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There were three or four strapping fellows, in the imperial livery of green and gold, with silk-stockinged legs, and shining pumps, and powdered from the parietalis to the occiput. There was a flunkey in pink and silver, and one in sky-blue with yellow trimmings. There was one in scarlet turned up with white. There was a Prussian chasseur with an embroidered pelisse and a cocked-hat with green plumes, a couple of grooms in tops and leathers, and a young imp of a page-boythe image of young Bailey in Martin Chuzzlewit-who had been in the service of an English family at Nice, and nearly drove me mad with imitations of "Sir John" and "Miladi," always winding up with a drawling "aow yaas." I must do him the justice to say that he was quite unaware of the fact of my being an Englishman, otherwise, so sure as there are figs in Provence, I would have had his blood.

These flunkeys belonged either to the imperial household, or were lacqueys attendant on some of the great court functionaries, or the members of the Diplomatic Corps, who had come down to Toulon to welcome the Sultan. The only person, with the exception of myself, in plain clothes was a gentleman with very extensive moustaches and very luxuriant whiskers and very large white hands, and a profusion of rings, brooches, watch-trinkets, and other jewelry. I hoped, at first, that he had fallen among flunkeys inadvertently, as I had; but, entering into conversation with him, I discovered that he was the court hairdresser, and was hail-fellow-well-met with the imperial footmen: "Des braves garçons, tout ce qu'il y a de plus distingué," he called them. He was a friend of the chief courier, however, which was something, and spoke of him affectionately as "Charles." Charles would be desolated, he was sure, for he had received particular instructions to pay particular attention to me. He knew all about me apparently. "Your services are so valuable," he remarked. I bowed on grateful behalf of the British press. "So much zeal, so much devotion," he continued. I bowed again. "Not that I think there is any danger," he concluded. This, I confess, puzzled What the deuce did he mean by danger?

me.

He promised that better quarters should be found for me at the next station; but that next station, so far as I was concerned, never came, and Charles of the gold-laced cocked-hat was never to be found. The court-barber himself disappeared from the carriage at Marseilles, and returned no more. I observed that he whispered the flunkeys before he departed, and they all treated me subsequently with extraordinary deference, yet with a kind of timorous avoidance which was not respect, and which puzzled me more than ever.

I hope I shall never pass another twenty hours in the society of such a gang of unmitigated ruffians, and I sincerely hope that all English flunkeys do not resemble them. I am not so much animadverting on their abuse of their masters, we are all, high and low, given to abusing our betters,-or to the ribaldry of their language, which, especially when they spoke of the ladies of the court, was of a nature to make one wish that the whipper-in of the Pytchley Hunt could be

called in and told not to be sparing of the double thonging. Their ruffianism was chiefly shown in their insatiable gormandising, and in their shameless propensity to "loot." Whenever we stopped, the flunkeys over-ate and over-drank themselves; and whenever they returned to the carriage, it was with some unlawful booty in the way of edibles or potables. The refreshment-rooms along the line all kept open house. You might call for whatever you liked,-from champagne to cigars,— and the Emperor paid for all. Owing to successive "loot," our saloon, before we were half-way to Paris, became as full of good things as the steward's pantry on board a steamer. Champagne, claret, medoc, and cognac,―at one station where we halted in the middle of the night to take in water the flunkeys "looted" a bottle of absinthe,-cold fowls, veal-pies, bunches of grapes,-a whole pine-apple at Marseilles,-Lyons, sausages, rigio cigars, and Savoy biscuits, these were the trophies which these brigands in plush gathered along the rail. Somewhere near Lyons, I remember, where we made a stay for breakfast, a number of cabinetsde-toilette had been fitted up for the Turks to make themselves clean and tidy; and here the flunkeys "looted" scented soap and eau-decologne. I believe they would have "looted" the basins and ewers if they could; and I am not at all certain that they did not annex a few towels. My only consolation was, that at this same early morn they were obliged to go away to the head of the train to brush their masters' clothes, clean their boots, and hold the basins while they washed. They swore frightfully when they returned; but I was rid of them for full three-quarters of an hour. During the whole journey I slept and smoked as much as I could to keep off the flunkeys; and I got a loaf and some sausage and a bottle of wine at Lyons, and slipped a five-franc piece into the hand of the waiter who brought me the viands. He looked very much astonished, but took the money notwithstanding. Loot was the order of the day. Did not the Emperor pay for all? The garçon must have thought me an idiot.

