“A very choice company, for robbing you of which even for a moment I owe every apology, but still my excuse is a good one. Are you as anxious to promote your Solicitor-General as you were a week or two ago?” “If you mean Pemberton, I wish he was--on the Bench, or in Abraham's bosom--I don't much care which, for he is the most confounded bore in Christendom. Do you come to tell me that you'll poison him?” “No; but I can promote him.” “Why--how--in what way?” “I told you a few days ago that I could manage to make the old man give in his resignation; that it required some tact and address, and especially the absence of everything like menace or compulsion.” “Well, well, well--have you done it--is it a fact?” “It is.” “I mean, an indisputable, irrevocable fact,--something not to be denied or escaped from?” “Just so; a fact not to be denied or escaped from.” “It must come through me, Sewell, mind that. I took charge of the negotiation two years ago, and no one shall step in and rob me of my credit. I have had all the worry and fatigue of the transaction, and I insist, if there be any glory in success, it shall be mine.” “You shall have all the glory, as you call it. What I aspire to is infinitely less brilliant.” “You want a place--hard enough to find one--at least to find something worth having. You 'll want something as good as the Registrarship, eh?” “No; I'll not pester you with my claims. I'm not in love with official life. I doubt if I am well fitted for it.” “You want a seat in the House,--is that it?” “Not exactly,” said Sewell, laughing; “though there is a good stroke of business to be done in private bills and railway grants. My want is the simplest of all wants,--money.” “Money! But how am I to give you money? Out of what fund is it to come? You don't imagine we live in the old days of secret-service funds, with unlimited corruption to back us, do you?” “I suspect that the source from which it is to come is a matter of perfect indifference to me. You can easily squeeze me into the estimates as a special envoy, or a Crown Prosecution, or a present to the Emperor of Morocco.” “Nothing of the kind. You are totally in error. All these fine days are past and gone. They go over us now like a schedule in bankruptcy; and it would be easier to make you a colonial bishop than give you fifty pounds out of the Consolidated Fund.” “Well, I 'd not object to the Episcopate if there was some good shooting in the diocese.” “I 've no time for chaff,” said Balfour, impatiently. “I am leaving my company too long, besides. Just come over here to-morrow to breakfast, and we 'll talk the whole thing over.” “No, I 'll not come to breakfast; I breakfast in bed: and if we are to come to any settlement of this matter, it shall be here and now.” “Very peremptory all this, considering that the question is not of _your_ retirement.”