“Thank you, sir,” said the member for Blackhampton. “It is very good of you.” Naïf young man, he could not withhold a little blush of pleasure! There was such a genuine ring in this voice of fatherly benevolence. Besides, to John Endor, anachronism as he was, the prime minister of England still meant something. “Don’t let me be fulsome”--the well modulated voice of Mr. Williams could achieve real charm on these occasions--“but do you know whom you brought back to the mind of an old man? Mr. Gladstone. As I sat listening to you, my dear sir, I thought of the long ago--alas, how long ago it seemed!--when Mr. Gladstone brought in his Bill for Ireland. But, as I say, don’t let me be fulsome.” John Endor was dumb before these praises. “Your grandfather the Duke,” the prime minister flowed smoothly on, “was a little before my day. But he was a great man. His speeches in Another Place on the People’s Charter live in history. For a man of his time and class he was most enlightened. I am so glad for his sake that there is still among us one of his kin to bear the torch.” John Endor was still dumb, but now he glowed with happiness. “I wonder, Mr. Endor, if you can dine with us to-morrow at Number 10, just my wife and me? Nobody else, except perhaps, my daughter. But quite informal--just _en famille_. Afterwards over a cigar, we’ll have a little talk. Your fine speech ... it’s ... well, to-morrow evening, at eight.” XXXI At eight o’clock the next evening, John Endor found himself in the prime minister’s drawing room, shaking hands with the prime minister’s lady. The celebrated “Mrs. Wilber” was a tall, rather austere dame, with the remains of considerable good looks; moreover, they conferred upon her an air of intellectual distinction to which she was hardly entitled. Mrs. Wilber, it is true, had an almost sublime power of putting her foot in it; but this faculty in a prime minister’s lady may spring from one of two causes: she may have too many brains, or she may have too few. Slippery Sam’s greatest enemies had never accused his wife of having too many. By no means brilliant herself, Mrs. Wilber profoundly distrusted scintillation in others. Her husband she regarded as good rather than brilliant; indeed, in her attitude to her lord, she was almost a latter-day equivalent of Mrs. Gladstone. She seemed to regard the prime minister as too bright and good for human nature’s daily food; in fact, a kind of composite of the librarian to the House of Lords and a certain highly distinguished personage in Heaven. To those best acquainted with the singularly complex character of the first minister of the Crown, this obsession of Mrs. Wilber’s was a source of pure joy.