The Bedford Row Conspiracy
W >>
William Makepeace Thackeray >> The Bedford Row Conspiracy
Mr. Crampton showed this to his nephew with great glee, and was
chuckling to think how Mr. William Pitt Scully would be annoyed, who
had expected the place, when Perkins burst out laughing and said,
"By heavens, here is my own speech! Scully has spoken every word of
it; he has only put in Mr. Pincher's name in the place of Mr.
Macabaw's."
"He is ours now," responded his uncle, "and I told you WE WOULD HAVE
HIM FOR NOTHING. I told you, too, that you should be married from
Sir George Gorgon's, and here is proof of it."
It was a letter from Lady Gorgon, in which she said that, "had she
known Mr. Perkins to be a nephew of her friend Mr. Crampton, she
never for a moment would have opposed his marriage with her niece,
and she had written that morning to her dear Lucy, begging that the
marriage breakfast should take place in Baker Street."
"It shall be in Mecklenburgh Square," said John Perkins stoutly; and
in Mecklenburgh Square it was.
William Pitt Scully, Esquire, was, as Mr. Crampton said, hugely
annoyed at the loss of the place for his nephew. He had still,
however, his hopes to look forward to, but these were unluckily
dashed by the coming in of the Whigs. As for Sir George Gorgon,
when he came to ask about his peerage, Hawksby told him that they
could not afford to lose him in the Commons, for a Liberal Member
would infallibly fill his place.
And now that the Tories are out and the Whigs are in, strange to say
a Liberal does fill his place. This Liberal is no other than Sir
George Gorgon himself, who is still longing to be a lord, and his
lady is still devout and intriguing. So that the Members for
Oldborough have changed sides, and taunt each other with apostasy,
and hate each other cordially. Mr. Crampton still chuckles over the
manner in which he tricked them both, and talks of those five
minutes during which he stood on the landing-place, and hatched and
executed his "Bedford-Row Conspiracy."