The third course is that urged by Granville: to take Fox on Granville's conditions, which we may safely presume to have been those afterwards adopted. Hardwicke insinuates objections. Fox has the strong protection of Cumberland and the personal inclination of the King, but his election will be profoundly distasteful to Leicester House. Pitt, on the other hand, has 'no support at Court, and the personal disinclination of the King. He must therefore probably depend, at least for a good while, upon those who bring him thither.' Then comes the sentence about Fox and Leicester House which conveys a hint that Pitt, on the contrary, is well there. It is impossible to be more adroit. Hardwicke knew that Newcastle was fully aware that he hated Fox, and so put his objections in this indirect and skilful way. He failed, probably because Newcastle felt that to accept Fox would at any rate not necessitate a critical struggle with the King, and that Fox himself was more malleable. Of all strange confidants it was Bubb whom Pitt, on leaving Newcastle, proceeded to take into his inmost counsels. There are always parasites of this kind in politics, universally mistrusted, and yet constantly taken into confidence on grounds of convenience. Always sympathetic, always warm, always ready to betray at the first symptom of personal advantage, they are nevertheless useful parts of the political machine, and not so contemptible as might appear. They profess little, they deceive nobody except for a fleeting moment, and they are employed, with full knowledge of their character, to sound others and report the result, to suggest from their own base experience, to bring statesmen into relation with necessary people, and do the work with which statesmen will not soil their hands. But they are perilous and slippery agents, they attract in the warmth of the moment excessive confidence, and while these indiscretions are still ringing in their ears they are already in the tents of the enemy. Still, such as they are, they will always exist, and always be utilised, for they are part of the fatality of politics.