Mr.Macpherson and Mr.Roby, with a host of others who had belonged to Mr.Daubeny, were prepared, as they declared from the first, to lend their assistance to the Duke.
They had consulted Mr.Daubeny on the subject, and Mr.Daubeny told them that their duty lay in that direction.

At the first blush of the matter the arrangement took the form of a gracious tender from themselves to a statesman called upon to act in very difficult circumstances,--and they were thanked accordingly by the Duke, with something of real cordial gratitude.

But when the actual adjustment of things was in hand, the Duke, having but little power of assuming a soft countenance and using soft words while his heart was bitter, felt on more than one occasion inclined to withdraw his thanks.

He was astounded not so much by the pretensions as by the unblushing assertion of these pretensions in reference to places which he had been innocent enough to think were always bestowed at any rate without direct application.

He had measured himself rightly when he told the older duke in one of those anxious conversations which had been held before the attempt was made, that long as he had been in office himself he did not know what was the way of bestowing office.
"Two gentlemen have been here this morning," he said one day to the Duke of St.Bungay, "one on the heels of the other, each assuring me not only that the whole stability of the enterprise depends on my giving a certain office to him,--but actually telling me to my face that I had promised it to him!" The old statesman laughed.