"Quite right;--quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt. It
would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed
to walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a
Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a
legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
of money and brass."

"You think we can unseat him?"

"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
his brass that is positively without end."

"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
done?"

"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"

"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
to have the things said of me that have been said of them."

"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
knows whose turn it may be next?"

"He'll play the old game, then?"