"It won't do to look quiet always;" I replied, with the spirit of the conflict caught; "except for such sweet souls as you. Darling, you make lovely patchwork. Will you do a little job for me, without a word to any one?"
CHAPTER XLII. SPARS.
The Government had intended wisely to deal the first of their seven great blows at the weal of their hostile Country, with the Bill (which they were sure to pass) for swamping the votes of the enemy. With this once done, to suit their book, any dissolution of Parliament must redound to their sole benefit. But this pretty plot was not played out, according to arrangement; for the Irish members stopped it.
These, although they had their own bear-garden now in College Green, found treason there too orthodox to afford any pure enjoyment, and made a point of coming over to keep their pepper-boxes hot; which, according to the Kill-England Compact, were to be at their service for ever. And still sticking together—like bots in a horse, though without any humour apparent—they made everything go, or not go, according to their own appetite.
Their appetite now was all wide-mouth, for the third part of our fleet, protocolled to them; and with national ardour, and stupidity, they roared for the passing of that Bill at once; and the Government, of course, gave way to them. Stupidity I say, because if they had waited for the Dust-pan Bill, they would have had our fleet entire.
"Gentlemen, I begin to have some little hope now;" Sir Roland said to us, as soon as we had finished an excellent dinner, as his guests, at the Cockles Club—for so everybody calls the "Horatius Cocles" at Westminster Bridge. There were twenty of us there, all M.P.'s; and not one would have feared to take a header off the bridge, having Mr. Panclast under his arm. "To-morrow the fight begins; and the enemy (through his own currish nature) affords us one more chance. If he had taken up the dust-pan first, with the regiment behind him that sucks his buttons, he must have swept everything before him. But in dread of O'Woundy, and Digger, he takes up the craze every Briton cries shame at, before he has thoroughly gagged them. I need not remind you, that public opinion, as it used to be called, is against this Bill, more than all the others put together. But public opinion is a dead letter now; since the Press tried to pass their own for it. And even if it had the Press to back it, the Hecatons would light their pipes with it. To me it appears that our last chance lies in the ghost, long expatriated, of patriotism; if only it might for one half-hour revisit the glimpses of this English moon. But what says our excellent and powerful ally, the newly elected of Silverside?"
Bill, though he had only got his seat three days, had already made two speeches; and being always full of argument, he was glad to make another. But, as he made another, containing the very same observations in the House, next day, I need not report what he said just now. Not that I would blame any man, for saying the same things twice, or twenty times. No man can put a new head to his hammer, every time he thumps a block of coal; and we Britons used to be a fine block of Wallsend, hard to splinter, and impossible to crack, without fifty good thumps in the hole of each other. The Government knew this, and made their fire of the rubble.
Our case, though the best that could possibly be found, seemed likely to be a bad one. Mr. Thong, who knew exactly how every vote would go, reported that the best we could hope for was a minority of fifty. Every Irishman, of course, would vote for the glory of Ireland, and the disgrace of Great Britain. Except some half-dozen, who had been in our Army, or Navy, and still had some regard for the old flag. So that our hearts were very gloomy, when the great debate began.