ake capital out of occasions,
who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,--having,
however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,--but whose
words never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at
this time,--as was so probable,--Mr. Daubeny would have devoted one
of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which
also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them
now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered
words against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal grace
of such an occasion would have become him even better than the
generosity of his congratulations."

"It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas."

"Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always running
through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my
dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung
in mistake;--how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether men
would think about it as they went home from The Universe at night.
I had various questions to ask and answer for myself,--whether they
would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground
is used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P.
for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet."

"Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole."

"Perhaps it was;--though I used to feel assured that the explicit
tablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny's
words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment
doubted that the truth would be known before long,--but did doubt so
very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr.
Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve,
at any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more."

CHAPTER LXXIV

At Matching

For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended
Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his
journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word
to any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to
it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though
there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old
Bailey, and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at
the club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,--not,
however, finding