“Ay, so it did amongst ourselves,” answered his companion; “but it got abroad, and had a run like a mill-race. It was in every coffee-house, and in half the diurnals. Grammont translated it into French too; and there is no laughing at so sharp a jest, when it is dinned into your ears on all sides. So disgraced is the author; and but for his Grace of Buckingham, the Court would be as dull as my Lord Chancellor’s wig.” “Or as the head it covers.--Well, my lord, the fewer at Court, there is the more room for those that can bustle there. But there are two mainstrings of Shaftesbury’s fiddle broken--the Popish Plot fallen into discredit--and Rochester disgraced. Changeful times--but here is to the little man who shall mend them.” “I apprehend you,” replied his lordship; “and meet your health with my love. Trust me, my lord loves you, and longs for you.--Nay, I have done you reason.--By your leave, the cup is with me. Here is to his buxom Grace of Bucks.” “As blithe a peer,” said Smith, “as ever turned night to day. Nay, it shall be an overflowing bumper, an you will; and I will drink it _super naculum_.--And how stands the great Madam?” [*] [*] The Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles II.’s favourite mistress; very unpopular at the time of the Popish Plot, as well from her religion as her country, being a Frenchwoman and a Catholic. “Stoutly against all change,” answered the lord--“Little Anthony[*] can make nought of her.” [*] Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, the politician and intriguer of the period. “Then he shall bring her influence to nought. Hark in thine ear. Thou knowest----” (Here he whispered so low that Julian could not catch the sound.) “Know him?” answered the other--“Know Ned of the Island?--To be sure I do.” “He is the man that shall knot the great fiddle-strings that have snapped. Say I told you so; and thereupon I give thee his health.” “And thereupon I pledge thee,” said the young nobleman, “which on any other argument I were loath to do--thinking of Ned as somewhat the cut of a villain.” “Granted, man--granted,” said the other,--“a very thorough-paced rascal; but able, my lord, able and necessary; and, in this plan, indispensable.--Pshaw!--This champagne turns stronger as it gets older, I think.” “Hark, mine honest fellow,” said the courtier; “I would thou wouldst give me some item of all this mystery. Thou hast it, I know; for whom do men entrust but trusty Chiffinch?” “It is your pleasure to say so, my lord,” answered Smith (whom we shall hereafter call by his real name of Chiffinch) with such drunken gravity, for his speech had become a little altered by his copious libations in the course of the evening,--“few men know more, or say less, than I do; and it well becomes my station. _Conticuere omnes_, as the grammar hath it--all men should learn to hold their tongue.”