CHAPTER XVIII. DOWNING STREET
If our story had a hero – which it has not – that hero would be Mr. Davenport Dunn himself, and we might, consequently, feel certain compunctious scruples as to the length of time that has elapsed since we last saw him. When we parted, however, we took care to remind our reader that we left him in good company, and surely such a fact ought to allay all apprehensions on his behalf.
Months have rolled over; the London season has passed; Parliament has but a few days to run; the wearied speakers are longing to loiter along green lanes, or be touring or water-curing it in Germany; cities are all but deserted, and town-houses have that dusty, ill-cared-for air that reminds one of an estate in Chancery, or a half-pay lieutenant. Why is it, then, that Mr. Dunn’s residence in Merrion Square wears a look of unusual trimness? Fresh paint – that hypocrisy of architecture – has done its utmost; the hall door is a marvel of mock oak, as are the columns of spurious marble; the Venetian blinds are of an emerald green, and the plate-glass windows mirror the parched trees in the square, and reflect back the almost equally picturesque jaunting-cars as they drive past; the balcony, too, throughout its whole length, is covered with rich flowers and flowery shrubs. In a word, there is a look of preparation that bespeaks a coming event. What can it be?
Various rumors are afloat as to the reason of these changes, some averring that Mr. Dunn is about to take a high official position, and be raised to a distinguished rank; others opine that he is about to retire from the cares of a business life, and marry. What may he not be? Whom may he not aspire to? Surely the world has gone well with this roan. What a great general is to an army in the field, – what a great leader to a party in the “House,” was he to every industrial enterprise. His name was a guarantee for all that was accurate in discipline and perfect in organization. The Board over which he presided as Chairman was sure to meet with regularity and act with energy. The officials who served under him, even to the very humblest, seemed to typify the wise principles by which he had himself been guided in life. They appeared as though imbued with the same patient industry; the same untiring application, the same grave demeanor marked them. “I served under Mr. Davenport Dunn,” “Mr. Dunn knows me,” “Mr. Dunn will speak for me,” were characters that had the force of a diploma, since they vouched not alone for capacity, but for conduct.
It is a very high eminence to attain when a man’s integrity and ability throw such a light about him that they illumine not alone the path he treads in life, but shine brightly on those who follow his track, making an atmosphere in which all around participate. To this height had Dunn arrived, and he stood the confessed representative of those virtues Englishmen like to honor, and that character they boast to believe national, – the man of successful industry. The fewer the adventitious advantages he derived from fortune, the greater and more worthy did he appear. He was no aristocrat, propped and bolstered by grand relatives. He had no Most Noble or Right Honorable connections to push him. He was not even gifted with those qualities that win popular favor, – he had none of those graces of easy cordiality that others possess, – he was not insinuating in address, nor ready of speech. They who described him called him an awkward, bashful man, always struggling against his own ignorance of society, and only sustained by a proud consciousness that whispered the “sterling stuff that was inside,” – qualities which appeal to large audiences, and are intelligible to the many. Ay, there was indeed his grand secret. Genius wounds deeply, talent and ability offend widely, but the man of mere commonplace faculties, using common gifts with common opportunities, trading rather upon negative than positive properties, succeeding because he is not this, that, and t’ other, plodding along the causeway of life steadily and unobtrusively, seen by all, patched and noticed in every successive stage of his upward progress, so that each may say, “I remember him a barefooted boy, running errands in the street, – a poor clerk at forty pounds a year, – I knew him when he lived in such an alley, up so many pair of stairs!” Strange enough, the world likes all this; there is a smack of self-gratulation in it that seems to say, “If I liked it, I could have done as well as he.” Success in life won, these men rise into another atmosphere, and acquire another appreciation. They are then used to point the moral of that pleasant fallacy we are all so fond of repeating to each other, when we assert, amongst the blessings of our glorious Constitution, that there is no dignity too great, no station too high, for the Englishman who combines industry and integrity with zeal and perseverance. Shame on us, that we dare to call fallacy that which great Lord Chancellors and Chief Justices have verified from their own confessions; nay, we have even heard a Lord Mayor declare that he was, once upon a time, like that “poor” publican! The moral of it all is that with regard to the Davenport Dunns of this world, we pity them in their first struggles, we are proud of them in their last successes, and we are about as much right in the one sentiment as in the other.
