adjourned over till Monday, and I would not be in her Majesty’s shoes for something,” said Mr. Harold Smith. “By Jove! no,” said Green Walker, who in these days was a stanch Harold Smithian, having felt a pride in joining himself on as a substantial support to a cabinet minister. Had he contented himself with being merely a Brockite, he would have counted as nobody. “By Jove! no,” and Green Walker opened his eyes and shook his head, as he thought of the perilous condition in which her Majesty must be placed. “I happen to know that Lord —— won’t join them unless he has the Foreign Office,” and he mentioned some hundred-handed Gyas supposed to be of the utmost importance to the counsels of the Titans. “And that, of course, is impossible. I don’t see what on earth they are to do. There’s Sidonia; they do say that he’s making some difficulty now.” Now Sidonia was another giant, supposed to be very powerful. “We all know that the Queen won’t see him,” said Green Walker, who, being a member of Parliament for the Crewe Junction, and nephew to Lady Hartletop, of course had perfectly correct means of ascertaining what the Queen would do, and what she would not.