“If it comes to be a question of soul-saving, Mr. Bunce, I shan’t save my place at the expense of my conscience.”

“Not if you knows it, you mean.  But the worst of it is that a man gets so thick into the mud that he don’t know whether he’s dirty or clean.  You’ll have to wote as you’re told, and of course you’ll think it’s right enough.  Ain’t you been among Parliament gents long enough to know that that’s the way it goes?”

“You think no honest man can be a member of the Government?”

“I don’t say that, but I think honesty’s a deal easier away from ’em.  The fact is, Mr. Finn, it’s all wrong with us yet, and will be till we get it nigher to the great American model.  If a poor man gets into Parliament,—­you’ll excuse me, Mr. Finn, but I calls you a poor man.”

“Certainly,—­as a member of Parliament I am a very poor man.”

“Just so,—­and therefore what do you do?  You goes and lays yourself out for government!  I’m not saying as how you’re anyways wrong.  A man has to live.  You has winning ways, and a good physiognomy of your own, and are as big as a life-guardsman.”  Phineas as he heard this doubtful praise laughed and blushed.  “Very well; you makes your way with the big wigs, lords and earls and them like, and you gets returned for a rotten borough;—­you’ll excuse me, but that’s about it, ain’t it?—­and then you goes in for government!  A man may have a mission to govern, such as Washington and Cromwell and the like o’ them.  But when I hears of Mr. Fitzgibbon a-governing, why then I says,—­d——­n it all.”

“There must be good and bad you know.”

“We’ve got to change a deal yet, Mr. Finn, and we’ll do it.  When a young man as has liberal feelings gets into Parliament, he shouldn’t be snapped up and brought into the governing business just because he’s poor and wants a salary.  They don’t do it that way in the States; and they won’t do it that way here long.  It’s the system as I hates, and not you, Mr. Finn.  Well, good-bye, sir.  I hope you’ll like the governing business, and find it suits your health.”

These condolements from Mr. Bunce were not pleasant, but they set him thinking.  He felt assured that Bunce and Quintus Slide and Mr. Turnbull were wrong.  Bunce was ignorant.  Quintus Slide was dishonest.  Turnbull was greedy of popularity.  For himself, he thought that as a young man he was fairly well informed.  He knew that he meant to be true in his vocation.  And he was quite sure that the object nearest to his heart in politics was not self-aggrandisement, but the welfare of the people in general.  And yet he could not but agree with Bunce that there was something wrong.  When such men as Laurence Fitzgibbon were called upon to act as governors, was it not to be expected that the ignorant but still intelligent Bunces of the population should—­“d——­n it all”?

On the evening of that day he went up to Mrs. Low’s, very sure that he should receive some encouragement from her and from her husband.  She had been angry with him because he had put himself into a position in which money must be spent and none could be made.  The Lows, especially Mrs. Low, had refused to believe that any success was within his reach.  Now that he had succeeded, now that he was in receipt of a salary on which he could live and save money, he would be sure of sympathy from his old friends the Lows!