ou have there? You could not even have found an elector to propose
you."

"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Finn. I think you have thrown
me over most shabby, but I won't stand about that. You shall have
Loughton this session if you'll promise to make way for me after the
next election. If you'll agree to that, we'll have a special leader
to say how well Lord What's-his-name has done with the borough; and
we'll be your horgan through the whole session."

"I never heard such nonsense in my life. In the first place, Loughton
is safe to be in the schedule of reduced boroughs. It will be thrown
into the county, or joined with a group."

"I'll stand the chance of that. Will you agree?"

"Agree! No! It's the most absurd proposal that was ever made. You
might as well ask me whether I would agree that you should go to
heaven. Go to heaven if you can, I should say. I have not the
slightest objection. But it's nothing to me."

"Very well," said Quintus Slide. "Very well! Now we understand each
other, and that's all that I desire. I think that I can show you what
it is to come among gentlemen of the press, and then to throw them
over. Good morning."

Phineas, quite satisfied at the result of the interview as regarded
himself, and by no means sorry that there should have arisen a
cause of separation between Mr. Quintus Slide and his "dear Finn,"
shook off a little dust from his foot as he left the office of the
_People's Banner_, and resolved that in future he would attempt to
make no connection in that direction. As he returned home he told
himself that a member of Parliament should be altogether independent
of the press. On the second morning after his meeting with his late
friend, he saw the result of his independence. There was a startling
article, a tremendous article, showing the pressing necessity of
immediate reform, and proving the necessity by an illustration of
the borough-mongering rottenness of the present system. When such
a patron as Lord Brentford,--himself a Cabinet Minister with a
sinecure,--could by his mere word put into the House such a stick as
Phineas Finn,--a man who had struggled to stand on his legs before
the Speaker, but had wanted both the courage and the capacity,
nothing further could surely be wanted to prove that the Reform Bill
of 1832 required to be supplemented by some more energetic measure.

Phineas laughed as he read the article, and declared to himself that
the joke was a good joke.