Lord Clare informed the Viceroy that the proposition might be put at once and carried, if only His Excellency would be a little civil to the senate. But His Excellency hated tortuous groping; he abhorred the Irish peers; begged that he might not be asked even to sniff the noisome broth. When he came over he attached to his person a young Irishman of parts, who was not squeamish. The chancellor had also shown that he was not squeamish. These two Irishmen--my Lords Clare and Castlereagh--must do all the broth-stirring; the sooner the brew was ready, the sooner they would receive their wages--the sooner would he, the Viceroy, be enabled to leave the wretched country and go home. Once the union carried, every one would be delighted--except the Irish; and even they, in due time, would come to be glad also. Lord Clare's eye kindled with satisfaction. He beheld the possibility, if this captious Viceroy would only depart, of himself returning to his former position. He saw himself again the awful statesman, before whom courtiers should salaam, as they used to do; he saw his ambitious vision (obscured for an instant) realised at last. There were only a few more yards of mud to wallow through before reaching _terra firma_, and then he would take a bath and, by dint of scrubbing, appear no more dirty than his fellows. So he made up his mind, as Lord Cornwallis declined to help, to manage the caldron in conjunction with Lord Castlereagh, and the pair were quite engrossed by the phases of their hellish cookery.