here could be no doubt, these apologists said, that he had been
ill-treated between the Duke and the Duchess. No doubt Phineas Finn,
who was now described by some opponents as the Duke's creature, had
been able to make out a story in the Duke's favour. But all the
world knew what was the worth and what was the truth of ministerial
explanations! The Coalition was very strong; and even the question
in the House, which should have been hostile, had been asked in a
friendly spirit. In this way there came to be a party who spoke and
wrote of Ferdinand Lopez as though he had been a martyr.

Of course Mr. Quintus Slide was in the front rank of these accusers.
He may be said to have led the little army which made this matter
a pretext for a special attack upon the Ministry. Mr. Slide was
especially hostile to the Prime Minister, but he was not less hotly
the enemy of Phineas Finn. Against Phineas Finn he had old grudges,
which, however, age had never cooled. He could, therefore, write with
a most powerful pen when discussing the death of that unfortunate
man, the late candidate for Silverbridge, crushing his two foes in
the single grasp of his journalistic fist. Phineas had certainly
said some hard things against Lopez, though he had not mentioned
the man's name. He had congratulated the House that it had not been
contaminated by the presence of so base a creature, and he had said
that he would not pause to stigmatise the meanness of the application
for money which Lopez had made. Had Lopez continued to live and to
endure "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," no one would
have ventured to say that these words would have inflicted too severe
a punishment. But death wipes out many faults, and a self-inflicted
death caused by remorse will, in the minds of many, wash a blackamoor
almost white. Thus it came to pass that some heavy weapons were
hurled at Phineas Finn, but none so heavy as those hurled by Quintus
Slide. Should not this Irish knight, who was so ready with his
lance in the defence of the Prime Minister, asked Mr. Slide, have
remembered the past events of his own rather peculiar life? Had not
he, too, been poor, and driven in his poverty to rather questionable
straits? Had not he been abject in his petition for office,--and in
what degree were such petitions less disgraceful than a request for
money which had been hopelessly expended on an impossible object,
attempted at the instance of the great Croesus who, wh