He had been minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very extensive popularity.

It had always been a point with successive governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus had never been left altogether in the cold.

He was not a man who would have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his well-attested popularity.

At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached.

Sir Magnus had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject was a good deal divided.