Banner.  There he wrote a leading article about Bunce’s case, for which he was in due time to be paid a guinea.  After all, the People’s Banner might do more for him in this way than ever would be done by Parliament.  Mr. Slide, however, and another gentleman at the Banner office, much older than Mr. Slide, who announced himself as the actual editor, were anxious that Phineas should rid himself of his heterodox political resolutions about the ballot.  It was not that they cared much about his own opinions; and when Phineas attempted to argue with the editor on the merits of the ballot, the editor put him down very shortly.  “We go in for it, Mr. Finn,” he said.  If Mr. Finn would go in for it too, the editor seemed to think that Mr. Finn might make himself very useful at the Banner Office.  Phineas stoutly maintained that this was impossible,—­and was therefore driven to confine his articles in the service of the people to those open subjects on which his opinions agreed with those of the People’s Banner.  This was his second article, and the editor seemed to think that, backward as he was about the ballot, he was too useful an aid to be thrown aside.  A member of Parliament is not now all that he was once, but still there is a prestige in the letters affixed to his name which makes him loom larger in the eyes of the world than other men.  Get into Parliament, if it be but for the borough of Loughshane, and the People’s Banners all round will be glad of your assistance, as will also companies limited and unlimited to a very marvellous extent.  Phineas wrote his article and promised to look in again, and so they went on.  Mr. Quintus Slide continued to assure him that a “horgan” was indispensable to him, and Phineas began to accommodate his ears to the sound which had at first been so disagreeable.  He found that his acquaintance, Mr. Slide, had ideas of his own as to getting into the ’Ouse at some future time.  “I always look upon the ’Ouse as my oyster, and ’ere’s my sword,” said Mr. Slide, brandishing an old quill pen.  “And I feel that if once there I could get along.  I do indeed.  What is it a man wants?  It’s only pluck,—­that he shouldn’t funk because a ’undred other men are looking at him.”  Then Phineas asked him whether he had any idea of a constituency, to which Mr. Slide replied that he had no absolutely formed intention.  Many boroughs, however, would doubtless be set free from aristocratic influence by the redistribution of seats which must take place, as Mr. Slide declared, at any rate in the next session.  Then he named the borough of Loughton; and Phineas Finn, thinking of Saulsby, thinking of the Earl, thinking of Lady Laura, and thinking of Violet, walked away disgusted.  Would it not be better that the quiet town, clustering close round the walls of Saulsby, should remain as it was, than that it should be polluted by the presence of Mr. Quintus Slide?