He would see to that! Yes;--let the
consequences be what they might, he would see to that!
He went up by the Duke of York's column, and as he passed the
Athenaeum he saw his chief, Lord Cantrip, standing under the portico
talking to a bishop. He would have gone on unnoticed, had it been
possible; but Lord Cantrip came down to him at once. "I have put your
name down here," said his lordship.
"What's the use?" said Phineas, who was profoundly indifferent at
this moment to all the clubs in London.
"It can't do any harm, you know. You'll come up in time. And if you
should get into the ministry, they'll let you in at once."
"Ministry!" ejaculated Phineas. But Lord Cantrip took the tone of
voice as simply suggestive of humility, and suspected nothing of that
profound indifference to all ministers and ministerial honours which
Phineas had intended to express. "By-the-bye," said Lord Cantrip,
putting his arm through that of the Under-Secretary, "I wanted to
speak to you about the guarantees. We shall be in the devil's own
mess, you know--" And so the Secretary of State went on about the
Rocky Mountain Railroad, and Phineas strove hard to bear his burden
with his broken back. He was obliged to say something about the
guarantees, and the railway, and the frozen harbour,--and something
especially about the difficulties which would be found, not in the
measures themselves, but in the natural pugnacity of the Opposition.
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