about noon
He knew all the little secrets of the business ; -- could arrange , let the cause be what it might , to get a full House for himself and his friends , and empty benches for his opponents , -- could foresee a thousand little things to which even a Walpole would have been blind , which a Pitt would not have condescended to regard , but with which his familiarity made him a very comfortable leader of the House of Commons . There were various ideas prevalent as to the politics of the coming Session ; but the prevailing idea was in favour of Sir Timothy . The Duke was at Longroyston , the seat of his old political ally the Duke of St. Bungay , and had been absent from Sunday the 6th till the morning of Friday the 11th , on which day Parliament was to meet . On that morning at about noon a letter came to the son saying that his father had returned and would be glad to see him . Silverbridge was going to the House on that day and was not without his own political anxieties . If Lord Drummond remained in , he thought that he must , for the present , stand by the party which he had adopted . If , however , Sir Timothy should become Prime Minister there would be a loophole for escape .