From the Committee Room, in which, alas! he took no active part in reference to the potted peas, he went down to the House, and was present when the debate was resumed.  Not unnaturally, one speaker after another made some allusion to the row in the streets, and the work which had fallen to the lot of the magistrates.  Mr. Turnbull had declared that he would vote against the second reading of Mr. Mildmay’s bill, and had explained that he would do so because he could consent to no Reform Bill which did not include the ballot as one of its measures.  The debate fashioned itself after this speech of Mr. Turnbull’s, and turned again very much upon the ballot,—­although it had been thought that the late debate had settled that question.  One or two of Mr. Turnbull’s followers declared that they also would vote against the bill,—­of course, as not going far enough; and one or two gentlemen from the Conservative benches extended a spoken welcome to these new colleagues.  Then Mr. Palliser got up and addressed the House for an hour, struggling hard to bring back the real subject, and to make the House understand that the ballot, whether good or bad, had been knocked on the head, and that members had no right at the present moment to consider anything but the expediency or inexpediency of so much Reform as Mr. Mildmay presented to them in the present bill.

Phineas was determined to speak, and to speak on this evening if he could catch the Speaker’s eye.  Again the scene before him was going round before him; again things became dim, and again he felt his blood beating hard at his heart.  But things were not so bad with him as they had been before, because he had nothing to remember.  He hardly knew, indeed, what he intended to say.  He had an idea that he was desirous of joining in earnest support of the measure, with a vehement protest against the injustice which had been done to the people in general, and to Mr. Bunce in particular.  He had firmly resolved that no fear of losing favour with the Government should induce him to hold his tongue as to the Buncean cruelties.  Sooner than do so he would certainly “go among them” at the Banner office.

He started up, wildly, when Mr. Palliser had completed his speech; but the Speaker’s eye, not unnaturally, had travelled to the other side of the House, and there was a Tory of the old school upon his legs,—­Mr. Western, the member for East Barsetshire, one of the gallant few who dared to vote against Sir Robert Peel’s bill for repealing the Corn Laws in 1846.  Mr. Western spoke with a slow, ponderous, unimpressive, but very audible voice, for some twenty minutes, disdaining to make reference to Mr. Turnbull and his politics, but pleading against any Reform, with all the old arguments.  Phineas did not hear a word that he said;—­did not attempt to hear.  He was keen in his resolution to make another attempt at the Speaker’s eye, and at the present moment was thinking of that, and of that only.  He did