The world – the great wide world of man – is marvellously identical with the small ingredient of humanity of whose aggregate it consists. It has its moods of generosity, distrust, liberality, narrowness, candor, and suspicion, – its fevers of noble impulse, and its cold fits of petty meanness, – its high moments of self-devotion, and its dark hours of persecution and hate. Men are judged differently in different ages, just as in every-day life we hear a different opinion from the same individual, when crossed by the cares of the morning and seated in all the voluptuous repose of an after-dinner abandonnement.
Now it chanced that Mr. Dunn’s lot in life had thrown him into a fortunate conjuncture of the world’s temper. The prosperity of a long peace had impressed us with an exaggerated estimate of all the arts that amass wealth; riches became less the reward than the test of ability; success and merit had grown to be convertible terms; clever speakers and eloquent writers assured us that wars pertained only to ages of barbarism, – that a higher civilization would repudiate them, – that men, now bent upon a high and noble philanthropy, would alone strive to diffuse the benefits of abundance and refinement amongst their fellows, and that we were about to witness an elysian age of plenty, order, and happiness. The same men who stigmatized the glory of war as the hypocrisy of carnage, invented another hypocrisy infinitely meaner and more ignoble, and placed upon the high altars of our worship the golden image of Gain.
As the incarnation of this passion Davenport Dunn stood out before the world; nor was there a tribute of its flattery that was not laid at his feet. Even they who had neither wish nor necessity to benefit by his peculiar influence did not withhold their homage, but joined in the general acclamation that pronounced him the great man of our time; and at his Sunday dinners were met the most distinguished in rank, – all that the country boasted of great in station, illustrious by services or capacity. His splendid house in Piccadilly – rented for the season for a fabulous sum – was beset all the morning by visitors, somewhat unlike, it must be owned, the class who frequented his Dublin levees. Here they were not deputations or bank directors, railway chairmen or drainage commissioners; they were all that fashion claims as her own, – proud duchesses of princely fortune, great countesses high in courtly favor, noble ladies whose smile of recognition was a firman to the highest places. They met there, by one of those curious compacts the grand world occasionally makes with itself, to do something, in a sort of half imitation of that inferior race of mortals who live and marry and die in the spheres beneath them. In fact, Dunn’s house was a sort of bourse, where shares were trafficked in, and securities bought and sold, with an eagerness none the less that the fingers that held them wore gloves fastened with rubies and emeralds.
In those gorgeous drawing-rooms, filled with objects of high art, statues stolen from the Vatican, gems obtained by Heaven knows what stratagems from Italian or Spanish convents, none deigned to notice by even a passing look the treasures that surrounded them. In vain the heavenly beauty of Raphael beamed from the walls, – in vain the seductive glances of Greuze in all their languishing voluptuousness, – in vain the haughty nobility of Van Dyck claimed the homage of a passing look. All were eagerly bent upon lists of stocks and shares, and no words were heard save such as told of rise or fall, – the alternations of that chance which makes or mars humanity.
It was while in the midst of that distinguished company Mr. Dunn received the telegram we have mentioned in our last chapter as despatched by Mr. Hankes. His was a nature long inured to the ups and downs of fortune; his great self-teaching had been principally directed to the very point of how best to meet emergencies; and yet, as he read over these brief lines, for a moment his courage seemed to have deserted him.
“Chimbarago Artesian Well and Water Company,” lisped out a very pale, sickly-looking Countess. “Shares are rising, Mr. Dunn; may I venture upon them?”
“Here’s the Marquesas Harbor of Refuge scheme going to smash, Dunn!” whispered an old gentleman, with a double eye-glass, his hand trembling as it held the share-list. “Eh, what do you say to that?”
“Glengariff ‘s going steadily up, – steadily up,” muttered Lord Glengariff, in Dunn’s ear. Then, struck by the sudden pallor of his face, he added, “Are you ill? – are you faint?”
“A mere nothing,” said Dunn, carelessly. “By the way, what hour is it? Near one, and I have an appointment with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yes, Lady Massingberd, perfectly safe; not a splendid investment, but quite sure. Cagliari Cobalts are first-rate, Sir George; take all you can get of them. The Dalmatian line is guaranteed ‘by the Austrian Government, my Lord. I saw the Ambassador yesterday. Pray excuse a hasty leave-taking.”
