than a burden. But I'll try and
bear it."

CHAPTER XXVI

Dinner at the Beargarden

The Duke was in the gallery of the House of Commons which is devoted
to the use of peers, and Silverbridge, having heard that his father
was there, had come up to him. It was then about half-past five,
and the House had settled down to business. Prayers had been read,
petitions had been presented, and Ministers had gone through their
course of baiting with that equanimity and air of superiority which
always belongs to a well-trained occupant of the Treasury bench.

The Duke was very anxious that his son should attend to his
parliamentary duties, but he was too proud a man and too generous to
come to the House as a spy. It was his present habit always to be
in his own place when the Lords were sitting, and to remain there
while the Lords sat. It was not, for many reasons, an altogether
satisfactory occupation, but it was the best which his life afforded
him. He would never, however, come across into the other House,
without letting his son know of his coming, and Lord Silverbridge had
on this occasion been on the look-out, and had come up to his father
at once. "Don't let me take you away," said the Duke, "if you are
particularly interested in your Chief's defence," for Sir Timothy
Beeswax was defending some measure of legal reform in which he was
said to have fallen into trouble.

"I can hear it up here, you know, sir."

"Hardly if you are talking to me."

"To tell the truth it's a matter I don't care much about. They've got
into some mess as to the number of Judges and what they ought to do.
Finn was saying that they had so arranged that there was one Judge
who never could possibly do anything."

"If Mr. Finn said so it would probably be so, with some little
allowance for Irish exaggeration. He is a clever man, with less of
his country's hyperbole than others;--but still not without his
share."

"You know him well, I suppose."

"Yes;--as one man does know another in the political world."

"But he is a friend of yours? I don't mean an 'honourable friend,'
which is great bosh; but you know him at home."

"Oh yes;--certainly. He has been staying with me at Matching. In
public life such intimacies come from politics."

"You don't care very much about him then."

The Duke paused a moment before he answered. "Yes I do;--and in what
I said just now perhaps I wronged him. I have been under obligations
to Mr. Finn,--i