“From F. O., I suppose,” said Upton, sighing. “Just so. Adderley has told the King you are the only man capable to succeed him. The Press says the same, and the clubs are all with you.” “Not one of them all, I'd venture to say, has asked whether I have the strength or health for it,” said Sir Horace, with a voice of pathetic intonation. “Why, as we never knew you want energy for whatever fell to your lot to do, we have the same hope still,” said Stanhope. “So say I too,” cried Harcourt. “Like many a good hunter, he 'll do his work best when he is properly weighted.” “It is quite refreshing to listen to you both--creatures with crocodile digestion--talk to a man who suffers nightmare if he over-eat a dry biscuit at supper. I tell you frankly, it would be the death of me to take the Foreign Office. I 'd not live through the season,--the very dinners would kill me; and then, the House, the heat, the turmoil, the worry of opposition, and the jaunting back and forward to Brighton or to Windsor!” While he muttered these complaints, he continued to read with great rapidity the letters which Stanhope had brought him, and which, despite all his practised coolness, had evidently afforded him pleasure in the perusal. “Adderley bore it,” continued he, “just because he was a mere machine, wound up to play off so many despatches, like so many tunes; and then, he permitted a degree of interference on the King's part I never could have suffered; and he liked to be addressed by the King of Prussia as 'Dear Adderley.' But what do I care for all these vanities? Have I not seen enough of the thing they call the great world? Is not this retreat better and dearer to me than all the glare and crash of London, or all the pomp and splendor of Windsor?” “By Jove! I suspect you are right, after all,” said Harcourt, with an honest energy of voice. “Were I younger, and stronger in health, perhaps,” said Upton, “this might have tempted me. Perhaps I can picture to myself what I might have made of it; for you may perceive, George, these people have done nothing: they have been pouring hot water on the tea-leaves Pitt left them,--no more.” “And you 'd have a brewing of your own, I 've no doubt,” responded the other. “I'd at least have foreseen the time when this compact, this Holy Alliance, should become impossible; when the developed intelligence of Europe would seek something else from their rulers than a well-concocted scheme of repression. I 'd have provided for the hour when England must either break with her own people or her allies; and I 'd have inaugurated a new policy, based upon the enlarged views and extended intelligence of mankind.” “I 'm not certain that I quite apprehend you,” muttered Harcourt.