And yet Lord Sandilands was by no means a representative man. For politics he cared little or nothing. On special occasions he went down to the House and voted with his party, but in that was comprised his whole Parliamentary career. He never spoke and never intrigued; the Custom-house and the Inland Revenue enrolled no members who had obtained their appointments at his instance; his personal appearance was unknown to the private secretary of the Postmaster-general; nor was his handwriting to be found in the bulging pigeon-holes of the Treasury. Many years had elapsed since he had arrayed himself in the charming court-costume which intelligence has retained from the customs of the dark ages, and presented himself at the levees of his sovereign. At flower-shows and races, at afternoon Park or morning Row, at garden-parties or _fêtes champêtres_, at none of those gatherings where pleasant Frivolity rules, was Lord Sandilands known--at none, rather, save one--the Opera. There he was _facile princeps_; there he was king of the place. The check-takers and the box-keepers knew him as well as they knew the lessee, and stood in as much awe of him. The principal librarians, Messrs. Ivory, MacBone, and Déloge, prostrated themselves before him, and were always most anxious to learn his opinion of any novelty, as on that opinion they were accustomed to base their calculation of profit or loss. With Schrink, the critic of the _Statesman_--a cynical, humpbacked man, who had a spite against mankind, and "took it out" in writing venomous articles abusive of the world in general, and the musical world in particular--Lord Sandilands was the only man who had the smallest weight; and many a neophyte has owed the touch of oil which she received, instead of the pickling which threatened her, to a kind word dropped by his lordship in the seclusion of that box on the pit tier to which he alone was admitted, where Schrink sat nursing his leg, biting his nails, and glowering with fury alike at singers and audience. Behind the scenes his popularity was equally great; the sulky tenors gave up sucking their cough-lozenges and grinding their teeth at his approach, and welcomed him with courteous salutations; the basso roused himself from his stertorous sleep; the prima donna gave up that shrill altercation with her snuffy old mother; the property-men and the scene-shifters, who dashed indiscriminately against the gilded youth who roamed vacantly about, took special care to steer clear of Lord Sandilands, and touched their paper caps to him as he passed by; and the little ballet-women and chorus-singers dropped deepest curtsies to his lordship, and felt that so long as he was satisfied with them their pound a week was safe.