When we reached Paris, and, amidst more braying of trumpets and more thundering of artillery, landed our Caliph at the terminus by the Place de la Bastille, I shook the hair-powder off, and breathed more freely. The flunkey who had sat next me was not a bad fellow, and had frequently attempted to impose a little decorum on the remaining vagabonds in the carriage. I gave him my hand at parting, and bade him farewell, on my part, I am sure, quite heartily. He took my hand and bowed his bon jour; but as I walked away with my portmanteau, I heard him utter this curious valedictory remark: "Sacré mouchard, va l

You know what a mouchard is. Upon my word I am afraid that the flunkeys and the court-barber, and the courier-in-chief himself perchance, had taken me, a harmless member of the British Fourth Estate, to be a detective policeman.

66

DIANA GAY

A Nobel

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'BELLA DONNA," "NEVER FORGOTTEN," ETC. ETC.

Book the Second

CHAPTER X. THE PETITION.

THE long galleries that stretch down by the committee-rooms of the House of Commons, and which are indeed vast anterooms, were filled with loungers and talkers, with men rushing backwards and forwards. There is perhaps more business there, and more depending on that business, than anywhere else in the world. A paradise, too, for lawyers and barristers. In their own hierarchy, they there rise many steps, there is no greater power, like judges, to control them or to require homage. How precious everything becomes once that portal is crossed: time, talent, name-everything except the suitor's money, which comes showering heavily into the laps of these legal Danies.

At this period there were many petitions "on," and many committees sitting. Every little door that opened and shut down that endless series opened and shut on a terrible game of hazard going on within, on which many, many thousands were staked-a game indeed where there was inattention, sometimes sleep, oftener absence, oftener still stupidity, on the part of the croupiers who dealt. The only chances were in clever "cogging"-adroit management on the part of the players.

One of these rooms was labelled "Calthorpe Election Committee;" and outside it was a busy group-witnesses, attorneys, and a barrister or two. Richard Lugard, the sitting member, was very confident; sometimes he grew a little nervous, and frequently much fretted and provoked, by being harassed in this way. So amazing, too, after all his success, and with so many talking of it and congratulating him.

Here now it was beginning; and Begbie, Bligh's counsel, was "stating his case to the committee." That committee was composed of Sir Welbore Craven (chairman), Mr. Slater, Mr. Robins Gore, Mr. Bond, and Mr. W. C. M'Culloch, who were behind a horse-shoe fence. From behind that fence they looked out at a strange raffish crowdthe Calthorpians brought up from their district four days before (Sir Welbore had been ill), and maintained at frightful cost in town.

There was Paget, Mr. Lugard's London solicitor, who found him money when he wanted it, and his Calthorpe solicitor, and his Calthorpe voters. And there were Bligh's solicitors and his voters, and, as we have said, Begbie, Q.C., stating his case. Begbie was a dry, thin-voiced little man, but who was known to be exquisitely artful. He was in a great deal of business, but generally contrived to give apparently a deal of time to each case. With him were others,-Sloper, an admirable junior-Oliver, who was spoken of as "rising," "promising," "safe," and who was "getting into leading business." The old committeechairman always used to say when the leader had "to fly," and an apology was made by the junior for his taking the matter up, "The case will suffer nothing in your hands, Mr. Oliver; we always hear you with pleasure and instruction.”

