The aspect of it that didn't work for me was the use of Tom Swifties, the dialog tags which I felt used too many adverbs and which sometimes did a lot of telling that could be better shown. As an example:
I think these would have bothered me less if the same information had been written as a short paragraph instead of being part of the dialog tag."Or today is good too," continued Lord Sizzle smoothly because he had survived in politics a long time. "But we were about to discuss the annual budget."
Overall this is a very nice piece, and it deals with some thematic material that's more serious than the light tone conveys. Good flow, and it's easy and fast to read.