"Very well; the races begin on Wednesday: we shall have a full house.
Good-night."



CHAPTER V.

HOMUNCULI quanti sunt, cum recogito.*--PLAUTUS.

* "When I reflect, how great your little men are in their own
consideration!"

IT is obvious that for many reasons we must be brief upon the political
intrigue in which the scheming spirit of Lord Vargrave was employed. It
would, indeed, be scarcely possible to preserve the necessary medium
between too plain a revelation and too complex a disguise. It suffices,
therefore, very shortly to repeat what the reader has already gathered
from what has gone before; namely, that the question at issue was one
which has happened often enough in all governments,--one on which the
Cabinet was divided, and in which the weaker party was endeavouring to
out-trick the stronger.

The malcontents, foreseeing that sooner or later the head of the
gathering must break, were again divided among themselves whether to
resign, or to stay in and strive to force a resignation on their
dissentient colleagues. The richer and the more honest were for the
former course; the poorer and the more dependent for the latter. We have
seen that the latter policy was that espoused and recommended by
Vargrave, who, though not in the Cabinet, always contrived somehow or
other to worm out its secrets. At the same time he by no means rejected