Mr Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People’s Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His newspaper was still the People’s Banner, and Mr Slide still professed to protect the existing rights of the people, and to demand new rights for the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called upon him to be the organ of Mr Daubeny. This duty he performed with great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility, was eased by Mr Daubeny’s newly-declared views on Church matters. The People’s Banner could still be a genuine People’s Banner in reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost entirely confined to the lauding of Mr Daubeny instead of Mr Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr Daubeny was the head of the Conservative party in the kingdom, and though Mr Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that Mr Daubeny’s organ should support the Conservative party all round. It became Mr Slide’s duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots whom he had designated a month or two since as bloated aristocrats and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course remarks were made by his brethren of the press — remarks which were intended to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to divide a column of its own into double columns, printing on one side of the inserted line remarks made by the People’s Banner in September respecting the Duke of — and the Marquis of — and Sir — — which were certainly very harsh; and on the other side remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled politicians. But a journalist, with the tact and experience of Mr Quintus Slide, knew his business too well to allow himself to be harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity, the immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of the editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which he rowed it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct. “And then”, said he at the close of a very virulent and successful article, “the hirelings of — dare to accuse me of inconsistency!” The readers of the People’s Banner all thought that their editor had beaten his adversary out of the field.

Mr Quintus Slide was certainly well adapted for his work. He could edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which would best conduce to its success, and he could write telling leading articles himself. He was indefatigable, unscrupulous, and devoted to his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which his readers would be satisfied. A highly-wrought moral strain would he knew well create either disgust or ridicule. “If there is any beastliness I ‘ate it is ‘igh-faluting,” he has been heard to say to his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the ” Point de zéle “ of Talleyrand “Let’s ‘ave no d — d nonsense,” he said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article a passage in praise of the patriotism of a certain public man. “Mr Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt; what we want to know is whether he’s along with us.” Mr Gresham was not along with Mr Slide at present, and Mr Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr Gresham.

Mr Slide one Sunday morning called at the house of Mr Bunce in Great Marlborough Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr Slide and Mr Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scrivener before he was shown up to the member of Parliament. Mr Bunce was an outspoken, eager, and honest politician — with very little accurate knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded, but with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a sober, hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should be put down, and that all property in land should be taken away from men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness. What should be done with the land when so taken away was a question which he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he was accustomed to say very hard words of Mr Slide behind his back, because of the change which had been effected in the People’s Banner, and he certainly was not the man to shrink from asserting in a person’s presence aught that he said in his absence. “Well, Mr Conservative Slide,” he said, stepping into the little back parlour, in which the editor was left while Mrs Bunce went up to learn whether the member of Parliament would receive his visitor.

“None of your chaff, Bunce.”

“We have enough of your chaff, anyhow; don’t we, Mr Slide? I still sees the Banner, Mr Slide — most days; just for the joke of it.”

“As long as you take it, Bunce, I don’t care what the reason is.”

“I suppose a heditor’s about the same as a Cabinet Minister. You’ve got to keep your place — that’s about it, Mr Slide.”

“We’ve got to tell the people who’s true to ’em. Do you believe that Gresham ‘d ever have brought in a Bill for doing away with the Church? Never — not if he’d been Prime Minister till doomsday. What you want is progress.”

“That’s about it, Mr Slide.”

“And where are you to get it? Did you ever hear that a rose by any other name ‘d smell as sweet? If you can get progress from the Conservatives, and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives for it? Who repealed the corn laws? Who gave us ‘ousehold suffrage?”

“I think I’ve been told all that before, Mr Slide; them things weren’t given by no manner of means, as I look at it. We just went in and took ’em. It was hall a haccident whether it was Cobden or Peel, Gladstone or Disraeli, as was the servants we employed to do our work. But Liberal is Liberal, and Conservative is Conservative. What are you, Mr Slide, today?”

“If you’d talk of things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not talk quite so much nonsense.”

At this moment Mrs Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a quarrel, and offered to usher Mr Slide up to the young member’s room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman, remembering that when they had last met the intercourse had not been pleasant — but he knew that enmities are foolish things, and that it did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr Quintus Slide. “I remember him very well, Mrs Bunce.”

“I know you didn’t like him, sir.”

“Not particularly.”

“No more don’t I. No more don’t Bunce. He’s one of them as ‘d say a’most anything for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That’s what Bunce says.”

“It won’t hurt me to see him.”

“No, sir; it won’t hurt you. It would be a pity indeed if the likes of him could hurt the likes of you.” And so Mr Quintus Slide was shown up into the room.

The first greeting was very affectionate, at any rate on the part of the editor. He grasped the young member’s hand, congratulated him on his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. “Now you want to know what I’m come about; don’t you?”

“No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr Slide.”

“It’s an important matter — and so you’ll say when you do hear. And it’s one in which I don’t know whether you’ll be able to see your way quite clear.”

“I’ll do my best, if it concerns me.”

“It does.” So saying Mr Slide, who had seated himself in an arm-chair by the fireside opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs, folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side, and sat for a few moments in silence, with his eyes fixed on his companion’s face. “It does concern you, or I shouldn’t be here. Do you know Mr Kennedy — the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, of Loughlinter, in Scotland?”

“I do know Mr Kennedy.”

“And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife?”

“Certainly I do.”

“So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take it, father to the lady in question?”

“Of course I do. You know that I do.” For there had been a time in which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the People’s Banner could inflict upon him, because of his adherence to Lord Brentford, and the vials of wrath had been poured out by the hands of Mr Quintus Slide himself.

“Very well. It does not signify what I know or what I don’t. Those preliminary questions I have been obliged to ask as my justification for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr Kennedy has I believe been greatly wronged.”

“I am not prepared to talk about Mr Kennedy’s affairs,” said Phineas gravely.

“But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That’s ............