t, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. I never
knew a government yet that wanted to do anything. Give a government
a real strong majority, as the Tories used to have half a century
since, and as a matter of course it will do nothing. Why should
it? Doing things, as you call it, is only bidding for power,--for
patronage and pay."

"And is the country to have no service done?"

"The country gets quite as much service as it pays for,--and perhaps
a little more. The clerks in the offices work for the country. And
the Ministers work too, if they've got anything to manage. There is
plenty of work done;--but of work in Parliament, the less the better,
according to my ideas. It's very little that ever is done, and that
little is generally too much."

"But the people--"

"Come down and have a glass of brandy-and-water, and leave the people
alone for the present. The people can take care of themselves a great
deal better than we can take care of them." Mr. Fitzgibbon's doctrine
as to the commonwealth was very different from that of Barrington
Erle, and was still less to the taste of the new member. Barrington
Erle considered that his leader, Mr. Mildmay, should be intrusted to
make all necessary changes in the laws, and that an obedient House of
Commons should implicitly obey that leader in authorising all changes
proposed by him;--but according to Barrington Erle, such changes
should be numerous and of great importance, and would, if duly passed
into law at his lord's behest, gradually produce such a Whig Utopia
in England as has never yet been seen on the face of the earth.
Now, according to Mr. Fitzgibbon, the present Utopia would be good
enough,--if only he himself might be once more put into possession
of a certain semi-political place about the Court, from which he had
heretofore drawn L1,000 per annum, without any work, much to his
comfort. He made no secret of his ambition, and was chagrined simply
at the prospect of having to return to his electors before he could
enjoy those good things which he expected to receive from the
undoubted majority of seventeen, which had been, or would be,
achieved.

"I hate all change as a rule," said Fitzgibbon; "but, upon my word,
we ought to alter that. When a fellow has got a crumb of comfort,
after waiting for it years and years, and perhaps spending thousands
in elections, he has to go back and try his hand again at the last
moment, merely in obedience to some antiqu