The friendship between him and Chide appeared to be very close, yet not a little surprising. They were old comrades in Parliament, and Chide was in the main a whole-hearted supporter of Ferrier's policy and views; resenting in particular, as Diana soon discovered, Marsham's change of attitude. But the two men had hardly anything else in common. Ferrier was an enormous reader, most variously accomplished; while his political Whiggery was balanced by a restless scepticism in philosophy and religion. For the rest he was an ascetic, even in the stream of London life; he cared nothing for most of the ordinary amusements; he played a vile hand at whist (bridge had not yet dawned upon a waiting world); he drank no wine, and was contentedly ignorant both of sport and games. Chide, on the other hand, was as innocent of books as Lord Palmerston. All that was necessary for his career as a great advocate he could possess himself of in the twinkling of an eye; his natural judgment and acuteness were of the first order; his powers of eloquence among the most famous of his time; but it is doubtful whether Lady Niton would have found him much better informed about the politics of her youth than Barton himself; Sir James, too, was hazy about Louis Philippe, and could never remember, in the order of Prime Ministers, whether Canning or Lord Liverpool came first. With this, he was a simple and devout Catholic; loved on his holiday to serve the mass of some poor priest in a mountain valley; and had more than once been known to carry off some lax Catholic junior on his circuit to the performance of his Easter duties, willy-nilly--by a mixture of magnetism and authority. For all games of chance he had a perfect passion; would play whist all night, and conduct a case magnificently all day. And although he was no sportsman in the ordinary sense, having had no opportunities in a very penurious youth, he had an Irishman's love of horseflesh, and knew the Derby winners from the beginning with as much accuracy as Macaulay knew the Senior Wranglers.