"Yes, as a rule; because men go together into office with the same general predilections. Is it too hot to walk down?"
"I'll walk a little way,—till you make me hot by arguing."
"I haven't an argument left in me," said Phineas. "Of course everything over there seems easy enough now,—so easy that Lord Tyrone evidently imagines that the good times are coming back in which governors may govern and not be governed."
"You are pretty quiet in Ireland now, I suppose;—no martial law, suspension of the habeas corpus, or anything of that kind, just at present?"
"No; thank goodness!" said Phineas.
"I'm not quite sure whether a general suspension of the habeas corpus would not upon the whole be the most comfortable state of things for Irishmen themselves. But whether good or bad, you've nothing of that kind of thing now. You've no great measure that you wish to pass?"
"But they've a great measure that they wish to pass."
"They know better than that. They don't want to kill their golden goose."
"The people, who are infinitely ignorant of all political work, do want it. There are counties in which, if you were to poll the people, Home Rule would carry nearly every voter,—except the members themselves."
"You wouldn't give it them?"