“Not immediately.  It is almost impossible to combine the two studies together.”  Mr. Low himself was aware of that.  “But you are not to suppose that I have given the profession up.”

“I hope not,—­after all the money it has cost us.”

“By no means, sir.  And all that I am doing now will, I trust, be of assistance to me when I shall come back to work at the law.  Of course it is on the cards that I may go into office,—­and if so, public business will become my profession.”

“And be turned out with the Ministry!”

“Yes; that is true, sir.  I must run my chance.  If the worst comes to the worst, I hope I might be able to secure some permanent place.  I should think that I can hardly fail to do so.  But I trust I may never be driven to want it.  I thought, however, that we had settled all this before.”  Then Phineas assumed a look of injured innocence, as though his father was driving him too hard.

“And in the mean time your money has been enough?” said the doctor, after a pause.

“I had intended to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds,” said Phineas.  “There were expenses to which I was driven on first entering Parliament.”

“A hundred pounds.”

“If it be inconvenient, sir, I can do without it.”  He had not as yet paid for his gun, or for that velvet coat in which he had been shooting, or, most probably, for the knickerbockers.  He knew he wanted the hundred pounds badly; but he felt ashamed of himself in asking for it.  If he were once in office,—­though the office were but a sorry junior lordship,—­he would repay his father instantly.

“You shall have it, of course,” said the doctor; “but do not let the necessity for asking for more hundreds come oftener than you can help.”  Phineas said that he would not, and then there was no further discourse about money.  It need hardly be said that he told his father nothing of that bill which he had endorsed for Laurence Fitzgibbon.

At last came the time which called him again to London and the glories of London life,—­to lobbies, and the clubs, and the gossip of men in office, and the chance of promotion for himself; to the glare of the gas-lamps, the mock anger of rival debaters, and the prospect of the Speaker’s wig.  During the idleness of the recess he had resolved at any rate upon this,—­that a month of the session should not have passed by before he had been seen upon his legs in the House,—­had been seen and heard.  And many a time as he had wandered alone, with his gun, across the bogs which lie on the other side of the Shannon from Killaloe, he had practised the sort of address which he would make to the House.  He would be short,—­always short; and he would eschew all action and gesticulation; Mr. Monk had been very urgent in his instructions to him on that head; but he would be especially careful that no words should escape him which had not in them some purpose.  He might be wrong in his purpose, but purpose there should be.  He had been twitted more than once at Killaloe with his silence;—­for it had been conceived by his fellow-townsmen that he had been sent to Parliament on the special ground of his eloquence.  They should twit him no more on his next return.  He would speak and would carry the House with him if a human effort might prevail.