After Arthur promised to solve the problem, General Napier hummed a little tune and left.

However, the secretary of the Foreign Office stayed behind to chat with Arthur about the changes that had taken place in London in recent times.

In addition to the workers' riots caused by the quarantine policy at the port, there are also various cases of patients being forced to quarantine patients, causing their families to storm quarantine hospitals.

All in all, it sounds like the Home Secretary of State, Viscount Melbourne, must have been upset lately.

On the official side he had to deal with the Swain riots of the southern peasants and the health and public order incidents caused by cholera, and in his personal relations he had to find time to deal with the allegations against him by Judge George Norton.

Although the position of Home Secretary has long been considered one of the three major cabinets along with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of the Exchequer, the position has become a hot potato.

Even with the natural lazy personality of the Viscount of Melbourne, he was forced to work overtime to attend various multi-departmental joint meetings to study what methods could be used to suppress these things.

It is said that his sister, Mrs. Cooper, once privately persuaded the Viscount of Melbourne: "Now that all kinds of things are pressing on me, it is better to settle with George Norton out of court, isn't that rude man trying to extort 1,400 pounds?" Our Lamb family is not short of this money. ”

However, the Viscount of Melbourne was extremely resistant to his sister's persuasion, and he verbally rejected his sister's suggestion, and asked her not to continue to inquire about the matter.

Seeing that her brother was not listening, Mrs. Cowper went to Viscount Palmerston to borrow money, intending to secretly help her brother settle with George Norton.

As a result, when the Viscount of Melbourne learned about this from the mouth of the Viscount Palmerston, His Excellency the Viscount, who had not blushed with anyone for decades, was rarely angry, and he immediately sent someone to stop his sister, and repeatedly affirmed to her that he and Mrs. Norton were innocent, and he did not intend to bow to a villain like Norton, let alone take the initiative to tarnish his reputation.

And Mrs. Cooper, who was scolded by her brother, only felt that she was wronged, obviously she wanted to do something for her mother's family, but her brother still didn't miss her love.

Mrs. Cowper did not attend any social gatherings for two weeks, and she was nowhere to be found in the whole of London.

According to the ladies of the Olmark Club, she seems to have returned to the Earl of Cowper in a gamble, and may not return to London until next year's spring social season arrives again.

And George Norton saw that the Viscount of Melbourne was so tough, and he was furious and formally filed an adultery lawsuit against the Viscount of Melbourne and his wife.

However, since Norton often visited the Ministry of the Interior, and the letters he provided between the men and women could not find conclusive evidence.

So, after the trial, the Viscount of Melbourne and the Lady Norton were found innocent.

However, the end of the trial does not mean that the matter is over. Judge Norton, who was not satisfied with the outcome of the trial, kicked his wife out of the house and sent his three sons, who were only 2, 4 and 6 years old at the time, to relatives to raise them, and strictly forbade the mother and son to see each other.

Because of the gossip, such an incident naturally caused an uproar in London.

Various London tabloids began to scramble to report on the details of the affair lawsuit.

Opponents argue that the Viscount of Melbourne won the case because of the dirty political influence he exerted on the court. A woman always runs to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when she has nothing to do, can she do anything other than a private meeting with her lover?

Proponents argue that the reputation of the Viscount of Melbourne has been tested for a long time. At that time, the wife of the Viscount of Melbourne, Pang Sen, had been stirring up trouble for more than ten or twenty years, and His Excellency the Viscount had not been too harsh on his wife and Lord Byron. Even when his wife was on the cusp, he took the initiative to speak for his wife, hoping to calm the situation. How could such a loyal and kind gentleman do such an immoral thing as destroying other people's families?

Other analysts have tried to explain the problem from a human point of view, assuming that the Viscount of Melbourne had an affair with Lady Norton.

and thinks that it is because the Viscount of Melbourne was green by Lord Byron, and his wife Ponson is a complete crazy woman than the Lady, and even threw himself on the coffin in front of the crowd of onlookers on the street when Lord Byron's coffin returned home.

It is precisely because of the unbearable weight of these ordinary people that the educated Viscount of Melbourne has a certain degree of psychopathology.

And his relationship with Mrs. Norton is probably to make up for his shortcomings.

As the saying goes, despise the Minotaur, understand the Minotaur, become the Minotaur, and surpass the Minotaur.

Analysts tend to summarize the above sentence as the process of psychological development of the Viscount of Melbourne.

The ladies of London, on the other hand, generally despise the so-called 'bull-headed theory', and the complicated relationship between the Viscount of Melbourne and his wife is well known on the streets of London.

