“Dull fellows, I suppose?” chimed in Heathcote.
“No, indeed; not that. Go down with six or eight of them to supper, and you'll say you never met pleasanter company. 'T is being caged up there all together, saying the same things over and over, that's what destroys them.”
“It must be a bore, I take it?” sighed out Heathcote.
“I'll tell you what it is,” said O'Shea, as, in a voice of deepest confidence, he leaned over the table and spoke,—“I 'll tell you what it is. Did you ever play the game called Brag, with very little money in your pocket?”
Heathcote nodded what might mean assent or the opposite.
“That's what Parliament is,” resumed O'Shea. “You sit there, night after night, year after year, wondering within yourself, 'Would it be safe for me to play this hand? Shall I venture now?' You know well that if you do back your luck and lose, that it's all up with you forever, so that it's really a mighty serious thing to risk it. At last, maybe, you take courage. You think you 've got the cards; it's half-past two o'clock; the House is thin, and every one is tired and sleepy. Up you get on your legs to speak. You're not well down again, till a fellow from the back benches, you thought sound asleep, gets up and tears all you said to tatters,—destroys your facts, scatters your inferences, and maybe laughs at your figures of speech.”
“Not so pleasant, that,” said Heathcote, languidly.
“Pleasant! it's the devil!” said O'Shea, violently; “for you hear the pen scratching away up in the reporters' gallery, and you know it will be all over Europe next morning.”
“Then why submit to all this?” asked Heathcote, more eagerly.
“Just as I said awhile ago; because you might chance upon a good card, and 'brag' on it for something worth while. It's all luck.”