"You seem to have a good man, I should say," said the Duke.

"What! Hubbings?
Yes;--he was a legacy from my uncle when he gave me up the Priory." "A very good man, I should say.

Of course he won't make it pay; but he'll make it look as though it did;--which is the next best thing.
I could never get rent out of land that I farmed myself,--never." "I suppose not," said Mr Palliser, who did not care much about it.

The Duke would have talked to him by the hour together about farming had Mr Palliser been so minded; but he talked to him very little about politics.

Nor during the whole time of his stay at Matching did the Duke make any other allusion to Mr Palliser's hopes as regarded the ministry, than that in which he had told Lady Glencora at the dinner-table that her husband's ambition was the highest by which any man could be moved.
But Mr Bott was sometimes honoured by a few words with the Duke.
"We shall muster pretty strong, your Grace," Mr Bott had said to him one day before dinner.
"That depends on how the changes go," said the Duke.
"I suppose there will be a change ?" "Oh yes; there'll be a change,--certainly, I should say.