The Warden

CHAPTER II The Barchester Reformer Mr Harding has been now...

Mr Hard­ing, whose con­science in the mat­ter is clear, and who has nev­er felt that he had re­ceived a pound from Hi­ram’s will to which he was not en­ti­tled, has nat­ural­ly tak­en the part of the church in talk­ing over these mat­ters with his friend, the bish­op, and his son-​in-​law, the archdea­con. The archdea­con, in­deed, Dr Grant­ly, has been some­what loud in the mat­ter. He is a per­son­al friend of the dig­ni­taries of the Rochester Chap­ter, and has writ­ten let­ters in the pub­lic press on the sub­ject of that tur­bu­lent Dr Whis­ton, which, his ad­mir­ers think, must well­nigh set the ques­tion at rest. It is al­so known at Ox­ford that he is the au­thor of the pam­phlet signed ‘Sac­er­dos’ on the sub­ject of the Earl of Guild­ford and St Cross, in which it is so clear­ly ar­gued that the man­ners of the present times do not ad­mit of a lit­er­al ad­he­sion to the very words of the founder’s will, but that the in­ter­ests of the church for which the founder was so deeply con­cerned are best con­sult­ed in en­abling its bish­ops to re­ward those shin­ing lights whose ser­vices have been most sig­nal­ly ser­vice­able to Chris­tian­ity. In an­swer to this, it is as­sert­ed that Hen­ry de Blois, founder of St Cross, was not great­ly in­ter­est­ed in the wel­fare of the re­formed church, and that the mas­ters of St Cross, for many years past, can­not be called shin­ing lights in the ser­vice of Chris­tian­ity; it is, how­ev­er, stout­ly main­tained, and no doubt felt, by all the archdea­con’s friends, that his log­ic is con­clu­sive, and has not, in fact, been an­swered.

With such a tow­er of strength to back both his ar­gu­ments and his con­science, it may be imag­ined that Mr Hard­ing has nev­er felt any com­punc­tion as to re­ceiv­ing his quar­ter­ly sum of two hun­dred pounds. In­deed, the sub­ject has nev­er pre­sent­ed it­self to his mind in that shape. He has talked not un­fre­quent­ly, and heard very much about the wills of old founders and the in­comes aris­ing from their es­tates, dur­ing the last year or two; he did even, at one mo­ment, feel a doubt (since ex­pelled by his son-​in-​law’s log­ic) as to whether Lord Guild­ford was clear­ly en­ti­tled to re­ceive so enor­mous an in­come as he does from the rev­enues of St Cross; but that he him­self was over­paid with his mod­est eight hun­dred pounds–he who, out of that, vol­un­tar­ily gave up six­ty-​two pounds eleven shillings and fourpence a year to his twelve old neigh­bours–he who, for the mon­ey, does his pre­cen­tor’s work as no pre­cen­tor has done it be­fore, since Barch­ester Cathe­dral was built,–such an idea has nev­er sul­lied his qui­et, or dis­turbed his con­science.

Nev­er­the­less, Mr Hard­ing is be­com­ing un­easy at the ru­mour which he knows to pre­vail in Barch­ester on the sub­ject. He is aware that, at any rate, two of his old men have been heard to say, that if ev­ery­one had his own, they might each have their hun­dred pounds a year, and live like gen­tle­men, in­stead of a beg­gar­ly one shilling and six­pence a day; and that they had slen­der cause to be thank­ful for a mis­er­able dole of twopence, when Mr Hard­ing and Mr Chad­wick, be­tween them, ran away with thou­sands of pounds which good old John Hi­ram nev­er in­tend­ed for the like of them. It is the in­grat­itude of this which stings Mr Hard­ing. One of this dis­con­tent­ed pair, Abel Handy, was put in­to the hos­pi­tal by him­self; he had been a stone-​ma­son in Barch­ester, and had bro­ken his thigh by a fall from a scaf­fold­ing, while em­ployed about the cathe­dral; and Mr Hard­ing had giv­en him the first va­can­cy in the hos­pi­tal af­ter the oc­cur­rence, al­though Dr Grant­ly had been very anx­ious to put in­to it an in­suf­fer­able clerk of his at Plum­stead Epis­copi, who had lost all his teeth, and whom the archdea­con hard­ly knew how to get rid of by oth­er means. Dr Grant­ly has not for­got­ten to re­mind Mr Hard­ing how well sat­is­fied with his one-​and-​six­pence a day old Joe Mut­ters would have been, and how in­ju­di­cious it was on the part of Mr Hard­ing to al­low a rad­ical from the town to get in­to the con­cern. Prob­ably Dr Grant­ly for­got at the mo­ment, that the char­ity was in­tend­ed for bro­ken-​down jour­ney­men of Barch­ester.

