Bonteen would be promoted to that high office. During the last
two years he had devoted himself to decimal coinage with a zeal only
second to that displayed by Plantagenet Palliser, and was accustomed
to say of himself that he had almost perished under his exertions. It
was supposed that he would have the support of the present Duke of
Omnium,--and that Mr. Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced
by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen
should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother
Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed.
The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest
morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.
But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us,--when we
find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the
influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race
of life. When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it
very acutely.
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