n a matter as to which he behaved very well. I have
found him to be a gentleman. If you come across him in the House I
would wish you to be courteous to him. I have not seen him since we
came from abroad. I have been able to see nobody. But if ever again
I should entertain my friends at my table, Mr. Finn would be one who
would always be welcome there." This he said with a sadly serious
air as though wishing that his words should be noted. At the present
moment he was remembering that he owed recompense to Mrs. Finn, and
was making an effort to pay the debt. "But your leader is striking
out into unwonted eloquence. Surely we ought to listen to him."

Sir Timothy was a fluent speaker, and when there was nothing to be
said was possessed of great plenty of words. And he was gifted with
that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in
every encounter,--a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is
in truth the readiness which comes from continual practice. You shall
meet two men of whom you shall know the one to be endowed with the
brilliancy of true genius, and the other to be possessed of but
moderate parts, and shall find the former never able to hold his
own against the latter. In a debate, the man of moderate parts will
seem to be greater than the man of genius. But this skill of tongue,
this glibness of speech is hardly an affair of intellect at all. It
is,--as is style to the writer,--not the wares which he has to take
to market, but the vehicle in which they may be carried. Of what
avail to you is it to have filled granaries with corn if you cannot
get your corn to the consumer? Now Sir Timothy was a great vehicle,
but he had not in truth much corn to send. He could turn a laugh
against an adversary;--no man better. He could seize, at the moment,
every advantage which the opportunity might give him. The Treasury
Bench on which he sat and the big box on the table before him were
to him fortifications of which he knew how to use every stone. The
cheers and the jeers of the House had been so measured by him that
he knew the value and force of every sound. Politics had never been
to him a study; but to parliamentary strategy he had devoted all
his faculties. No one knew so well as Sir Timothy how to make
arrangements for business, so that every detail should be troublesome
to his opponents. He could foresee a month beforehand that on a
certain day a Royal concert would make the House empty, and wou