"Oh, _no_!" said William Bailey, really put out by the futility of the phrase that was coming. "No! Nothing! It's all over. When you're defeated, retreat in good order--keep your train intact. _We're_ defeated all right!" Then he had the absurd irrelevance to add: "Come into the House with me on Tuesday?" "But I'm not a member now," gasped Mr. Clutterbuck. "Oh, I mean under the gallery, just to look at it," said William Bailey impatiently. "I'm not a member now either, thank God! It's one of the few things they can't force on a man nowadays." Such indeed is the cynical attitude of too many men who secretly know their own failure, and whom bad tactics, or more frequently adverse majorities, have driven from the House of Commons. Mr. Clutterbuck mournfully consented. He felt that impulse which the bereaved know so well, and which leads the widower to the freshly covered grave. Upon Tuesday Mr. Bailey obtained for him the magnificent spectacle of the opening of Parliament. Mr. Clutterbuck heard the King's Speech, saw the peers in their robes, aye, and the peeresses too, and was glad to remember that there was one institution at least of a greater splendour than that to which he might now never attain. As they went out, Mr. Bailey said, _à propos_ of nothing: "Sack Charlie." "Mr. Fitzgerald.... Why on earth?" said Mr. Clutterbuck with an open mouth. "Well, don't if you don't like: I won't interfere. Lunch to-morrow?" "Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck, "certainly." "Right," said Mr. Bailey, "and we'll get under the gallery." In the train Mr. Bailey's advice echoed, and echoed ill in the merchant's ears, but he had not been in the house ten minutes when he heard Charlie Fitzgerald's happy voice calling him, and begging for congratulations. Any vague suspicions that might have passed through his mind were instantly dispelled, as he told the news--but he told it, protesting his willingness to continue his services if Mr. Clutterbuck desired to retain them. If he were free, however, Charlie had the option of a post in India. His face was glorious with anticipation. "In the Civil Service?" said Mr. Clutterbuck innocently. "No," answered Charlie with nonchalance, "in some works out there, a sort of company; but I shall like it. It's mining, you know; it puts me right to the top at once." "You'll do well," said Mr. Clutterbuck, wringing his hand with more familiarity than he had yet shown, and remembering as a business man must, the splendid organising power that lay behind the Irish ease of the Daniel-Daniels-Fitzgeralds.