M. M. G.

   Sunday morning.

Should he put off his journey and go to her this very evening and claim her as his friend?  The question was asked and answered in a moment.  Of course he would not go to her.  Were he to do so there would be only one possible word for him to say, and that word should certainly never be spoken.  But he wrote to her a reply, shorter even than her own short note.

   Thanks, dear friend.  I do not doubt but that you and I
   understand each other thoroughly, and that each trusts the
   other for good wishes and honest intentions.

   Always yours,

   P. F.

   I write these as I am starting.

When he had written this, he kept it till the last moment in his hand, thinking that he would not send it.  But as he slipped into the cab, he gave the note to his late landlady to post.

At the station Bunce came to him to say a word of farewell, and Mrs. Bunce was on his arm.

“Well done, Mr. Finn, well done,” said Bunce.  “I always knew there was a good drop in you.”

“You always told me I should ruin myself in Parliament, and so I have,” said Phineas.

“Not at all.  It takes a deal to ruin a man if he’s got the right sperrit.  I’ve better hopes of you now than ever I had in the old days when you used to be looking out for Government place;—­and Mr. Monk has tried that too.  I thought he would find the iron too heavy for him.”  “God bless you, Mr. Finn,” said Mrs. Bunce with her handkerchief up to her eyes.  “There’s not one of ’em I ever had as lodgers I’ve cared about half as much as I did for you.”  Then they shook hands with him through the window, and the train was off.

CHAPTER LXXVI

Conclusion

We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he leaves the Mansion House and becomes once more Alderman Jones, of No. 75, Bucklersbury.  Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great fall though they take pensions with them for their consolation.  And the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the change severely.  But our hero, Phineas Finn, as he turned his back upon the scene of his many successes, and prepared himself for permanent residence in his own country, was, I think, in a worse plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded.  They at any rate had known that their fall would come.  He, like Icarus, had flown up towards the sun, hoping that his wings of wax would bear him steadily aloft among the gods.  Seeing that his wings were wings of wax, we must acknowledge that they were very good.  But the celestial lights had been too strong for them, and now, having lived for five years with lords and countesses, with Ministers and orators, with beautiful women and men of fashion, he must start again in a