almost as readily as with a good Whig ally; but the man who was neither flesh nor fowl was odious to him.  According to his theory of parliamentary government, the House of Commons should be divided by a marked line, and every member should be required to stand on one side of it or on the other.  “If not with me, at any rate be against me,” he would have said to every representative of the people in the name of the great leader whom he followed.  He thought that debates were good, because of the people outside,—­because they served to create that public opinion which was hereafter to be used in creating some future House of Commons; but he did not think it possible that any vote should be given on a great question, either this way or that, as the result of a debate; and he was certainly assured in his own opinion that any such changing of votes would be dangerous, revolutionary, and almost unparliamentary.  A member’s vote,—­except on some small crotchety open question thrown out for the amusement of crotchety members,—­was due to the leader of that member’s party.  Such was Mr. Erle’s idea of the English system of Parliament, and, lending semi-official assistance as he did frequently to the introduction of candidates into the House, he was naturally anxious that his candidates should be candidates after his own heart.  When, therefore, Phineas Finn talked of measures and not men, Barrington Erle turned away in open disgust.  But he remembered the youth and extreme rawness of the lad, and he remembered also the careers of other men.

Barrington Erle was forty, and experience had taught him something.  After a few seconds, he brought himself to think mildly of the young man’s vanity,—­as of the vanity of a plunging colt who resents the liberty even of a touch.  “By the end of the first session the thong will be cracked over his head, as he patiently assists in pulling the coach up hill, without producing from him even a flick of his tail,” said Barrington Erle to an old parliamentary friend.

“If he were to come out after all on the wrong side,” said the parliamentary friend.

Erle admitted that such a trick as that would be unpleasant, but he thought that old Lord Tulia was hardly equal to so clever a stratagem.

Phineas went to Ireland, and walked over the course at Loughshane.  He called upon Lord Tulla, and heard that venerable nobleman talk a great deal of nonsense.  To tell the truth of Phineas, I must confess that he wished to talk the nonsense himself; but the Earl would not hear him, and put him down very quickly.  “We won’t discuss politics, if you please, Mr. Finn; because, as I have already said, I am throwing aside all political considerations.”  Phineas, therefore, was not allowed to express his views on the government of the country in the Earl’s sitting-room at Castlemorris.  There was, however, a good time coming; and so, for the present, he allowed the Earl to ramble on about the sins of his brother