Is there some new scheme on hand ?--for the honour of Holy Church, no doubt ?" I thanked God then that I had said not one word in my letter that Shaftesbury himself might not have read.

I had been in two minds about it; but had determined to wait until I saw my cousin and learned for myself what kind of man he was.
"My dear cousin," I said again, "even if I had come on some such mission, I should assure you, as I do now, that it was nothing of the kind.

How else could such missions be kept secret at all?
It would be a _secretum commissum_ in any case; as the theologians would say.

I can but repeat what I said in my letter to you; and, if you will think of it, you will see that it is not likely that any matter of importance would be entrusted to a young man of my age." That seemed to quiet him.

I have often noticed that to appeal to the experience and wisdom of a fool is the surest way to content him.
He began then to talk of the Court; and it would not be decent of me to record even a tenth part of the gossip he told me regarding the corruption that prevailed in Whitehall.