If, on the other hand,
the advantage seemed to go with the Canton Club, or the
opposition benches, then it was the whig and liberal hounds
who howled and moaned, explaining everything by the
indiscretion, infatuation, treason, of Lord Viscount Masque,
and appealing to the initiated world of idiots around them,
whether any party could ever succeed, hampered by such men,
and influenced by such means.
The best of the joke was, that all this time Lord Masque and
Tadpole were two old foxes, neither of whom conveyed to Lady
Firebrace a single circumstance but with the wish, intention,
and malice aforethought, that it should be communicated to his
rival.
"I must get you to interest Lord de Mowbray in our cause,"
said Sir Vavasour Firebrace, in an insinuating voice to his
neighbour, Lady Joan; "I have sent him a large packet of
documents. You know, he is one of us; still one of us. Once
a baronet, always a baronet. The dignity merges, but does not
cease; and happy as I am to see one covered with high honours,
who is in every way so worthy of them, still I confess to you
it is not so much as Earl de Mowbray that your worthy father
interests me, as in his undoubted character and capacity of
Sir Altamont Fitz-Warene, baronet.
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