. And yet that lump of a
legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
of money and brass."

"You think we can unseat him?"

"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
his brass that is positively without end."

"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
done?"

"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"

"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
to have the things said of me that have been said of them."

"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
knows whose turn it may be next?"

"He'll play the old game, then?"

"Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't
know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to
think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man
oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?"

"Certainly I do."

"Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him.
He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what
he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because
you try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he
doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house
or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low
interloper. But you won't care about that."

"Not in the least, if I can get the seat."

"But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll
lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will
be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there
is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action.
However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly is
possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening,
but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's
usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or
nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand.

CHAPTER II

Harrington Hall

Phineas, on his first arrival in Londo