And the sentence that Lady Ponsenby told the servants before she died, "Please call William, in this world, he is the only one who has never failed me" hit the hearts of thousands of girls even harder.

William Lamb, Viscount of Melbourne, is a first-class figure in terms of knowledge, status and even appearance, and he has not remarried since his wife's death. Therefore, after having such a bleak and sad marriage story, he was labeled as infatuated by the ladies.

Because of this, the Viscount of Melbourne has always had a good relationship with women, and these female supporters of the Viscount of Melbourne naturally cannot tolerate other people's attacks on him. So when the extramarital affair lawsuit first came out, many upper-class wives and middle-class female families came out to support him.

On the one hand, there is a wave of calls for the removal of the morally unclean ministers from their posts, and on the other hand, there is a barrage of accusations that cruel husbands humiliate their wives.

Corresponding to the precipitous drop in port throughput during cholera was the explosive growth of London's paper media like a rocket.

As soon as Arthur heard this, he suddenly spoke to Alexandre Dumas, who was listening to it with relish: "Alexander, the finale of Charles's "Pickwick Gaiden" hasn't been sent out yet, right?" ”

Alexandre Dumas plucked out his ears: "No, haven't you been holding it down?" Charles thought that the manuscript was pressed and not sent because he had something wrong with it, but for this matter, he changed the manuscript several times in private, and went to the editorial office to ask me about it.

Arthur, it's not that I'm talking about you, you can't treat a talented young writer like Charles like that, pressing the manuscript will hit the creative self-confidence. And readers were also very unhappy, with more than half of the complaints in the British's editorial office asking why The Pickwick Papers had suddenly stopped for so long. ”

When Arthur heard this, he just spoke: "I didn't mean to press his manuscript, and it wasn't because he couldn't write it. On the contrary, I think he wrote really well, and I opened up part of the court file to Charles to help him write the court part.

Because this is a perfect ending, we must pick the most appropriate time to release this ending in order to live up to Charles's efforts. Alexander, listen to me, the next issue of "British" will release all the climaxes of the finale of "The Pickwick Papers" at once. ”

"Throw it out all at once?" Alexandre Dumas glared and said, "That's the amount of three or four issues, do you want us to print it on the page?" ”

Arthur said nonchalantly, "It's just a little more printing, and believe me, Alexander, the sales of the next issue will definitely surprise you." ”

When the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs heard this, he couldn't help but ask curiously: "To be honest, I am actually a big fan of "British". Mr. Hastings, for the sake of our friendship, can you reveal a little bit about the finale of "The Pickwick Papers"? ”

Arthur rubbed his temples: "This ...... I really don't remember clearly, after all, it's been a while since the finale was written. Why don't I let Mr. Dumas, the editor-in-chief of fashion literature of "British" near me, introduce it to you? ”

Dumas also didn't understand where Arthur's confidence came from, and although he also thought that the ending of "The Pickwick Papers" was quite good, it was not easy to drive the sales of the entire magazine up.

Alexandre Dumas spoke: "Didn't Mr. Pickwick receive a court summons in the previous serial? The court summons was actually about a marriage destruction lawsuit.

The lawsuit arose out of two greedy lawyers, Dawson and Fogg, who came forward on behalf of the landlord, Mrs. Bardelle, and said that Mr. Pickwick had promised to marry her, but that Mr. Pickwick had not executed the marriage contract, so the two lawyers filed a claim for £750.

But Mr. Pickwick was so disgusted with this kind of legal bastard that he was unwilling to give in to the false accusation, and he was unfortunately imprisoned in debtor's prison, although he could afford to pay the damages.

To their surprise, the two lawyers, seeing that Mr. Pickwick was slow to pay the fine, and that Mrs. Bardell was unable to pay the legal fees, threw her into the debtor's prison...... Hmmm......"

When Alexandre Dumas introduced this, he suddenly felt that something was wrong.

He reminisced about the plot for a moment, and suddenly suggested to Arthur: "I think the lawyer's claim of 750 pounds from Mr. Pickwick is still too little, it is better to change it to 1400 pounds, so that it will be all right." ”

Arthur shook his head: "Alexander, what are you trying to insinuate?" You have to remember that the British is an objective and impartial literary magazine, and we do not export any opinions to our readers, whether political or public. ”

Alexandre Dumas clasped his hands and nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, that's right, we don't export politics or public opinion, we mainly export political public opinion, such as our supplement "The Economist". Okay, no more. Damn it! Arthur, how did you anticipate this? Did you know early on that Norton was going to sue? ”