His carriage was quickly ordered, but before he set out he despatched a short telegraphic message to Hankes. It ran thus: “Detain her; suffer no letters from her to reach the post.” This being duly sent off, he drove to Downing Street. That dingy old temple of intrigue was well known to him. His familiar steps had mounted that gloomy old stair some scores of times; but now, for the first – the very first time in his life, instead of being at once ushered into the presence of the Minister, he was asked to “wait for a few moments.” What a shock did the intimation give him! Was the news already abroad, – had the fell tidings escaped? A second’s consideration showed this was impossible; and yet what meant this reserve?
“Is the Council sitting, Mr. Bagwell?” asked he, of a very well-dressed young gentleman, with a glass fixed in his eye, who acted as Private Secretary to the Minister.
“No; they’re chatting, I fancy,” lisped out the other. “The Council was up half an hour ago.”
“Have you mentioned my name, sir?” asked Dunn, with a formidable emphasis on the pronoun.
“Yes,” said he, arranging his hair before the glass; “I sent in your card.”
“Well, and the answer?”
“There was no answer, which, I take it, means ‘wait,’” replied he, in the same light and graceful tone of voice.
Dunn took his hat hastily from the table; and with a stern stare, intended to mean “I shall remember your face again,” said, —
“You may inform Lord Jedburg that I came by appointment; that I was here punctually at one o’clock; that I waited full fifteen minutes; that – ”
What more Mr. Dunn was about to say was cut short by the opening of a-door, and the issuing forth of some five or six gentlemen, all laughing and talking together.
“How d’ye do, Mr. Dunn?” “How d’ye do, Dunn?” “How are you, Dunn?” said some three or four, familiarly, as they passed through the room. And ere he could acknowledge the salutations, Lord Jedburg himself appeared at the door, and made a sign for him to enter. Never before had Davenport Dunn crossed those precincts with so nervous a heart. If his reason assured him that there was no cause of fear, his instincts and his conscience spoke a different language. He bent one quick penetrating glance on the Minister ere he sat down, as though to read there what he might of the future; but there was nothing to awaken anxiety or distrust in that face. His Lordship was far advanced in life, his hair more white than gray, his brow wrinkled and deep-furrowed; and yet, if, instead of the cares of a mighty empire, his concern had been the passing events of a life of society and country habits, nothing could have more suited the easy expression, the graceful smile, and the pleasant bonhomie of that countenance. Resuming the cigar he had been smoking as Dunn came in, he lounged back indolently in his deep chair, and said, —
“What can I do for you at the Isle of Wight, Dunn? I fancy we shall have a trip to Osborne to-morrow morning.”
“Indeed, my Lord?” asked he, anxiously; “are you going out?”
“So they say,” replied the other, carelessly. “Do you smoke? You ‘ll find those Cubans very mild. So they say, Dunn. Monksley assures us that we shall be in a minority to-night of fifteen or sixteen. Drake thinks five-and-twenty.”
“From your Lordship’s easy mode of taking it, I conclude that there is either a remedy for the disaster, or that – ”
“It is no disaster at all,” chimed in his Lordship, gayly. “Well, the Carlton Club are evidently of that mind, and some of the evening papers too.”
“I perceive, my Lord,” said Dunn, with a peculiar smile, “the misfortune is not irremediable.”
“You are right, Dunn,” said the other, promptly. “We have decided to accept a defeat, which, as our adversaries have never anticipated, will find them perfectly unprepared how to profit by it They will beat us, but, when called upon to form a Government, will be utterly unable. The rest is easy enough: a new Parliament, and ourselves stronger than ever.”
“A very clever countryman of mine once told me, my Lord, that he made a ruinous coach-line turn out a most lucrative speculation by simply running an opposition and breaking it; so true are the world in their attachment to success.”
A hearty laugh from the Minister acknowledged the parallel, and he added carelessly, —
“Sir George Bosely has a story of a fellow who once established a run on his own bank just to get up his credit. A hit above even you, Master Dunn, – eh?”
If Dunn laughed, it was with a face of deepest crimson, though he saw, the while, his secret was safe. Indeed, the honest frankness of his Lordship’s laugh guaranteed that all was well.
“The fellow ought to have been a Cabinet Minister, Dunn. He had the true governing element in him, which is a strong sense of human gullibility.”
“A little more is needed, my Lord, – how to turn that flame tendency to profit.”
“Of course, – of course. By the way, Dunn, though not apropos,” said he, laughingly, “what of the great Glengariff scheme? Is it prospering?”
