hrown, some will probably stick! Phineas, when the time came,
did get on his legs, and spoke perhaps two or three dozen words. The
doing so seemed to come to him quite naturally. He had thought very
little about it beforehand,--having resolved not to think of it. And
indeed the occasion was one of no great importance. The Speaker was
not in the chair, and the House was thin, and he intended to make no
speech,--merely to say something which he had to say. Till he had
finished he hardly remembered that he was doing that, in attempting
to do which he had before failed so egregiously. It was not till he
sat down that he began to ask himself whether the scene was swimming
before his eyes as it had done on former occasions; as it had done
even when he had so much as thought of making a speech. Now he was
astonished at the easiness of the thing, and as he left the House
told himself that he had overcome the difficulty just when the
victory could be of no avail to him. Had he been more eager, more
constant in his purpose, he might at any rate have shown the world
that he was fit for the place which he had presumed to take before
he was cast out of it.

On the next morning he received a letter from his father. Dr. Finn
had seen Lord Tulla, having been sent for to relieve his lordship in
a fit of the gout, and had been informed by the Earl that he meant to
fight the borough to the last man;--had he said to the last shilling
he would have spoken with perhaps more accuracy. "You see, doctor,
your son has had it for two years, as you may say for nothing, and I
think he ought to give way. He can't expect that he's to go on there
as though it were his own." And then his lordship, upon whom this
touch of the gout had come somewhat sharply, expressed himself with
considerable animation. The old doctor behaved with much spirit. "I
told the Earl," he said, "that I could not undertake to say what you
might do; but that as you had come forward at first with my sanction,
I could not withdraw it now. He asked me if I should support you with
money; I said that I should to a moderate extent. 'By G----,' said
the Earl, 'a moderate extent will go a very little way, I can tell
you.' Since that he has had Duggin with him; so, I suppose, I shall
not see him any more. You can do as you please now; but, from what I
hear, I fear you will have no chance." Then with much bitterness of
spirit Phineas resolved that he would not interfere with Lord Tulla
a