men's names for such a work as this, just as boys at school used
to draw out the elevens for a cricket match.' The old stager
turned round and stared at the younger politician. 'The thing
itself is so momentous that one ought to have aid from heaven.'

Plantagenet Palliser was the last man from whom the Duke of St
Bungay would have expected romance at any time, and, least of
all, at such a time as this. 'Aid from heaven you may have,' he
said, 'by saying your prayers; and I don't doubt you ask for this
and all other things generally. But an angel won't come to tell
you who ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.'

'No angel will, and therefore I wish I could wash my hands of
it.' His old friend stared at him. 'It is like sacrilege to me,
attempting this without feeling one's own fitness for the work.
It unmans me,--this necessity of doing that which I know I
cannot do with fitting judgement.'

'You mind has been a little too hard at work to-day.'

'It hasn't been at work at all. I've had nothing to do, and have
been unable really to think of work. But I feel that chance
circumstances have put me into a position for which I am unfit,
and which yet I have been unable to avoid. How much better would
it be that you should do this alone,--you yourself.'

'Utterly out of the question. I do know and think that I always
have known my own powers. Neither has my aptitude in debate nor
my capacity for work justified me in looking to the premiership.
But that, forgive me, is now not worthy of consideration. It is