will,—­so he told himself,—­there would have been something of nobility in such going.  Mr. Low would have respected him, and even Mrs. Low might have taken him back to the friendship of her severe bosom.  But he would go back now as a cur with his tail between his legs,—­kicked out, as it were, from Parliament.  Returning to Lincoln’s Inn soiled with failure, having accomplished nothing, having broken down on the only occasion on which he had dared to show himself on his legs, not having opened a single useful book during the two years in which he had sat in Parliament, burdened with Laurence Fitzgibbon’s debt, and not quite free from debt of his own, how could he start himself in any way by which he might even hope to win success?  He must, he told himself, give up all thought of practising in London and betake himself to Dublin.  He could not dare to face his friends in London as a young briefless barrister.

On this evening, the evening subsequent to that on which Mr. Kennedy had been attacked, the House was sitting in Committee of Ways and Means, and there came on a discussion as to a certain vote for the army.  It had been known that there would be such discussion; and Mr. Monk having heard from Phineas a word or two now and again about the potted peas, had recommended him to be ready with a few remarks if he wished to support the Government in the matter of that vote.  Phineas did so wish, having learned quite enough in the Committee Room up-stairs to make him believe that a large importation of the potted peas from Holstein would not be for the advantage of the army or navy,—­or for that of the country at large.  Mr. Monk had made his suggestion without the slightest allusion to the former failure,—­just as though Phineas were a practised speaker accustomed to be on his legs three or four times a week.  “If I find a chance, I will,” said Phineas, taking the advice just as it was given.

Soon after prayers, a word was said in the House as to the ill-fortune which had befallen the new Cabinet Minister.  Mr. Daubeny had asked Mr. Mildmay whether violent hands had not been laid in the dead of night on the sacred throat,—­the throat that should have been sacred,—­of the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and had expressed regret that the Ministry,—­which was, he feared, in other respects somewhat infirm,—­should now have been further weakened by this injury to that new bulwark with which it had endeavoured to support itself.  The Prime Minister, answering his old rival in the same strain, said that the calamity might have been very severe, both to the country and to the Cabinet; but that fortunately for the community at large, a gallant young member of that House,—­and he was proud to say a supporter of the Government,—­had appeared upon the spot at the nick of time;—­“As a god out of a machine,” said Mr. Daubeny, interrupting him;—­“By no means as a god out of a machine,” continued Mr. Mildmay, “but as a real help in a very real trouble, and succeeded not only in saving my right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy, but in arresting the two malefactors who attempted to rob him in the street.”  Then there was a cry of “name;” and Mr. Mildmay of course named the member for Loughshane.  It so happened that Phineas was not in the House, but he heard it all when he came down to attend the Committee of Ways and Means.