“The shares stand at one hundred and seventy-seven and an eighth, my Lord,” said Dunn, calmly. “I can only wish your Lordship’s party as favorable a fortune.”
“Well, we are rather below par just now,” said the Minister, laughing, while he busied himself to select another cigar from the heap before him.
“It was just about that very enterprise I came to speak to your Lordship this morning,” said Dunn, drawing his chair closer. “I need not tell you how far the assurance of Government support has aided our success. The report of the Parliamentary Committee as to the Harbor of Refuge, the almost certain promise of her Majesty’s marine residence, the flattering reception your Lordship gave to the deputation in the matter of the American packet-station, have all done us good and efficient service. But we want more, my Lord, – we want more!”
“The deuce you do! Why, my good friend, these marks of our preference for your scheme have cost us some hundred angry addresses and recriminations from all parts of the kingdom, where, we are told, there is more picturesque scenery, more salubrious air, deeper water, and better anchorage. If you built a villa for every member of the Cabinet, and settled it on us in freehold there, it would not repay us for all we have suffered in your cause.”
“We should be both proud and happy to accommodate your Lordship’s colleagues on Jedburg Crescent,” said Dunn, bowing with a well-assumed seriousness.
“But what do you want us to do?” said his Lordship, peevishly; for he had the dislike great men generally feel to have their joke capped. It is for them to be smart, if they please, but not for the Mr. Davenport Dunns of this world to take up the clew of the facetiousness.
Mr. Dunn seemed somewhat posed by the abrupt directness of this question. Lord Jedburg went on: —
“You surely never supposed that we could send you material assistance. You are far too conversant with the working of our institutions to expect such. These things are possible in France, but they won’t do here. No, Dunn; perfectly impossible here.”
“And yet, my Lord, it is precisely in France that they ought to be impossible. Ministers in that country have no responsibility except towards their sovereign. If they become suddenly enriched, one sees at once how they have abused the confidence of their master.”
“I’ll not enter upon that question,” said his Lordship, smartly. “Tell me, rather, something about Ireland; how shall we fare there in a general election?”
“With proper exertions you may be able to hold your own,” was the dry rejoinder.
“Not more? Not any more than this?”
“Certainly not, my Lord, nor do I see how you could expect it. What you are in the habit of calling concessions to Irish interests have been little other than apologies for the blunders of your colleagues. You remove some burden imposed by yourselves, or express sorrow for some piece of legislation your own hands have inflicted – ”
“Come, come, Mr. Dunn, the only course of lectures I attend are delivered in the House of Commons; besides, I have no time for these things.” There was a tone of prompt decision in the way he uttered this that satisfied Dunn he had gone fully as far as was safe. “Now as to Ireland, we shall look for at least sixty, or perhaps seventy, sure votes. Come, where’s your list, Dunn? Out with it, man! We are rather rich in patronage just now. We can make a Bishop, a Puisne Judge, three Assistant Barristers, a Poor Law Commissioner, not to say that there are some fifty smaller things in the Revenue. Which will you have?”
“All, my Lord,” said Dunn, coolly, – “all, and some colonial appointments besides, for such of our friends as find living at home inexpedient.”
His Lordship lay back in his chair, and laughed pleasantly. “There’s Jamaica just vacant; would that suit you?”
“The Governorship? The very thing I want, and for a very old supporter of your Lordship’s party.”
“Who is he?”
“The Earl of Glengariff, my Lord, a nobleman who has never received the slightest acknowledgment for a political adherence of fifty-odd years.”
“Why, the man must be in second childhood. If I remember aright, he was – ”
“He is exactly four years your Lordship’s senior; he says you fagged for him his last half at Eton.”
“Pooh, pooh! he mistakes; it was of my father he was thinking. But to the point: what can he do for us?”
“I was alluding to what he had done, my Lord,” said Dunn, pointedly.
“Ah, Dunn, we are not rich enough for gratitude. That is the last luxury of a ‘millionnaire;’ besides, you are aware how many claimants there will be for so good a thing as this.”
“Which of them all, my Lord, can promise you ten votes in the Houses?”
“Well, is the bargain finished? Is all paid?”
“Not yet, my Lord; not yet You are averse to affording us any support to the Glengariff scheme, and, for the present, I will not hamper you with the consideration; you can, however, serve us in another way. Glumthal is very anxious about the Jew Bill; he wishes, Heaven knows why, to see his brother in the House. May I promise him that the next session will see it law? Let me just have your Lordship’s word to that effect, so that I may telegraph to him when I leave this.”
