not a word. Then Phineas made up his mind that Mr. Kennedy was insolent with the insolence of riches, and that he would hate Mr. Kennedy.
He was engaged to dine on this Sunday with Mr. Low, the barrister, with whom he had been reading for the last three years. Mr. Low had taken a strong liking to Phineas, as had also Mrs. Low, and the tutor had more than once told his pupil that success in his profession was certainly open to him if he would only stick to his work. Mr. Low was himself an ambitious man, looking forward to entering Parliament at some future time, when the exigencies of his life of labour might enable him to do so; but he was prudent, given to close calculation, and resolved to make the ground sure beneath his feet in every step that he took forward. When he first heard that Finn intended to stand for Loughshane he was stricken with dismay, and strongly dissuaded him. “The electors may probably reject him. That’s his only chance now,” Mr. Low had said to his wife, when he found that Phineas was, as he thought, foolhardy. But the electors of Loughshane had not rejected Mr. Low’s pupil, and Mr. Low was now called upon to advise what Phineas should do in his present circumstances. There is nothing to prevent the work of a Chancery barrister being done by a member of Parliament. Indeed, the most successful barristers are members of Parliament. But Phineas Finn was beginning at the wrong end, and Mr. Low knew that no good would come of it.
“Only think of your being in Parliament, Mr. Finn,” said Mrs. Low.
“It is wonderful, isn’t it?” said Phineas.
“It took us so much by surprise!” said Mrs. Low. “As a rule one never hears of a barrister going into Parliament till after he’s forty.”
“And I’m only twenty-five. I do feel that I’ve disgraced myself. I do, indeed, Mrs. Low.”
“No;—you’ve not disgraced yourself, Mr. Finn. The only question is, whether it’s prudent. I hope it will all turn out for the best, most heartily.” Mrs. Low was a very matter-of-fact lady, four or five years older than her husband, who had had a little money of her own, and was possessed of every virtue under the sun. Nevertheless she did not quite like the idea of her husband’s pupil having got into Parliament. If her husband and Phineas Finn were dining anywhere together, Phineas, who had come to them quite a boy, would walk out of the room before her husband. This could hardly be right! Nevertheless she helped Phineas to the nicest bit of fish she could find, and had he been ill, would have nursed him with the greatest care.
After dinner, when Mrs. Low had gone upstairs, there came the great discussion between the tutor and the pupil, for the sake of which this little dinner had been given. When Phineas had last been with Mr. Low,—on the occasion of his showing himself at his tutor’s chambers after his return from Ireland,—he had not made up his mind so thoroughly on certain points as he had done since he had seen Lady Laura. The discussion could hardly be of any avail now,—but it could not be avoided.
“Well, Phineas, and what do you mean to do?” said Mr. Low. Everybody who knew our hero, or nearly everybody, called him by his Christian name. There are men who seem to be so treated by general consent in all societies. Even Mrs. Low, who was very prosaic, and unlikely to be familiar in her mode of address, had fallen into the way of doing it before the election. But she had dropped it, when the Phineas whom she used to know became a member of Parliament.
“That’s the question;—isn’t it?” said Phineas.
“Of course you’ll stick to your work?”
“What;—to the Bar?”
“Yes;—to the Bar.”
“I am not thinking of giving it up permanently.”
“Giving it up,” said Mr. Low, raising his hands in surprise. “If you give it up, how do you intend to live? Men are not paid for being members of Parliament.”
“Not exactly. But, as I said before, I am not thinking of giving it up,—permanently.”
“You mustn’t give it up at all,—not for a day; that is, if you ever mean to do any good.”
“There I think that perhaps you may be wrong, Low!”
“How can I be wrong? Did a period of idleness ever help a man in any profession? And is it not acknowledged by all who know anything about it, that continuous labour is more necessary in our profession than in any other?”
“I do not mean to be idle.”
“What is it you do mean, Phineas?”
“Why simply this. Here I am in Parliament. We must take that as a fact.”
“I don’t doubt the fact.”
“And if it be a misfortune, we must make the best of it. Even you wouldn’t advise me to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds at once.”
“I would;—tomorrow. My dear fellow, though I do not like to give you pain, if you come to me I can only tell you what I think. My advice to you is to give it up tomorrow. Men would laugh at you for a few weeks, but that is better than being ruined for life.”
“I can’t do that,” said Phineas, sadly.
“Very well;—then let us go on,” said Mr. Low. “If you won’t give up your seat, the next best thing will be to take care that it shall interfere as little as possible with your work. I suppose you must sit upon some Committees.”
“My idea is this,—that I will give up one year to learning the practices of the House.”
“And do nothing?”
“Nothing but that. Why, the thing is a study in itself. As for learning it in a year, that is out of the question. But I am convinced that if a man intends to be a useful member of Parliament, he should make a study of it.”
“And how do you mean to live in the meantime?” Mr. Low, who was an energetic man, had assumed almost an angry tone of voice. Phineas for awhile sat silent;—not that he felt himself to be without words for a reply, but that he was thinking in what fewest words he might best convey his ideas. “You have a very modest allowance from your father, on which you have never been able to keep yourself free from debt,” continued Mr. Low.
“He has increased it.”
“And will it satisfy you to live here, in what will turn out to be parliamentary club idleness, on the savings of his industrious life? I think you will find yourself unhappy if you do that. Phineas, my dear fellow, as far as I have as yet been able to see the world, men don’t begin either very good or very bad. They have generally good aspirations with infirm purposes;—or, as we may say, strong bodies with weak legs to carry them. Then, because their legs are weak, they drift into idleness and ruin. During all this drifting they are wretched, and when they have thoroughly drifted they are still wretched. The agony of their old disappointment still clings to them. In nine cases out of ten it is some one small unfortunate event that puts a man astray at first. He sees some woman and loses himself with her;—or he is taken to a racecourse and unluckily wins money;—or some devil in the shape of a friend lures him to tobacco and brandy. Your temptation has come in the shape of this accursed seat in Parliament.” Mr. Low had never said a soft word in his life to any woman but the wife of his bosom, had never seen a racehorse, always confined himself to two glasses of port after dinner, and looked upon smoking as the darkest of all the vices.
“You have made up your mind,
