Phineas said all that he could to comfort her, and promised to go to the police-office early in the morning and look after Bunce.  No serious evil would, he thought, probably come of it; but still Bunce had been wrong to go.

“But you might have been took yourself,” argued Mrs. Bunce, “just as well as he.”  Then Phineas explained that he had gone forth in the execution of a public duty.  “You might have been took, all the same,” said Mrs. Bunce, “for I’m sure Bunce didn’t do nothing amiss.”

CHAPTER XXVI

“The First Speech”

On the following morning, which was Saturday, Phineas was early at the police-office at Westminster looking after the interests of his landlord; but there had been a considerable number of men taken up during the row, and our friend could hardly procure that attention for Mr. Bunce’s case to which he thought the decency of his client and his own position as a member of Parliament were entitled.  The men who had been taken up were taken in batches before the magistrates; but as the soldiers in the park had been maltreated, and a considerable injury had been done in the neighbourhood of Downing Street, there was a good deal of strong feeling against the mob, and the magistrates were disposed to be severe.  If decent men chose to go out among such companions, and thereby get into trouble, decent men must take the consequences.  During the Saturday and Sunday a very strong feeling grew up against Mr. Turnbull.  The story of the carriage was told, and he was declared to be a turbulent demagogue, only desirous of getting popularity.  And together with this feeling there arose a general verdict of “Serve them right” against all who had come into contact with the police in the great Turnbull row; and thus it came to pass that Mr. Bunce had not been liberated up to the Monday morning.  On the Sunday Mrs. Bunce was in hysterics, and declared her conviction that Mr. Bunce would be imprisoned for life.  Poor Phineas had an unquiet time with her on the morning of that day.  In every ecstasy of her grief she threw herself into his arms, either metaphorically or materially, according to the excess of her agony at the moment, and expressed repeatedly an assured conviction that all her children would die of starvation, and that she herself would be picked up under the arches of one of the bridges.  Phineas, who was soft-hearted, did what he could to comfort her, and allowed himself to be worked up to strong parliamentary anger against the magistrates and police.  “When they think that they have public opinion on their side, there is nothing in the way or arbitrary excess which is too great for them.”  This he said to Barrington Erle, who angered him and increased the warmth of his feeling by declaring that a little close confinement would be good for the Bunces of the day.  “If we don’t keep the mob down, the mob will keep us down,” said the Whig private secretary.  Phineas had no opportunity of answering this, but declared to himself that Barrington Erle was no more a Liberal at heart than was Mr. Daubeny.  “He was born on that side of the question, and has been receiving Whig wages all his life.  That is the history of his politics!”