The two brothers then took themselves to some remote part of the house where arrangements had been made for smoking, and there they finished the conversation. “I was very glad to hear what he said about you, old boy.” This of course came from Silverbridge.
“I didn’t quite understand him.”
“He meant you to understand that you wouldn’t be like other younger brothers.”
“Then what I have will be taken from you.”
“There is lots for three or four of us. I do agree that if a fellow has as much as he can spend he ought not to want anything more. Moreton was telling me the other day something about the settled estates. I sat in that office with him all one morning. I could not understand it all, but I observed that he said nothing about the Scotch property. You’ll be a laird, and I wish you joy with all my heart. The governor will tell you all about it before long. He’s going to have two eldest sons.”
“What an unnatural piece of cruelty to me;—and so unnecessary!”
“Why?”
“He says that a property is no better than a burden. But I’ll try and bear it.”
XXVI
Dinner at the Beargarden
The Duke was in the gallery of the House of Commons which is devoted to the use of peers, and Silverbridge, having heard that his father was there, had come up to him. It was then about half-past five, and the House had settled down to business. Prayers had been read, petitions had been presented, and Ministers had gone through their course of baiting with that equanimity and air of superiority which always belongs to a well-trained occupant of the Treasury bench.
The Duke was very anxious that his son should attend to his parliamentary duties, but he was too proud a man and too generous to come to the House as a spy. It was his present habit always to be in his own place when the Lords were sitting, and to remain there while the Lords sat. It was not, for many reasons, an altogether satisfactory occupation, but it was the best which his life afforded him. He would never, however, come across into the other House, without letting his son know of his coming, and Lord Silverbridge had on this occasion been on the lookout, and had come up to his father at once. “Don’t let me take you away,” said the Duke, “if you are particularly interested in your Chief’s defence,” for Sir Timothy Beeswax was defending some measure of legal reform in which he was said to have fallen into trouble.
“I can hear it up here, you know, sir.”
“Hardly if you are talking to me.”
“To tell the truth it’s a matter I don’t care much about. They’ve got into some mess as to the number of Judges and what they ought to do. Finn was saying that they had so arranged that there was one Judge who never could possibly do anything.”
“If Mr. Finn said so it would probably be so, with some little allowance for Irish exaggeration. He is a clever man, with less of his country’s hyperbole than others;—but still not without his share.”
“You know him well, I suppose.”
“Yes;—as one man does know another in the political world.”
“But he is a friend of yours? I don’t mean an ‘honourable friend,’ which is great bosh; but you know him at home.”
“Oh yes;—certainly. He has been staying with me at Matching. In public life such intimacies come from politics.”
“You don’t care very much about him then.”
The Duke paused a moment before he answered. “Yes I do;—and in what I said just now perhaps I wronged him. I have been under obligations to Mr. Finn—in a matter as to which he behaved very well. I have found him to be a gentleman. If you come across him in the House I would wish you to be courteous to him. I have not seen him since we came from abroad. I have been able to see nobody. But if ever again I should entertain my friends at my table, Mr. Finn would be one who would always be welcome there.” This he said with a sadly serious air as though wishing that his words should be noted. At the present moment he was remembering that he owed recompense to Mrs. Finn, and was making an effort to pay the debt. “But your leader is striking out into unwonted eloquence. Surely we ought to listen to him.”
Sir Timothy was a fluent speaker, and when there was nothing to be said was possessed of great plenty of words. And he was gifted with that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in every encounter—a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is in truth the readiness which comes from continual practice. You shall meet two men of whom you shall know the one to be endowed with the brilliancy of true genius, and the other to be possessed of but moderate parts, and shall find the former never able to hold his own against the latter. In a debate, the man of moderate parts will seem to be greater than the man of genius. But this skill of tongue, this