There is liv­ing at Barch­ester, a young man, a sur­geon, named John Bold, and both Mr Hard­ing and Dr Grant­ly are well aware that to him is ow­ing the pesti­lent re­bel­lious feel­ing which has shown it­self in the hos­pi­tal; yes, and the re­new­al, too, of that dis­agree­able talk about Hi­ram’s es­tates which is now again preva­lent in Barch­ester. Nev­er­the­less, Mr Hard­ing and Mr Bold are ac­quaint­ed with each oth­er; we may say, are friends, con­sid­er­ing the great dis­par­ity in their years. Dr Grant­ly, how­ev­er, has a holy hor­ror of the im­pi­ous dem­agogue, as on one oc­ca­sion he called Bold, when speak­ing of him to the pre­cen­tor; and be­ing a more pru­dent far-​see­ing man than Mr Hard­ing, and pos­sessed of a stronger head, he al­ready per­ceives that this John Bold will work great trou­ble in Barch­ester. He con­sid­ers that he is to be re­gard­ed as an en­emy, and thinks that he should not be ad­mit­ted in­to the camp on any­thing like friend­ly terms. As John Bold will oc­cu­py much of our at­ten­tion we must en­deav­our to ex­plain who he is, and why he takes the part of John Hi­ram’s be­des­men.

John Bold is a young sur­geon, who passed many of his boy­ish years at Barch­ester. His fa­ther was a physi­cian in the city of Lon­don, where he made a mod­er­ate for­tune, which he in­vest­ed in hous­es in that city. The Drag­on of Want­ly inn and post­ing- house be­longed to him, al­so four shops in the High Street, and a moi­ety of the new row of gen­teel vil­las (so called in the ad­ver­tise­ments), built out­side the town just be­yond Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal. To one of these Dr Bold re­tired to spend the evening of his life, and to die; and here his son John spent his hol­idays, and af­ter­wards his Christ­mas va­ca­tion when he went from school to study surgery in the Lon­don hos­pi­tals. Just as John Bold was en­ti­tled to write him­self sur­geon and apothe­cary, old Dr Bold died, leav­ing his Barch­ester prop­er­ty to his son, and a cer­tain sum in the three per cents. to his daugh­ter Mary, who is some four or five years old­er than her broth­er.

John Bold de­ter­mined to set­tle him­self at Barch­ester, and look af­ter his own prop­er­ty, as well as the bones and bod­ies of such of his neigh­bours as would call up­on him for as­sis­tance in their trou­bles. He there­fore put up a large brass plate with ‘John Bold, Sur­geon’ on it, to the great dis­gust of the nine prac­ti­tion­ers who were al­ready try­ing to get a liv­ing out of the bish­op, dean, and canons; and be­gan house-​keep­ing with the aid of his sis­ter. At this time he was not more than twen­ty- four years old; and though he has now been three years in Barch­ester, we have not heard that he has done much harm to the nine wor­thy prac­ti­tion­ers. In­deed, their dread of him has died away; for in three years he has not tak­en three fees.

