the way to Saulsby for two days; and there won’t be room for more between our leaving London and starting to Loughlinter.”  Phineas swore that he would have gone if it had been but for one hour, and if Saulsby had been twice the distance.  “Very well; come on the 13th and go on the 15th.  You must go on the 15th, unless you choose to stay with the housekeeper.  And remember, Mr. Finn, we have got no grouse at Saulsby.”  Phineas declared that he did not care a straw for grouse.

There was another little occurrence which happened before Phineas left London, and which was not altogether so charming as his prospects at Saulsby and Loughlinter.  Early in August, when the session was still incomplete, he dined with Laurence Fitzgibbon at the Reform Club.  Laurence had specially invited him to do so, and made very much of him on the occasion.  “By George, my dear fellow,” Laurence said to him that morning, “nothing has happened to me this session that has given me so much pleasure as your being in the House.  Of course there are fellows with whom one is very intimate and of whom one is very fond,—­and all that sort of thing.  But most of these Englishmen on our side are such cold fellows; or else they are like Ratler and Barrington Erle, thinking of nothing but politics.  And then as to our own men, there are so many of them one can hardly trust!  That’s the truth of it.  Your being in the House has been such a comfort to me!” Phineas, who really liked his friend Laurence, expressed himself very warmly in answer to this, and became affectionate, and made sundry protestations of friendship which were perfectly sincere.  Their sincerity was tested after dinner, when Fitzgibbon, as they two were seated on a sofa in the corner of the smoking-room, asked Phineas to put his name to the back of a bill for two hundred and fifty pounds at six months’ date.

“But, my dear Laurence,” said Phineas, “two hundred and fifty pounds is a sum of money utterly beyond my reach.”

“Exactly, my dear boy, and that’s why I’ve come to you.  D’ye think I’d have asked anybody who by any impossibility might have been made to pay anything for me?”

“But what’s the use of it then?”

“All the use in the world.  It’s for me to judge of the use, you know.  Why, d’ye think I’d ask it if it wasn’t any use?  I’ll make it of use, my boy.  And take my word, you’ll never hear about it again.  It’s just a forestalling of my salary; that’s all.  I wouldn’t do it till I saw that we were at least safe for six months to come.”  Then Phineas Finn with many misgivings, with much inward hatred of himself for his own weakness, did put his name on the back of the bill which Laurence Fitzgibbon had prepared for his signature.

CHAPTER XIII

Saulsby Wood

“So you won’t come to Moydrum again?” said Laurence Fitzgibbon to his friend.

“Not this autumn, Laurence.  Your father would think that I want to live there.”