dea of this
termination to the night's work came upon him, and as he thought of
his lost labour, he almost took courage again,--almost dreaded rather
than wished for the interference of some malicious member. But there
was no malicious member then present, or else it was known that Lords
of the Treasury and Lords of the Admiralty would flock in during
the Speaker's ponderous counting,--and thus the slow length of the
ballot-lover's verbosity was permitted to evolve itself without
interruption. At eight o'clock he had completed his catalogue of
illustrations, and immediately Mr. Monk rose from the Treasury bench
to explain the grounds on which the Government must decline to
support the motion before the House.

Phineas was aware that Mr. Monk intended to speak, and was aware also
that his speech would be very short. "My idea is," he had said to
Phineas, "that every man possessed of the franchise should dare to
have and to express a political opinion of his own; that otherwise
the franchise is not worth having; and that men will learn that when
all so dare, no evil can come from such daring. As the ballot would
make any courage of that kind unnecessary, I dislike the ballot. I
shall confine myself to that, and leave the illustration to younger
debaters." Phineas also had been informed that Mr. Turnbull would
reply to Mr. Monk, with the purpose of crushing Mr. Monk into dust,
and Phineas had prepared his speech with something of an intention of
subsequently crushing Mr. Turnbull. He knew, however, that he could
not command his opportunity. There was the chapter of accidents to
which he must accommodate himself; but such had been his programme
for the evening.

Mr. Monk made his speech,--and though he was short, he was very fiery
and energetic. Quick as lightning words of wrath and scorn flew from
him, in which he painted the cowardice, the meanness, the falsehood
of the ballot. "The ballot-box," he said, "was the grave of all true
political opinion." Though he spoke hardly for ten minutes, he seemed
to say more than enough, ten times enough, to slaughter the argument
of the former speaker. At every hot word as it fell Phineas was
driven to regret that a paragraph of his own was taken away from him,
and that his choicest morsels of standing ground were being cut from
under his feet. When Mr. Monk sat down, Phineas felt that Mr. Monk
had said all that he, Phineas Finn, had intended to say.

Then Mr. Turnbull rose slowly