Nev­er­the­less, John Bold is a clever man, and would, with prac­tice, be a clever sur­geon; but he has got quite in­to an­oth­er line of life. Hav­ing enough to live on, he has not been forced to work for bread; he has de­clined to sub­ject him­self to what he calls the drudgery of the pro­fes­sion, by which, I be­lieve, he means the gen­er­al work of a prac­tis­ing sur­geon; and has found oth­er em­ploy­ment. He fre­quent­ly binds up the bruis­es and sets the limbs of such of the poor­er class­es as pro­fess his way of think­ing–but this he does for love. Now I will not say that the archdea­con is strict­ly cor­rect in stig­ma­tis­ing John Bold as a dem­agogue, for I hard­ly know how ex­treme must be a man’s opin­ions be­fore he can be just­ly so called; but Bold is a strong re­former. His pas­sion is the re­form of all abus­es; state abus­es, church abus­es, cor­po­ra­tion abus­es (he has got him­self elect­ed a town coun­cil­lor of Barch­ester, and has so wor­ried three con­sec­utive may­ors, that it be­came some­what dif­fi­cult to find a fourth), abus­es in med­ical prac­tice, and gen­er­al abus­es in the world at large. Bold is thor­ough­ly sin­cere in his pa­tri­ot­ic en­deav­ours to mend mankind, and there is some­thing to be ad­mired in the en­er­gy with which he de­votes him­self to rem­edy­ing evil and stop­ping in­jus­tice; but I fear that he is too much im­bued with the idea that he has a spe­cial mis­sion for re­form­ing. It would be well if one so young had a lit­tle more dif­fi­dence him­self, and more trust in the hon­est pur­pos­es of oth­ers–if he could be brought to be­lieve that old cus­toms need not nec­es­sar­ily be evil, and that changes may pos­si­bly be dan­ger­ous; but no, Bold has all the ar­dour and all the self-​as­sur­ance of a Dan­ton, and hurls his anath­emas against time-​hon­oured prac­tices with the vi­olence of a French Ja­cobin. No won­der that Dr Grant­ly should re­gard Bold as a fire­brand, falling, as he has done, al­most in the cen­tre of the qui­et an­cient close of Barch­ester Cathe­dral. Dr Grant­ly would have him avoid­ed as the plague; but the old Doc­tor and Mr Hard­ing were fast friends. Young John­ny Bold used to play as a boy on Mr Hard­ing’s lawn; he has many a time won the pre­cen­tor’s heart by lis­ten­ing with rapt at­ten­tion to his sa­cred strains; and since those days, to tell the truth at once, he has near­ly won an­oth­er heart with­in the same walls.

Eleanor Hard­ing has not plight­ed her troth to John Bold, nor has she, per­haps, owned to her­self how dear to her the young re­former is; but she can­not en­dure that any­one should speak harsh­ly of him. She does not dare to de­fend him when her broth­er-​in-​law is so loud against him; for she, like her fa­ther, is some­what afraid of Dr Grant­ly; but she is be­gin­ning great­ly to dis­like the archdea­con. She per­suades her fa­ther that it would be both un­just and in­ju­di­cious to ban­ish his young friend be­cause of his pol­itics; she cares lit­tle to go to hous­es where she will not meet him, and, in fact, she is in love.

Nor is there any good rea­son why Eleanor Hard­ing should not love John Bold. He has all those qual­ities which are like­ly to touch a girl’s heart. He is brave, ea­ger, and amus­ing; well-​made and good-​look­ing; young and en­ter­pris­ing; his char­ac­ter is in all re­spects good; he has suf­fi­cient in­come to sup­port a wife; he is her fa­ther’s friend; and, above all, he is in love with her: then why should not Eleanor Hard­ing be at­tached to John Bold?

Dr Grant­ly, who has as many eyes as Ar­gus, and has long seen how the wind blows in that di­rec­tion, thinks there are var­ious strong rea­sons why this should not be so. He has not thought it wise as yet to speak to his fa­ther-​in-​law on the sub­ject, for he knows how fool­ish­ly in­dul­gent is Mr Hard­ing in ev­ery­thing that con­cerns his daugh­ter; but he has dis­cussed the mat­ter with his all-​trust­ed help­mate, with­in that sa­cred re­cess formed by the cler­ical bed-​cur­tains at Plum­stead Epis­copi.

How much sweet so­lace, how much val­ued coun­sel has our archdea­con re­ceived with­in that saint­ed en­clo­sure! ‘Tis there alone that he un­bends, and comes down from his high church pedestal to the lev­el of a mor­tal man. In the world Dr Grant­ly nev­er lays aside that de­meanour which so well be­comes him. He has all the dig­ni­ty of an an­cient saint with the sleek­ness of a mod­ern bish­op; he is al­ways the same; he is al­ways the archdea­con; un­like Homer, he nev­er nods. Even with his fa­ther-​in-​law, even with the bish­op and dean, he main­tains that sonorous tone and lofty de­port­ment which strikes awe in­to the young hearts of Barch­ester, and ab­so­lute­ly cows the whole parish of Plum­stead Epis­copi. ‘Tis on­ly when he has ex­changed that ev­er-​new shov­el hat for a tas­selled night­cap, and those shin­ing black ha­bil­iments for his ac­cus­tomed robe de nu­it, that Dr Grant­ly talks, and looks, and thinks like an or­di­nary man.

