CHAPTER LVIII
The Two Dukes
It was necessary that the country should be governed, even though
Mr. Bonteen had been murdered;--and in order that it should be duly
governed it was necessary that Mr. Bonteen's late place at the Board
of Trade should be filled. There was some hesitation as to the
filling it, and when the arrangement was completed people were very
much surprised indeed. Mr. Bonteen had been appointed chiefly because
it was thought that he might in that office act as a quasi House of
Commons deputy to the Duke of Omnium in carrying out his great scheme
of a five-farthinged penny and a ten-pennied shilling. The Duke, in
spite of his wealth and rank and honour, was determined to go on with
his great task. Life would be nothing to him now unless he could at
least hope to arrange the five farthings. When his wife had bullied
him about the Garter he had declared to her, and with perfect truth,
that he had never asked for anything. He had gone on to say that he
never would ask for anything; and he certainly did not think that
he was betraying himself with reference to that assurance when he
suggested to Mr.
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