Mr. Lugard had not been so fortunate. By desperate exertion they had got hold of Legge, Q.C., who was wholly in parliamentary practice, and really spent his time and professional service in flying down the corridor from one room to another, his gown spread like a mainsail, and clerks hanging on to the rigging. By the aid of such "mainsheets" he was dragged into a hot and steaming room, packed with his fellow-creatures-all whose faces were turned on him to hear what he would say to get them out of the knot they were waiting for him to untie; a knot requiring teeth and nails to open at any time, but which he must pick open impromptu, as it were, or make a pretence of opening an eager mouth being at each ear pouring in various recipes. Sometimes the point has "gone off," or been solved, during the absence of the agitated express; and when the great deliverer arrives it is over. Then his face grows distrait-he whispers, he takes a note, but he is out of his element. He can do nothing except under high pressure. He is looking to the door; and in a moment a wild attorney is tearing in-rushing, tumbling over everyone. Legge, to his relief, knows he is wanted. Behind the back of his hand he tells the panicstruck junior to "get out" something, and "press him on the mesne rates," then spreads the mainsail; and he is away before the gale to the room where the Gas Question is being brought out. Lugard sees with infinite impatience that he is not there, and that he will not hear a syllable of Begbie's damaging speech, which trails on for three quarters of an hour, and at last concludes. It is scandalous; and yet "that fellow" has been retained at some frightful sum, and will have to be "refreshed" on a scale which it is only etiquette should correspond to the magnitude of the retainer.

Here are the witnesses being examined by Simpson, Q.C.; and certainly Lugard now begins to be amazed and frightened by some of their revelations. Why was this concealed from him? There could be no mistaking the stolid faces of the corrupt Calthorpe voters, their provincial dialect, and their confession candidly made "how Mr. had come to their wives, when they themselves were out, and had pro

mised this and that; and with a smiling, pleasant face Mr. had shown the greatest interest in the family and the children;" and when he had gone away, the strange and amazing phenomenon was discovered of a bank-note for fifty pounds being discovered on the chimneypiece. The cross-examination of this witness by Legge was admirable. "Was it such a wonderful sight? Had he never seen such a natural curiosity as a fifty-pound bank-note?"-a supposition that was indignantly rejected.

Sometimes the two leaders got into a quarrel, and seemed to regard the efforts of the chairman to compose their differences with contempt; Lugard hovering about, bursting out into the gallery for air, scarcely able to contain himself, as some new witness came up. "They've paid these fellows themselves," he said; "it's a conspiracy." Bligh did not appear. "He pretends to be indifferent-it's not worth his while." But Bligh was really busy; engaged in a heavy case, which he could not leave.

Begbie, Q.C., "that little wasp," as some of his brethren called him, made a most characteristic and damaging speech, which turned Lugard pale. But towards the end of the day his own counsel had his turn, and with masterly skill "showed up" the "conspiracy," as he persisted in calling it. He "shattered" the case of the other side-pounding it into fragments, as with blows of a sledge-hammer. Lugard's spirits rose with every change: his eager face, now exhibiting triumph, now scorn, emphasised every turn of the speaker. What provoked him was the behaviour of the members of the committee. One was writing letters, one was reading letters; a third would get up to go out, and had been away now nearly half-an-hour. Sometimes there was whispering and "jokes.” It was scandalous, he thought—such interests being at stake.

At last, however, the evidence, speeches, all came to an end, and the order was given to clear the room. The committee were to consider their decision. Lugard, flushed, excited, half-frantic, hung about the corridor, talked to his solicitor, could scarcely, as he said, "keep his soul in his body," waiting to hear the verdict.

CHAPTER XI.

A PROPOSAL.

AGAIN we return to the little heroine of this story-to her happy days and pleasant nights, as she carried on this fashionable and seductive campaign. With her youth and spirits - though she was not robust-it was not so difficult: and there is many a frail, and perhaps consumptive, factory - girl who goes through double the work, has less sleep, and less food. But for Lady Margaret it was more wonderful. Her secret was having no anxieties; she had no daughters to

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