Chapter 4

A CUNNING CONSPIRACY.

The Warden entered at this moment: and close behind him came the Lord
Chancellor, a little flushed and out of breath, and adjusting his wig,
which appeared to have been dragged partly off his head.

"But where is my precious child?" my Lady enquired, as the four took
their seats at the small side-table devoted to ledgers and bundles and
bills.

"He left the room a few minutes ago with the Lord Chancellor,"
the Sub-Warden briefly explained.

"Ah!" said my Lady, graciously smiling on that high official.
"Your Lordship has a very taking way with children! I doubt if any
one could gain the ear of my darling Uggug so quickly as you can!"
For an entirely stupid woman, my Lady's remarks were curiously full of
meaning, of which she herself was wholly unconscious.

The Chancellor bowed, but with a very uneasy air. "I think the Warden
was about to speak," he remarked, evidently anxious to change the
subject.

But my Lady would not be checked. "He is a clever boy," she continued
with enthusiasm, "but he needs a man like your Lordship to draw him
out!"

The Chancellor bit his lip, and was silent. He evidently feared that,
stupid as she looked, she understood what she said this time, and was
having a joke at his expense. He might have spared himself all anxiety:
whatever accidental meaning her words might have, she herself never
meant anything at all.

"It is all settled!" the Warden announced, wasting no time over
preliminaries. "The Sub-Wardenship is abolished, and my brother is
appointed to act as Vice-Warden whenever I am absent. So, as I am going
abroad for a while, he will enter on his new duties at once."

"And there will really be a Vice after all?" my Lady enquired.

"I hope so!" the Warden smilingly replied.

My Lady looked much pleased, and tried to clap her hands: but you might
as well have knocked two feather-beds together, for any noise it made.
"When my husband is Vice," she said, "it will be the same as if we had
a hundred Vices!"

"Hear, hear!" cried the Sub-Warden.

"You seem to think it very remarkable," my Lady remarked with some
severity, "that your wife should speak the truth!"

"No, not remarkable at all!" her husband anxiously explained.
"Nothing is remarkable that you say, sweet one!"

My Lady smiled approval of the sentiment, and went on.
"And am I Vice-Wardeness?"

"If you choose to use that title," said the Warden:
"but 'Your Excellency' will be the proper style of address. And I trust