many such men in the House he had always known. He had sat
there and had seen them. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with them
through many a division, and had thought about them,--acknowledging
their use. But now that he was brought into personal contact with
such an one, his very soul was aghast. The Griffenbottoms never do
anything in politics. They are men of whom in the lump it may be
surmised that they take up this or that side in politics, not from
any instructed conviction, not from faith in measures or even in men,
nor from adherence either through reason or prejudice to this or that
set of political theories,--but simply because on this side or on
that there is an opening. That gradually they do grow into some shape
of conviction from the moulds in which they are made to live, must
be believed of them; but these convictions are convictions as to
divisions, convictions as to patronage, convictions as to success,
convictions as to Parliamentary management; but not convictions as
to the political needs of the people. So said Sir Thomas to himself
as he sat thinking of the Griffenbottoms. In former days he had told
himself that a pudding cannot be made without suet or dough, and
that Griffenbottoms were necessary if only for the due adherence of
the plums. Whatever most health-bestowing drug the patient may take
would bestow anything but health were it taken undiluted. It was
thus in former days Sir Thomas had apologised to himself for the
Griffenbottoms in the House;--but no such apology satisfied him now.
This log of a man, this lump of suet, this diluting quantity of most
impure water,--'twas thus that Mr. Griffenbottom was spoken of by Sir
Thomas to himself as he sat there with all the Bacon documents before
him,--this politician, whose only real political feeling consisted in
a positive love of corruption for itself, had not only absolutely got
the better of him, who regarded himself at any rate as a man of mind
and thought, but had used him as a puppet, and had compelled him
to do dirty work. Oh,--that he should have been so lost to his own
self-respect as to have allowed himself to be dragged through the
dirt of Percycross!

But he must do something;--he must take some step. Mr. Griffenbottom
had declared that he would put himself to no expense in defending the
seat. Of course he, Sir Thomas, could do the same. He believed that
it might be practicable for him to acknowledge the justice of the
petition, to