438 POLITICAL CAREER. 



treading on the papers, although I have forbidden 

 Mrs Jones, the housekeeper, ever to touch them, 

 for in putting them to rights, as she sometimes 

 presumes to do, I find that she puts them very 

 much to wrong-s." 



Presently Lord George left the room, and Mr 

 Disraeli took the opportunity of accosting me : 

 " What do you think, Kent," he asked, " of all 

 these papers ? " My reply was, " I should much 

 prefer, sir, to see ' Racing Calendars ' substituted 

 for them ; and this I say, not for my own interest, 

 but for the sake of his Lordship's health, which is 

 being undermined by long confinement in London, 

 and by the total stoppage of that open-air exercise 

 to which he has been all his life accustomed." 

 " You are quite right," rejoined Mr Disraeli, " but 

 you know his Lordship as well as I do. When he 

 takes anything up in earnest, it is useless to at- 

 tempt to dissuade him from persisting in it." I 

 could but shake my head mournfully ; and when 

 I took my departure that day, a sad presentiment 

 flashed across my mind that never again should 

 I meet and converse with Lord Geore^e Bentinck 

 in Harcourt House. 



I well remember the surprise and astonishmelit 

 with which Lord George's unsurpassed power of 

 mastering details and laying his conclusions before, 

 the House was received by many of his friends, 

 who had known him for years, as well as by the 

 general public. His fundamental policy was to 