Many of us have of­ten thought how se­vere a tri­al of faith must this be to the wives of our great church dig­ni­taries. To us these men are per­son­ifi­ca­tions of St Paul; their very gait is a speak­ing ser­mon; their clean and som­bre ap­par­el ex­acts from us faith and sub­mis­sion, and the car­di­nal virtues seem to hov­er round their sa­cred hats. A dean or arch­bish­op, in the garb of his or­der, is sure of our rev­er­ence, and a well-​got-​up bish­op fills our very souls with awe. But how can this feel­ing be per­pet­uat­ed in the bo­soms of those who see the bish­ops with­out their aprons, and the archdea­cons even in a low­er state of disha­bille?

Do we not all know some rev­erend, all but sa­cred, per­son­age be­fore whom our tongue ceas­es to be loud and our step to be elas­tic? But were we once to see him stretch him­self be­neath the bed-​clothes, yawn wide­ly, and bury his face up­on his pil­low, we could chat­ter be­fore him as glibly as be­fore a doc­tor or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubt­less, it arose that our archdea­con lis­tened to the coun­sels of his wife, though he con­sid­ered him­self en­ti­tled to give coun­sel to ev­ery oth­er be­ing whom he met.

‘My dear,’ he said, as he ad­just­ed the co­pi­ous folds of his night­cap, ‘there was that John Bold at your fa­ther’s again to­day. I must say your fa­ther is very im­pru­dent.’

‘He is im­pru­dent–he al­ways was,’ replied Mrs Grant­ly, speak­ing from un­der the com­fort­able bed-​clothes. ‘There’s noth­ing new in that.’

‘No, my dear, there’s noth­ing new–I know that; but, at the present junc­ture of af­fairs, such im­pru­dence is–is–I’ll tell you what, my dear, if he does not take care what he’s about, John Bold will be off with Eleanor.’

‘I think he will, whether pa­pa takes care or no; and why not?’

‘Why not!’ al­most screamed the archdea­con, giv­ing so rough a pull at his night­cap as al­most to bring it over his nose; ‘why not!-that pesti­lent, in­ter­fer­ing up­start, John Bold–the most vul­gar young per­son I ev­er met! Do you know that he is med­dling with your fa­ther’s af­fairs in a most un­called-​for– most–’ And be­ing at a loss for an ep­ithet suf­fi­cient­ly in­ju­ri­ous, he fin­ished his ex­pres­sions of hor­ror by mut­ter­ing, ‘Good heav­ens!’ in a man­ner that had been found very ef­fi­ca­cious in cler­ical meet­ings of the dio­cese. He must for the mo­ment have for­got­ten where he was.

‘As to his vul­gar­ity, archdea­con’ (Mrs Grant­ly had nev­er as­sumed a more fa­mil­iar term than this in ad­dress­ing her hus­band), ‘I don’t agree with you. Not that I like Mr Bold –he is a great deal too con­ceit­ed for me; but then Eleanor does, and it would be the best thing in the world for pa­pa if they were to mar­ry. Bold would nev­er trou­ble him­self about Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal if he were pa­pa’s son-​in-​law.’ And the la­dy turned her­self round un­der the bed-​clothes, in a man­ner to which the doc­tor was well ac­cus­tomed, and which told him, as plain­ly as words, that as far as she was con­cerned the sub­ject was over for that night.

‘Good heav­ens!’ mur­mured the doc­tor again–he was ev­ident­ly much put be­side him­self.

Dr Grant­ly is by no means a bad man; he is ex­act­ly the man which such an ed­uca­tion as his was most like­ly to form; his in­tel­lect be­ing suf­fi­cient for such a place in the world, but not suf­fi­cient to put him in ad­vance of it. He per­forms with a rigid con­stan­cy such of the du­ties of a parish cler­gy­man as are, to his think­ing, above the sphere of his cu­rate, but it is as an archdea­con that he shines.

