On the next morning Phineas, with his speech before him, was obliged for a while to forget, or at least to postpone¹, Mr Bonteen and his injuries. He could not now go to Lord Cantrip, as the hours were too precious to him and, as he felt, too short. Though he had been thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent², and knew accurately³ the line which he would take, he had not as yet prepared a word of his speech. But he had resolved that he would not prepare a word otherwise than he might do by arranging certain phrases in his memory. There should be nothing written; he had tried that before in old days, and had broken down with the effort. He would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort.

After a late breakfast he walked out far away, into the Regent’s Park, and there, wandering among the uninteresting paths, he devised triumphs of oratory⁴ for himself. Let him resolve as he would to forget Mr Bonteen, and that charge of having been untrue to his companions, he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the matter after some fashion into his speech. Dim ideas of a definition of political honesty crossed his brain, bringing with him, however, a conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out than it could be on that day before he might venture to give it birth in the House of Commons. He knew that he had been honest two years ago in separating himself from his colleagues. He knew that he would be honest now in voting with them, apparently⁵ in opposition⁶ to the pledges he had given at Tankerville. But he knew also that it would behove him to abstain⁷ from speaking of himself unless he could do so in close reference to some point specially⁸ in dispute between the two parties, When he returned to eat a mutton chop at Great Marlborough Street at three o’clock he was painfully conscious that all his morning had been wasted. He had allowed his mind to run

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