His Lordship shook his head dubiously, and said, “You forget that I have colleagues, Dunn.”
“I remember it well, my Lord, and I only asked for your own individual pledge. The fact is, my Lord, the Jews throughout the world have attached an immense importance to this question; and if Glumthal – confidentially, of course – be made the depositary of the secret, it will raise him vastly in the estimation of his co-religionists.”
“Let us see if the thing can be done. Is it practicable, and how?” “Oh, as to that, my Lord, modern legislation is carried on pretty much like a mercantile concern; you advertise your want, and it is supplied at once. Ask the newspapers. ‘How are we to admit the Jews?’ and you ‘ll get your answer as regularly as though it were a question of sport addressed to ‘Bell’s Life.’”
“Candor being the order of the day, what does Mr. Davenport Dunn want for himself?”
“I am coming to him, my Lord, but not just yet.”
“Why, really, Dunn, except that we turn Colonel Blood in your behalf, and steal the crown for you, I don’t see what more we can do.”
“It is a mere trifle in point of patronage, my Lord, though, in my ignorance of such matters, it may be, possibly, not without difficulty,” said Dunn; and, for the first time, his manner betrayed a sign of embarrassment “The Earl of Glengariff has an only unmarried daughter, a lady of great personal attractions, and remarkably gifted in point of ability; one of those persons, in short, on whom Nature has set the stamp of high birth, and fitted to be the ornament of a Court.”
“But we are all married in the Cabinet. Even the Treasury Lords have got wives,” said Lord Jedburg, laughing, and enjoying the discomfiture of Dunn’s face even more than his own jest.
“I am aware of it, my Lord,” replied Dunn, with inflexible gravity; “my ambitious hopes did not aspire so highly. What I was about to entreat was your Lordship’s assistance to have the lady I have mentioned appointed to a situation in the household, – one of her Majesty’s ladies – ”
“Impossible! perfectly impossible, Dunn!” said the Minister, flinging away his cigar in impatient anger; “really, you seem to have neither measure nor moderation in your demands. Such an interference on my part, if I were mad enough to attempt it, would meet a prompt rebuke.”
“If your Lordship’s patience had permitted me to finish, you would have heard that what I proposed was nothing beyond the barren honor of a ‘Gazette.’ On the day week that her Ladyship’s name had so appeared she would be married.”
“It does not alter the matter in the least. It is not in my province to make such a recommendation, and I refuse it flatly.”
“I am sorry for it, my Lord. Your Lordship’s refusal may inflict great evils upon the country, – the rule of an incompetent and ungenial Government, – the accession to power of men the most unscrupulous and reckless.”. “Cannot you see, sir,” said the Minister, sharply, “that I am in a position to comprehend what my office admits of, and where its limits are laid? I have told you that these appointments are not in our hands.”
“Sir Robert Peel did not say so, my Lord; he insisted – actually insisted – on his right to surround the throne with political partisans.”
“The Cabinet is not an Equity Court, to be ruled by precedents; and I tell you once more, Dunn, I should fail if I attempted it.”
“The Viscountess might obtain this favor,” said Dunn, with an obdurate persistence that was not to be resisted; “and even if unsuccessful, it would inflict no rebuff on your Lordship. Indeed, it would come more gracefully as a proposition from her Ladyship, who could also mention Lady Augusta’s approaching marriage.”
“I almost think I might leave you to finish the discussion with my wife,” said his Lordship, laughing; “I half suspect it would be the best penalty on your temerity. Are you engaged for Sunday? – well, then, dine with us. And now, that bill being adjourned,” said he, with a weary sigh, “what next?”
“I am now coming to myself, – to my own case, my Lord,” said Dunn, with the very slightest tremor in his voice. “Need I say that I wish it were in the hands of any other advocacy? I am so far fortunate, however, that I address one fully conversant with my claims on his party. For five-and-twenty years I have been the careful guardian of their interests in a country where, except in mere name, they never possessed any real popularity. Your Lordship smiles a dissent; may I enter upon the question?”
“Heaven forbid!” broke in the Minister, smiling good-humoredly.
