“He isn’t worth above fifty,” said
Lord Chiltern.
“But I’ll give you the three hundred,”
said Piles.
“You couldn’t ride him if you’d
got him,” said Lord Chiltern.
“Oh, couldn’t I!” said Piles.
But Mr. Piles did not continue the conversation, contenting
himself with telling his friend Grogram that that
red devil Chiltern was as drunk as a lord.
The Debate on the Ballot
Phineas took his seat in the House with a consciousness
of much inward trepidation of heart on that night
of the ballot debate. After leaving Lord Chiltern
he went down to his club and dined alone. Three
or four men came and spoke to him; but he could not
talk to them at his ease, nor did he quite know what
they were saying to him. He was going to do something
which he longed to achieve, but the very idea of which,
now that it was so near to him, was a terror to him.
To be in the House and not to speak would, to his thinking,
be a disgraceful failure. Indeed, he could not
continue to keep his seat unless he spoke. He
had been put there that he might speak. He would
speak. Of course he would speak. Had he not
already been conspicuous almost as a boy orator?
And yet, at this moment he did not know whether he
was eating mutton or beef, or who was standing opposite
to him and talking to him, so much was he in dread
of the ordeal which he had prepared for himself.
As he went down to the House after dinner, he almost
made up his mind that it would be a good thing to
leave London by one of the night mail trains.
He felt himself to be stiff and stilted as he walked,
and that his clothes were uneasy to him. When
he turned into Westminster Hall he regretted more keenly
than ever he had done that he had seceded from the
keeping of Mr. Low. He could, he thought, have
spoken very well in court, and would there have learned
that self-confidence which now failed him so terribly.
It was, however, too late to think of that. He
could only go in and take his seat.
He went in and took his seat, and the chamber seemed
to him to be mysteriously large, as though benches
were crowded over benches, and galleries over galleries.
He had been long enough in the House to have lost
the original awe inspired by the Speaker and the clerks
of the House, by the row of Ministers, and by the
unequalled importance of the place. On ordinary
occasions he could saunter in and out, and whisper
at his ease to a neighbour. But on this occasion
he went direct to the bench on which he ordinarily
sat, and began at once to rehearse to himself his
speech. He had in truth been doing this all day,
in spite of the effort that he had made to rid himself
of all memory of the occasion. He had been collecting
the heads of his speech while Mr. Low had been talking
to him, and refreshing his quotations in the presence
of Lord Chiltern and the dumb-bells. He had taxed
his memory and his intellect with various tasks, which,
