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. But, nevertheless, he suffered. Mr. Quintus
Slide, when he was really anxious to use his thong earnestly, could
generally raise a wale.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Was He Honest?
On the 10th of August, Phineas Finn did return to Loughton. He went
down by the mail train on the night of the 10th, having telegraphed
to the inn for a bed, and was up eating his breakfast in that
hospitable house at nine o'clock. The landlord and landlady with all
their staff were at a loss to imagine what had brought down their
member again so quickly to his borough; but the reader, who will
remember that Lady Baldock with her daughter and Violet Effingham
were to pass the 11th of the month at Saulsby, may perhaps be able
to make a guess on the subject.
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