The debate on the bill was prolonged during the whole of that week. Lord Brentford, who loved his seat in the Cabinet and the glory of being a Minister, better even than he loved his borough, had taken a gloomy estimate when he spoke of twenty-seven defaulters, and of the bill as certainly lost. Men who were better able than he to make estimates — the Bonteens and Fitzgibbons on each side of the House, and above all, the Ratlers and Robys, produced lists from day to day which varied now by three names in one direction, then by two in another, and which fluctuated at last by units only. They all concurred in declaring that it would be a very near division. A great effort was made to close the debate on the Friday, but it failed, and the full tide of speech was carried on till the following Monday. On that morning Phineas heard Mr Ratler declare at the club that, as far as his judgment went, the division at that moment was a fair subject for a bet. “There are two men doubtful in the House,” said Ratler, “and if one votes on one side and one on the other, or if neither votes at all, it will be a tie.” Mr Roby, however, the whip on the other side, was quite sure that one at least of these gentlemen would go into his lobby, and that the other would not go into Mr Ratler’s lobby. I am inclined to think that the town was generally inclined to put more confidence in the accuracy of Mr Roby than in that of Mr Ratler; and among betting men there certainly was a point given by those who backed the Conservatives. The odds, however, were lost, for on the division the numbers in the two lobbies were equal, and the Speaker gave his casting vote in favour of the Government. The bill was read a second time, and was lost, as a matter of course, in reference to any subsequent action. Mr Roby declared that even Mr Mildmay could not go on with nothing but the Speaker’s vote to support him. Mr Mildmay had no doubt felt that he could not go on with his bill from the moment in which Mr Turnbull had declared his opposition; but he could not with propriety withdraw it in deference to Mr Turnbull’s opinion.

During the week Phineas had had his hands sufficiently full. Twice he had gone to the potted peas inquiry; but he had been at the office of the People’s Banner more often than that. Bunce had been very resolute in his determination to bring an action against the police for false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. “Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What’s the use of all the voting, when it means nothing but dry bread and cross words?” Phineas by no means encouraged his landlord in his litigious spirit, advising him rather to keep his money in his pocket, and leave the fighting of the battle to the columns of the Banner — which would fight it, at any rate, with economy. But Bunce, though he delighted in the Banner, and showed an unfortunate readiness to sit at the feet of Mr Quintus Slide, would have his action at law — in which resolution Mr Slide did, I fear, encourage him behind the back of his better friend, Phineas Finn.

Phineas went with Bunce to Mr Low’s chambers — for Mr Low had in some way become acquainted with the law-stationer’s journeyman — and there some very good advice was given. “Have you asked yourself what is your object, Mr Bunce?” said Mr Low. Mr Bunce declared he had asked himself that question, and had answered it. His object was redress. “In the shape of compensation to yourself,” suggested Mr Low. No; Mr Bunce would not admit that he personally required any compensation. The redress wanted was punishment to the man. “Is it for vengeance?” asked Mr Low. No; it was not for vengeance, Mr Bunce declared. “It ought not to be,” continued Mr Low; “because, though you think that the man exceeded in his duty, you must feel that he was doing so through no personal ill-will to yourself.”

“What I want is, to have the fellows kept in their proper places,” said Mr Bunce.

“Exactly — and therefore these things, when they occur, are mentioned in the press and in Parliament — and the attention of a Secretary of State is called to them. Thank God, we don’t have very much of that kind of thing in England.”

“Maybe we shall have more if we don’t look to it,” said Bunce stoutly.

“We always are looking to it,” said Mr Low — “looking to it very carefully. But I don’t think anything is to be done in that way by indictment against a single man, whose conduct has been already approved by the magistrates. If you want notoriety, Mr Bunce, and don’t mind what you pay for it; or have got anybody else to pay for it; then indeed — ”

“There ain’t nobody to pay for it,” said Bunce, waxing angry.

“Then I certainly should not pay for it myself if I were you,” said Mr Low.

But Bunce was not to be counselled out of his intention. When he was out in the square with Phineas he expressed great anger against Mr Low. “He don’t know what patriotism means,” said the law scrivener. “And then he talks to me about notoriety! It has always been the same way with ’em. If a man shows a spark of public feeling, it’s all ambition. I don’t want no notoriety. I wants to earn my bread peaceable, and to be let alone when I’m about my own business. I pays rates for the police to look after rogues, not to haul folks about and lock ’em up for days and nights, who is doing what they has a legal right to do.” After that, Bunce went to his attorney, to the great detriment of the business at the stationer’s shop, and Phineas visited the office of the People’s Banner. There he wrote a leading article about Bunce’s case, for which he was in due time to be paid a guinea. After all, the People’s Banner might do more for him in this way than ever would be done by Parliament. Mr Slide, however, and another gentleman at the Banner office, much older than Mr Slide, who announced himself as the actual editor, were anxious that Phineas should rid himself of his heterodox political resolutions about the ballot. It was not that they cared much about his own opinions; and when Phineas attempted to argue with the editor on the merits of the ballot, the editor put him down very shortly. “We go in for it, Mr Finn,” he said. If Mr Finn would go in for it too, the editor seemed to think that Mr Finn might make himself very useful at the Banner Office. Phineas stoutly maintained that this was impossible — and was therefore driven to confine his articles in the service of the people to those open subjects on which his opinions agreed with those of the People’s Banner. This was his second article, and the editor seemed to think that, backward as he was about the ballot, he was too useful an aid to be thrown aside. A member of Parliament is not now all that he was once, but still there is a prestige in the letters affixed to his name which makes him loom larger in the eyes of the world than other men. Get into Parliament, if it be but for the borough of Loughshane, and the People’s Banners all round will be glad of your assistance, as will also companies limited and unlimited to a very marvellous extent. Phineas wrote his article and promised to look in again, and so they went on. Mr Quintus Slide continued to assure him that a “horgan” was indispensable to him, and Phineas began to accommodate his ears to the sound which had at first been so disagreeable. He found that his acquaintance, Mr Slide, had ideas of his own as to getting into the ‘Ouse at some future time. “I always look upon the ‘Ouse as my oyster, and ’ere ‘s my sword,” said Mr Slide, brandishing an old quill pen. “And I feel that if once there I could get along. I do indeed. What is it a man wants? It’s only pluck — that he shouldn’t funk because a ‘undred other men are looking at him.” Then Phineas asked him whether he had any idea of a constituency, to which Mr Slide replied that he had no absolutely formed intention. Many boroughs, however, would doubtless be set free from aristocratic influence by the redistribution of seats which must take place, as Mr Slide declared, at any rate in the next session. Then he named the borough of Loughton; and Phineas Finn, thinking of Saulsby, thinking of the Earl, thinking of Lady Laura, and thinking of Violet, walked away disgusted. Would it not be better that the quiet town, clustering close round the walls of Saulsby, should remain as it was, than that it should be polluted by the presence of Mr Quintus Slide?

On the last day of the debate, at a few moments before four o’clock, Phineas encountered another terrible misfortune. He had been at the potted peas since twelve, and had on this occasion targed two or three commissariat officers very tightly with questions respecting cabbages and potatoes, and had asked whether the officers on board a certain ship did not always eat preserved asparagus while the men had not even a bean. I fear that he had been put up to this business by Mr Quintus Slide, and that he made himself nasty. There was, however, so much nastiness of the kind going, that his little effort made no great difference. The conservative me............