‘He waits your lordship’s pleasure,’ Dr. Addington answered.  ’But before he is admitted,’ the physician continued diffidently and with a manifest effort, ’may I say a word, my lord, as to the position in which this places Sir George Soane?’

‘I was told this morning,’ Lord Chatham answered, in the same muffled tone, ’that a match had been arranged between the parties, and that things would remain as they were.  It seemed to me, sir, a prudent arrangement.’

Sir George was about to answer, but Dr. Addington made a sign to him to be silent.  ‘That is so,’ the physician replied smoothly.  ’But your lordship is versed in Sir George Soane’s affairs, and knows that he must now go to his wife almost empty-handed.  In these circumstances it has occurred rather to his friends than to himself, and indeed I speak against his will and by sufferance only, that—­that, in a word, my lord—­’

Lord Chatham lowered his hand as Dr. Addington paused.  A faint flush darkened his lean aquiline features, set a moment before in the mould of hopeless depression.  ‘What?’ he said.  And he raised himself sharply in his chair.  ‘What has occurred to his friends?’

‘That some provision might be made for him, my lord.’

‘From the public purse?’ the Earl cried in a startling tone.  ’Is that your meaning, sir?’ And, with the look in his eyes which had been more dreaded by the Rigbys and Dodingtons of his party than the most scathing rebuke from the lips of another, he fixed the unlucky doctor where he stood.  ‘Is that your proposal, sir?’ he repeated.

The physician saw too late that he had ventured farther than his interest would support him; and he quailed.  On the other hand, it is possible he had been neither so confident before, nor was so entirely crushed now, as appeared.  ‘Well, my lord, it did occur to me,’ he stammered, ‘as not inconsistent with the public welfare.’

‘The public welfare!’ the minister cried in biting accents.  ’The public plunder, sir, you mean!  It were not inconsistent with that to quarter on the nation as many ruined gentlemen as you please!  But you mistake if you bring the business to me to do—­you mistake.  I have dispersed thirteen millions of His Majesty’s money in a year, and would have spent as much again and as much to that, had the affairs of this nation required it; but the gentleman is wrong if he thinks it has gone to my friends.  My hands are clean,’ his lordship continued with an expressive gesture.  ’I have said, in another place, none of it sticks to them. Virtute me involvo!’ And then, in a lower tone, but still with a note of austerity in his voice, M rejoice to think,’ he continued, ’that the gentleman was not himself the author of this application.  I rejoice to think that it did not come from him.  These things have been done freely; it concerns me not to deny it; but since I had to do with His Majesty’s exchequer, less freely.  And that only concerns me!’