In these great matters parliamentary management goes for so much!  If a man be really clever and handy at his trade, if he can work hard and knows what he is about, if he can give and take and be not thin-skinned or sore-boned, if he can ask pardon for a peccadillo and seem to be sorry with a good grace, if above all things he be able to surround himself with the prestige of success, then so much will be forgiven him!  Great gifts of eloquence are hardly wanted, or a deep-seated patriotism which is capable of strong indignation.  A party has to be managed, and he who can manage it best, will probably be its best leader.  The subordinate task of legislation and of executive government may well fall into the inferior hands of less astute practitioners.  It was admitted on both sides that there was no man like Sir Timothy for managing the House or coercing a party, and there was therefore a general feeling that it would be a pity that Sir Timothy should be squeezed out.  He knew all the little secrets of the business;—­could arrange let the cause be what it might, to get a full House for himself and his friends, and empty benches for his opponents,—­could foresee a thousand little things to which even a Walpole would have been blind, which a Pitt would not have condescended to regard, but with which his familiarity made him a very comfortable leader of the House of Commons.  There were various ideas prevalent as to the politics of the coming session; but the prevailing idea was in favour of Sir Timothy.

The Duke was at Longroyston, the seat of his old political ally the Duke of St Bungay, and had been absent from Sunday the sixth till the morning of Friday the eleventh, on which day Parliament was to meet.  On that morning at about noon a letter came to the son saying that his father had returned and would be glad to see him.  Silverbridge was going to the House on that day and was not without his own political anxieties.  If Lord Drummond remained in, he thought that he must for the present stand by the party which he had adopted.  If, however, Sir Timothy should become Prime Minister there would be a loophole for escape.  There were some three or four besides himself who detested Sir Timothy, and in such case he might perhaps have company in his desertions.  All this was on his mind; but through all this he was aware that there was a matter of much deeper moment which required his energies.  When his father’s message was brought to him he told himself at once that now was the time for eloquence.

‘Well, Silverbridge,’ said the Duke, ’how are matters going on with you?’ There seemed to be something in his father’s manner more than ordinarily jocund and good-humoured.

‘With me, sir?’

’I don’t mean to ask any party secrets.  If you and Sir Timothy understand each other, of course you will be discreet.’

’I can’t be discreet, sir, because I don’t know anything about him.’

‘When I heard,’ said the Duke smiling, ’of your being in close conference with Sir Timothy—­’