“Well, my Lord, were I to reduce my services to a mere monetary estimate, and furnish you with a bill of costs, for what a goodly sum should I stand in the estimates. I have mainly sustained the charge of seven county elections, hardly contested. I have paid the entire charges on twenty-two borough contests. I have subsidized the provincial press in your favor at a cost of several thousand pounds out of my own pocket I have compromised three grave actions about to be brought against the Government. Of the vast sums I have contributed to local charities, schools, nunneries, societies of various denominations, all in the interest of your party, I take no account I have spent in these and like objects a princely fortune, and yet these hundreds of thousands of pounds are as nothing – mere nothing to the actual personal services I have rendered to your party. In the great revolution effected by the sale of encumbered estates, I have so watchfully guarded your interests that I have replaced the old rampant Toryism of the land by a gentry at once manageable and practicable, – men intent less upon party than personal objects, consequently available to the Minister, always accessible by an offer of direct advantage. I have, with all this, so thrown a Whig light over the rising prosperity of the country, that it might seem the result of your wise rule that stimulated men to the higher civilization they have attained to, and that a more forbearing charity and a more liberal spirit went hand in hand with improved agriculture and higher farming. To identify a party with the great march of this prosperity, to make of your policy a cause of these noble results, was the grand conception which, for a quarter of a century, I have carried out. When Mr. O’Connell kept your predecessors in power, his price was the bit-by-bit surrender of what in your hearts you believed to be bulwarks of the constitution. In return for my support what have I got? Some patronage – be it so – for my own dependants and followers, no doubt! Show me one man of my name, one man of my convictions, holding place under the Crown. No, my Lord, my power to serve your party was based on this sure foundation, that I was open to no imputation; I was the distributor of your patronage to the men best worthy to receive it, – no more.”
“Four o’clock, Dunn; time’s up,” said his Lordship. “I must go down to the House.”
“I am sorry to have detained your Lordship with so ungracious a theme.”
“Well, I do think you might have spared me some of it I know well my colleagues all know your invaluable services, – an admirable member of the party, active and able, but not quite neglected, either, eh, Dunn? – not entirely left in oblivion?”
While he spoke, he busied himself in the search for a paper amidst the heap of those before him, and could not, therefore, notice the mortification so palpably expressed on Dunn’s face.
“I can’t find it,” muttered he; “I should like, however, to show you the memorandum itself, in which your name stands recommended to her Majesty for a baronetcy.”
Dunn’s sudden start made the speaker look up; and as he turned his eyes on him, there was no mistaking the look of determined anger on his features.
“A baronetcy, my Lord,” said he, with a slow, thick utterance, “has become the recognized reward of a popular writer, or a fashionable physician, whose wives acquire a sort of Brummagem rank in calling themselves ‘My Lady;’ but men like myself, – men who have sustained a party, – men who, wielding many arms of strength, have devoted them all to the one task of maintaining in power a certain administration, which, whatever their gifts, assuredly did not possess the art of conciliating – ”
“Come, it is a peerage you want?” broke in his Lordship, whose manner betrayed a temper pushed to its last limits.
“If I am to trust your Lordship’s tone, the pretension would seem scarcely credible,” said Dunn, calmly.
“I believe I can understand how it would appear to others. I can, without great difficulty, imagine the light in which it would be viewed.”
“As to that, my Lord, any advancement to a man like me will evoke plenty of animadversion. I have done too-much for your party not to have made many enemies. The same objection would apply were I to accept the paltry acknowledgment you so graciously contemplated for me, and which I warn you not to offer me.”
Was it the naked insolence of this speech, or was it that in uttering it the proud pretension of the man summoned a degree of dignity to his manner; but certainly the Minister now looked at him with a sort of respect, he had not deigned hitherto to bestow.
“You know well, Dunn,” he began, in a tone of conciliation, “that fitness for the elevation is only one of the requirements in such a case. There are a mass of other considerations, – the ostensible claims; I mean such as can be-avowed and declared openly, – of the pretending party, – the services he has rendered to the country at large, – the merits he can show for some great public recognition. The press, whatever be its faults nowadays, has no defects on the score of frankness, and we shall have the question put in twenty different quarters, ‘What brilliant campaign has Mr. Dunn concluded?’ ‘What difficult negotiation carried to successful issue?’ ‘Where have been his great achievements in the law courts?’ To be sure, it might be said that we honor the industrial spirit of our country in ennobling one who has acquired a colossal fortune by his own unaided abilities; but Manchester and Birmingham have also their ‘millionnaires.’”