The debate began, and if the leisure afforded by a long and tedious speech could have served him, he might have had leisure enough.  He tried at first to follow all that this advocate for the ballot might say, hoping thence to acquire the impetus of strong interest; but he soon wearied of the work, and began to long that the speech might be ended, although the period of his own martyrdom would thereby be brought nearer to him.  At half-past seven so many members had deserted their seats, that Phineas began to think that he might be saved all further pains by a “count out.”  He reckoned the members present and found that they were below the mystic forty,—­first by two, then by four, by five, by seven, and at one time by eleven.  It was not for him to ask the Speaker to count the House, but he wondered that no one else should do so.  And yet, as the idea of this termination to the night’s work came upon him, and as he thought of his lost labour, he almost took courage again,—­almost dreaded rather than wished for the interference of some malicious member.  But there was no malicious member then present, or else it was known that Lords of the Treasury and Lords of the Admiralty would flock in during the Speaker’s ponderous counting,—­and thus the slow length of the ballot-lover’s verbosity was permitted to evolve itself without interruption.  At eight o’clock he had completed his catalogue of illustrations, and immediately Mr. Monk rose from the Treasury bench to explain the grounds on which the Government must decline to support the motion before the House.

Phineas was aware that Mr. Monk intended to speak, and was aware also that his speech would be very short.  “My idea is,” he had said to Phineas, “that every man possessed of the franchise should dare to have and to express a political opinion of his own; that otherwise the franchise is not worth having; and that men will learn that when all so dare, no evil can come from such daring.  As the ballot would make any courage of that kind unnecessary, I dislike the ballot.  I shall confine myself to that, and leave the illustration to younger debaters.”  Phineas also had been informed that Mr. Turnbull would reply to Mr. Monk, with the purpose of crushing Mr. Monk into dust, and Phineas had prepared his speech with something of an intention of subsequently crushing Mr. Turnbull.  He knew, however, that he could not command his opportunity.  There was the chapter of accidents to which he must accommodate himself; but such had been his programme for the evening.

Mr. Monk made his speech,—­and though he was short, he was very fiery and energetic.  Quick as lightning words of wrath and scorn flew from him, in which he painted the cowardice, the meanness, the falsehood of the ballot.  “The ballot-box,” he said, “was the grave of all true political opinion.”  Though he spoke hardly for ten minutes, he seemed to say more than enough, ten times enough, to slaughter the argument of the former speaker.  At every hot word as it fell Phineas was driven to regret that a paragraph of his own was taken away from him, and that his choicest morsels of standing ground were being cut from under his feet.  When Mr. Monk sat down, Phineas felt that Mr. Monk had said all that he, Phineas Finn, had intended to say.