a word as he gave his
hand to Lady Laura,--and then afterwards to Mr. Kennedy, who chose
to greet him with this show of cordiality.

"I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, laughing.

"Oh yes."

"And is that all? I thought to have found your joy quite
irrepressible."

"A bottle of soda-water, though it is a very lively thing when
opened, won't maintain its vivacity beyond a certain period, Lady
Laura."

"And you have had your gas let off already?"

"Well,--yes; at any rate, the sputtering part of it. Nineteen is very
well, but the question is whether we might not have had twenty-one."

"Mr. Kennedy has just been saying that not a single available vote
has been missed on our side. He has just come from Brooks's, and that
seems to be what they say there."

So Mr. Kennedy also was a member of Brooks's! At the Reform Club
there certainly had been an idea that the number might have been
swelled to twenty-one; but then, as Phineas began to understand,
nothing was correctly known at the Reform Club. For an accurate
appreciation of the political balance of the day, you must go to
Brooks's.

"Mr. Kennedy must of course be right," said Phineas. "I don't
belong to Brooks's myself. But I was only joking, Lady Laura. There
is, I suppose, no doubt that Lord de Terrier is out, and that is
everything."

"He has probably tendered his resignation," said Mr. Kennedy.

"That is the same thing," said Phineas, roughly.

"Not exactly," said Lady Laura. "Should there be any difficulty about
Mr. Mildmay, he might, at the Queen's request, make another attempt."

"With a majority of nineteen against him!" said Phineas. "Surely Mr.
Mildmay is not the only man in the country. There is the Duke, and
there is Mr. Gresham,--and there is Mr. Monk." Phineas had at his
tongue's end all the lesson that he had been able to learn at the
Reform Club.

"I should hardly think the Duke would venture," said Mr. Kennedy.

"Nothing venture, nothing have," said Phineas. "It is all very well
to say that the Duke is incompetent, but I do not know that anything
very wonderful is required in the way of genius. The Duke has held
his own in both Houses successfully, and he is both honest and
popular. I quite agree that a Prime Minister at the present day
should be commonly honest, and more than commonly popular."

"So you are all for the Duke, are you?" said Lady Laura, again
smiling as she spoke to him.

"Certainly;--if we are dese