Pelham Vol IV by Edward Bulwer-lytton

Intus et in jecore aegro, Nascuntur domini. -- Persius.

The next two or three days I spent in visiting all my male friends in the Lower House, and engaging them to dine with me, preparatory to the great act of voting on -- 's motion. I led them myself to the House of Commons, and not feeling sufficiently interested in the debate to remain, as a stranger, where I ought, in my own opinion, to have acted as a performer, I went to Brookes's to wait the result. Lord Gravelton, a stout, bluff, six-foot nobleman, with a voice like a Stentor, was "blowing up" the waiters in the coffee-room. Mr. -- , the author of T -- , was conning the Courier in a corner; and Lord Armadilleros, the haughtiest and most honourable peer in the calendar, was monopolizing the drawing-room, with his right foot on one hob and his left on the other. I sat myself down in silence, and looked over the "crack article" in the Edinburgh.