He first spoke to Hastings, and then to me. What
passed between the two I do not know. To me, he said:
'Hastings tells me it was you who poured the claret into his
pocket. This will lose the election. After to-morrow, I
shall want your room.' Of course, the culprit confessed; and
my brother got the support we hoped for. Thus it was that
the political interests of several thousands of electors
depended on a glass of wine.
CHAPTER XII
I HAD completed my second year at the University, when, in
October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge
after the long vacation, an old friend - William Grey, the
youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister's sons - called on me at my
London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy,
where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly
before this there had been serious insurrections both in
Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.
Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled
to England; how the infection spread over this country; how
25,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common; how the upper and
middle classes of London were enrolled as special constables,
with the future Emperor of the French amongst them; how the
promptitude of the Iron Duke saved London, at least, from the
fate of the French and Austrian capitals.
