thinking that he would not send it. But as he slipped into the
cab, he gave the note to his late landlady to post.

At the station Bunce came to him to say a word of farewell, and Mrs.
Bunce was on his arm.

"Well done, Mr. Finn, well done," said Bunce. "I always knew there
was a good drop in you."

"You always told me I should ruin myself in Parliament, and so I
have," said Phineas.

"Not at all. It takes a deal to ruin a man if he's got the right
sperrit. I've better hopes of you now than ever I had in the old
days when you used to be looking out for Government place;--and Mr.
Monk has tried that too. I thought he would find the iron too heavy
for him." "God bless you, Mr. Finn," said Mrs. Bunce with her
handkerchief up to her eyes. "There's not one of 'em I ever had as
lodgers I've cared about half as much as I did for you." Then they
shook hands with him through the window, and the train was off.

CHAPTER LXXVI

Conclusion

We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he
leaves the Mansion House and becomes once more Alderman Jones, of No.
75, Bucklersbury. Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great
fall though they take pensions with them for their consolation. And
the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the
White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the
change severely. But our hero, Phineas Finn, as he turned his back
upon the scene of his many successes, and prepared himself for
permanent residence in his own country, was, I think, in a worse
plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded.
They at any rate had known that their fall would come. He, like
Icarus, had flown up towards the sun, hoping that his wings of wax
would bear him steadily aloft among the gods. Seeing that his wings
were wings of wax, we must acknowledge that they were very good. But
the celestial lights had been too strong for them, and now, having
lived for five years with lords and countesses, with Ministers and
orators, with beautiful women and men of fashion, he must start again
in a little lodging in Dublin, and hope that the attorneys of that
litigious city might be good to him. On his journey home he made but
one resolution. He would make the change, or attempt to make it,
with manly strength. During his last month in London he had allowed
himself to be sad, depressed, and melancholy. There should be an end
of all that now. Nobody at