“I never believes, ma’am, in nobody doing any good by getting a place,” said Mr. Bunce. “Of course I don’t mean judges and them like, which must be. But when a young man has ever so much a year for sitting in a big room down at Whitehall, and reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair, I don’t think it honest, whether he’s a Parliament man or whether he ain’t.” Whence Mr. Bunce had got his notions as to the way in which officials at Whitehall pass their time, I cannot say; but his notions are very common notions. The British world at large is slow to believe that the great British housekeeper keeps no more cats than what kill mice.
Mr. Low, who was now frequently in the habit of seeing Phineas at the House, had somewhat changed his opinions, and was not so eager in condemning Phineas as was his wife. He had begun to think that perhaps Phineas had shown some knowledge of his own aptitudes in the career which he had sought, and was aware, at any rate, that his late pupil was somebody in the House of Commons. A man will almost always respect him whom those around him respect, and will generally look up to one who is evidently above himself in his own daily avocation. Now Phineas was certainly above Mr. Low in parliamentary reputation. He sat on a front bench. He knew the leaders of parties. He was at home amidst the forms of the House. He enjoyed something of the prestige of Government power. And he walked about familiarly with the sons of dukes and the brothers of earls in a manner which had its effect even on Mr. Low. Seeing these things Mr. Low could not maintain his old opinion as stoutly as did his wife. It was almost a privilege to Mr. Low to be intimate with Phineas Finn. How then could he look down upon him?
He was surprised, therefore, one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if even now he were to give up politics and take to the Bar as the means of earning his livelihood. “You would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course,” said Mr. Low.
“But it might be done, I suppose. To have been in office would not be fatal to me?”
“No, not fatal. Nothing of the kind need be fatal. Men have succeeded, and have sat on the bench afterwards, who did not begin till they were past forty. You would have to live down a prejudice created against yourself; that is all. The attorneys do not like barristers who are anything else but barristers.”
“The attorneys are very arbitrary, I know,” said Phineas.
“Yes;—and there would be this against you—that it is so difficult for a man to go back to the verdure and malleability of pupildom, who has once escaped from the necessary humility of its conditions. You will find it difficult to sit and wait for business in a Vice-Chancellor’s Court, after having had Vice-Chancellors, or men as big as Vice-Chancellors, to wait upon you.”
“I do not think much of that.”
“But others would think of it, and you would find that there were difficulties. But you are not thinking of it in earnest?”
“Yes, in earnest.”
“Why so? I should have thought that every day had removed you further and further from any such idea.”
“The ground I’m on at present is so slippery.”
“Well, yes. I can understand that. But yet it is less slippery than it used to be.”
“Ah;—you do not exactly see. What if I were to lose my seat?”
“You are safe at least for the next four years, I should say.”
“Ah;—no one can tell. And suppose I took it into my head to differ from the Government?”
“You must not do that. You have put