Arthur just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Alexander, I told you a long time ago, I know everything about "The Pickwick Papers", not only in terms of plot, but also in terms of background, which is the basic quality of a literature lover. ”

"Huh? You also mention the background. Didn't you set up this background? ”

The secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs looked at the two of them, and just said with a smile: "Although I don't know what is going on." However, being able to lay the background in the Foreign Office is the envy of everyone, and we don't have such talents, so Britain's foreign policy has always been to take one step at a time. ”

When Dumas heard this, his face was full of disbelief: "Sir, your words are too much to belittle your diplomatic work. It seems to me that Britain has done perhaps the best diplomatic work in Europe, and you have organized so many anti-French alliances. ”

"No, no, Mr. Dumas, the formation of the anti-French alliance is certainly a merit, but the main credit for this work lies not with the Foreign Office, but with France."

"What do you mean by that?"

The secretary took a sip of tea and said, "You must know that the good and the bad are usually set off, and France has always done a good job in setting up the background. ”

When Dumas heard this, he couldn't help but sneer: "But sir, when you set the background in France, you should still be a citizen of the Duchy of Hesse, Germany, right?" ”

The secretary shrugged his shoulders and said, "To be precise, at that time, my father was a Hessian mercenary serving for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Hanover. If you have to accuse me of German blood, well, I do, but so what? I am now a glorious British gentleman. ”

Dumas couldn't do anything about such a person, he gritted his teeth and said, "Maybe I should have asked Heinrich to come and hear what you have to say...... Oh, no...... That kid will envy you if he can't get it right. ”

The secretary asked, "Huh?" Listen to you so, there is a German here? ”

Arthur nodded, "Yes, but don't worry, it's not a Bavarian." ”

"Thankfully." The secretary general breathed a sigh of relief: "But dealing with the Bavarians is actually okay, at least not as hard as dealing with the Austrians." On this point, I am in a rare agreement with Viscount Palmerston. ”

Arthur asked, "Huh?" Does Viscount Palmerston hate Austria? Isn't this a strange thing, isn't he usually very close to the Russians? The relationship between the two was so close that I thought he was an absolutist who supported the Tsar. ”

The secretary nodded, "No, Mr. Hastings, you misunderstood. His Excellency's preferences were not divided by doctrines, but by personal feelings. Also an authoritarian state, he liked the Russians because Madame Leven helped him, and he hated Austria because of Metternich.

Of course, his dislike of France was also high, and in addition to deep-seated national feelings, it was the French ambassador, Mr. Talleyrand, who played an important role in this. As you know, parliamentarians are creatures who live in the press and public opinion, so Viscount Palmerston has a natural aversion to people who steal the limelight from him.

In the field of foreign affairs, the two twin stars of Europa diplomacy, Metternich and Talleyrand, who can eat and drink and call for wind and rain on the head of the British foreign secretary. ”

Arthur pinched his chin and pondered, "From your mouth, you can always hear some interesting little stories. I have heard that Viscount Palmerston has made the Foreign Office an impermeable fortress, and anyone who dares to divulge information about the Foreign Office will be severely punished. So, for the sake of protecting my friends, I won't go any further. ”

The secretary just smiled when he heard this: "Mr. Hastings, don't take that kind of rumor too seriously." If there is a real large-scale leak in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it can only be leaked by His Excellency the Viscount himself. You know, the government is not the same as the Royal Navy, and the government ship usually starts to leak from the top. So, it. I value you as a friend more than I do in my hand. It's just an assistant undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I can't get up anyway, and as you know, the top-level deputy minister is usually reserved for parliamentarians. ”

When Arthur heard this, he smiled and stretched out his hand: "Friend, please forgive me for being forgetful, what is your name?" ”

The secretary didn't care about Arthur's little negligence, he shook Arthur's hand, and replied with a smile: "August Schneider, it's a pleasure to chat with you, Arthur." I'd love to continue, but I'll have to make arrangements for Mr. Napier's next trip. But before I leave, I'll send you a little bit of news. ”

Arthur asked, "Or is it from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?" ”

"Hmm...... No......" Schneider said: "To be precise, it was the East India Company that took the initiative to ask for it, and the Ministry of the Interior and the General Administration of Customs nodded and agreed. They want to add staff to help you continue to check Liverpool's tariffs. ”

"Oh?" Arthur asked, "Who is it?" Do you know? ”

Schneider smiled, "The East India Company's Hayleybury College Chair Professor of Political Economy and his team of students. By the way, this professor also has a very interesting nickname, you must have heard of it. ”

"What's the nickname?"

Schneider stood up and tucked his coat together: "'Population' Malthus." ”

(End of chapter)