But he was ready for Mr. Monk on the 7th of August, and they started
together. Something less than twenty hours took them from London to
Killaloe, and during four or five of those twenty hours Mr. Monk
was unfitted for any conversation by the uncomfortable feelings
incidental to the passage from Holyhead to Kingstown. Nevertheless,
there was a great deal of conversation between them during the
journey. Mr. Monk had almost made up his mind to leave the Cabinet.
"It is sad to me to have to confess it," he said, "but the truth is
that my old rival, Turnbull, is right. A man who begins his political
life as I began mine, is not the man of whom a Minister should
be formed. I am inclined to think that Ministers of Government
require almost as much education in their trade as shoemakers or
tallow-chandlers. I doubt whether you can make a good public servant
of a man simply because he has got the ear of the House of Commons."
"Then you mean to say," said Phineas, "that we are altogether wrong
from beginning to end, in our way of arranging these things?"
"I do not say that at all. Look at the men who have been leading
statesmen since our present mode of government was formed,--from the
days in which it was forming itself, say from Walpole down, and you
will find that all who have been of real use had early training as
public servants.
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