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.”

“Are we never to get out of the old groove?”

“Not if the groove is good,” said Mr. Monk, “Those who have been efficient as ministers sucked in their efficacy with their mother’s milk.  Lord Brock did so, and Lord de Terrier, and Mr. Mildmay.  They seated themselves in office chairs the moment they left college.  Mr. Gresham was in office before he was eight-and-twenty.  The Duke of St. Bungay was at work as a Private Secretary when he was three-and-twenty.  You, luckily for yourself, have done the same.”

“And regret it every hour of my life.”

“You have no cause for regret, but it is not so with me.  If there be any man unfitted by his previous career for office, it is he who has become, or who has endeavoured to become, a popular politician,—­an exponent, if I may say so, of public opinion.  As far as I can see, office is offered to such men with one view only,—­that of clipping their wings.”

“And of obtaining their help.”

“It is the same thing.  Help from Turnbull would mean the withdrawal of all power of opposition from him.  He could not give other help for any long term, as the very fact of his accepting power and patronage would take from him his popular leadership.  The masses outside require to have their minister as the Queen has hers; but the same man cannot be minister to both.  If the people’s minister chooses to change his master, and to take the Queen’s shilling, something of temporary relief may be gained by government in the fact that the other place will for a time be vacant.  But there are candidates enough for such places, and the vacancy is not a vacancy long.  Of course the Crown has this pull, that it pays wages, and the people do not.”