Finn, we have got no grouse at Saulsby." Phineas
declared that he did not care a straw for grouse.
There was another little occurrence which happened before Phineas
left London, and which was not altogether so charming as his
prospects at Saulsby and Loughlinter. Early in August, when the
session was still incomplete, he dined with Laurence Fitzgibbon at
the Reform Club. Laurence had specially invited him to do so, and
made very much of him on the occasion. "By George, my dear fellow,"
Laurence said to him that morning, "nothing has happened to me this
session that has given me so much pleasure as your being in the
House. Of course there are fellows with whom one is very intimate and
of whom one is very fond,--and all that sort of thing. But most of
these Englishmen on our side are such cold fellows; or else they are
like Ratler and Barrington Erle, thinking of nothing but politics.
And then as to our own men, there are so many of them one can hardly
trust! That's the truth of it. Your being in the House has been such
a comfort to me!" Phineas, who really liked his friend Laurence,
expressed himself very warmly in answer to this, and became
affectionate, and made sundry protestations of friendship which were
perfectly sincere. Their sincerity was tested after dinner, when
Fitzgibbon, as they two were seated on a sofa in the corner of the
smoking-room, asked Phineas to put his name to the back of a bill for
two hundred and fifty pounds at six months' date.
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