Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/206

176 "How do you mean?"

"Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would not have looked at me as Mr. Tomlinson; so I took my master's clothes, and occasionally his carriage, and made love to my nymph, as Lord . Her vanity made her indiscreet. The Tory papers got hold of it; and my master, in a change of Ministers, was declared by George the Third to be 'too gay for a Chancellor of the Exchequer.' An old gentleman who had had fifteen children by a wife like a Gorgon was chosen instead of my master; and although the new Minister was a fool in his public capacity, the moral public were perfectly content with him, because of his private virtues!

"My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found me out, and turned me out too!

"A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the Constitution. My distress almost made me a republican; but, true to my creed, I must confess that I would only have levelled upwards. I especially disaffected the inequality of riches: I looked moodily on every carriage that passed: I even frowned like a second Catiline, at the steam