“Whatever he says, he’ll stick to.”

“He is your leader, then?” asked Barrington.

“I don’t know that I have a leader.  Mr. Mildmay leads our side; and if anybody leads me, he does.  But I have great faith in Mr. Monk.”

“There’s one who would go for the ballot to-morrow, if it were brought forward stoutly,” said Barrington Erle to Mr. Ratler a few minutes afterwards, pointing to Phineas as he spoke.

“I don’t think much of that young man,” said Ratler.

Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Ratler had put their heads together during that last evening at Loughlinter, and had agreed that they did not think much of Phineas Finn.  Why did Mr. Kennedy go down off the mountain to get him a pony?  And why did Mr. Gresham play chess with him?  Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen may have been right in making up their minds to think but little of Phineas Finn, but Barrington Erle had been quite wrong when he had said that Phineas would “go for the ballot” to-morrow.  Phineas had made up his mind very strongly that he would always oppose the ballot.  That he would hold the same opinion throughout his life, no one should pretend to say; but in his present mood, and under the tuition which he had received from Mr. Monk, he was prepared to demonstrate, out of the House and in it, that the ballot was, as a political measure, unmanly, ineffective, and enervating.  Enervating had been a great word with Mr. Monk, and Phineas had clung to it with admiration.

The meeting took place at Mr. Mildmay’s on the third day of the session.  Phineas had of course heard of such meetings before, but had never attended one.  Indeed, there had been no such gathering when Mr. Mildmay’s party came into power early in the last session.  Mr. Mildmay and his men had then made their effort in turning out their opponents, and had been well pleased to rest awhile upon their oars.  Now, however, they must go again to work, and therefore the liberal party was collected at Mr. Mildmay’s house, in order that the liberal party might be told what it was that Mr. Mildmay and his Cabinet intended to do.

Phineas Finn was quite in the dark as to what would be the nature of the performance on this occasion, and entertained some idea that every gentleman present would be called upon to express individually his assent or dissent in regard to the measure proposed.  He walked to St. James’s Square with Laurence Fitzgibbon; but even with Fitzgibbon was ashamed to show his ignorance by asking questions.  “After all,” said Fitzgibbon, “this kind of thing means nothing.  I know as well as possible, and so do you, what Mr. Mildmay will say,—­and then Gresham will say a few words; and then Turnbull will make a murmur, and then we shall all assent,—­to anything or to nothing;—­and then it will be over.”  Still Phineas did not understand whether the assent required would or would not be an individual personal assent.  When the affair was over he found that he was disappointed, and that