We be­lieve, as a gen­er­al rule, that ei­ther a bish­op or his archdea­cons have sinecures: where a bish­op works, archdea­cons have but lit­tle to do, and vice ver­sa. In the dio­cese of Barch­ester the Archdea­con of Barch­ester does the work. In that ca­pac­ity he is dili­gent, au­thor­ita­tive, and, as his friends par­tic­ular­ly boast, ju­di­cious. His great fault is an over­bear­ing as­sur­ance of the virtues and claims of his or­der, and his great foible is an equal­ly strong con­fi­dence in the dig­ni­ty of his own man­ner and the elo­quence of his own words. He is a moral man, be­liev­ing the pre­cepts which he teach­es, and be­liev­ing al­so that he acts up to them; though we can­not say that he would give his coat to the man who took his cloak, or that he is pre­pared to for­give his broth­er even sev­en times. He is se­vere enough in ex­act­ing his dues, con­sid­er­ing that any lax­ity in this re­spect would en­dan­ger the se­cu­ri­ty of the church; and, could he have his way, he would con­sign to dark­ness and perdi­tion, not on­ly ev­ery in­di­vid­ual re­former, but ev­ery com­mit­tee and ev­ery com­mis­sion that would even dare to ask a ques­tion re­spect­ing the ap­pro­pri­ation of church rev­enues.

‘They are church rev­enues: the laity ad­mit it. Sure­ly the church is able to ad­min­is­ter her own rev­enues.’ ‘Twas thus he was ac­cus­tomed to ar­gue, when the sac­ri­le­gious do­ings of Lord John Rus­sell and oth­ers were dis­cussed ei­ther at Barch­ester or at Ox­ford.

It was no won­der that Dr Grant­ly did not like John Bold, and that his wife’s sug­ges­tion that he should be­come close­ly con­nect­ed with such a man dis­mayed him. To give him his due, the archdea­con nev­er want­ed courage; he was quite will­ing to meet his en­emy on any field and with any weapon. He had that be­lief in his own ar­gu­ments that he felt sure of suc­cess, could he on­ly be sure of a fair fight on the part of his ad­ver­sary. He had no idea that John Bold could re­al­ly prove that the in­come of the hos­pi­tal was malap­pro­pri­at­ed; why, then, should peace be sought for on such base terms? What! bribe an un­be­liev­ing en­emy of the church with the sis­ter-​in-​law of one dig­ni­tary and the daugh­ter of an­oth­er–with a young la­dy whose con­nec­tions with the dio­cese and chap­ter of Barch­ester were so close as to give her an un­de­ni­able claim to a hus­band en­dowed with some of its sa­cred wealth! When Dr Grant­ly talks of un­be­liev­ing en­emies, he does not mean to im­ply want of be­lief in the doc­trines of the church, but an equal­ly dan­ger­ous scep­ti­cism as to its pu­ri­ty in mon­ey mat­ters.

Mrs Grant­ly is not usu­al­ly deaf to the claims of the high or­der to which she be­longs. She and her hus­band rarely dis­agree as to the tone with which the church should be de­fend­ed; how sin­gu­lar, then, that in such a case as this she should be will­ing to suc­cumb! The archdea­con again mur­murs ‘Good heav­ens!’ as he lays him­self be­side her, but he does so in a voice au­di­ble on­ly to him­self, and he re­peats it till sleep re­lieves him from deep thought.

Mr Hard­ing him­self has seen no rea­son why his daugh­ter should not love John Bold. He has not been un­ob­ser­vant of her feel­ings, and per­haps his deep­est re­gret at the part which he fears Bold is about to take re­gard­ing the hos­pi­tal aris­es from the dread that he may be sep­arat­ed from his daugh­ter, or that she may be sep­arat­ed from the man she loves. He has nev­er spo­ken to Eleanor about her lover; he is the last man in the world to al­lude to such a sub­ject un­con­sult­ed, even with his own daugh­ter; and had he con­sid­ered that he had ground to dis­ap­prove of Bold, he would have re­moved her, or for­bid­den him his house; but he saw no such ground. He would prob­ably have pre­ferred a sec­ond cler­ical son-​in-​law, for Mr Hard­ing, al­so, is at­tached to his or­der; and, fail­ing in that, he would at any rate have wished that so near a con­nec­tion should have thought alike with him on church mat­ters. He would not, how­ev­er, re­ject the man his daugh­ter loved be­cause he dif­fered on such sub­jects with him­self.

Hith­er­to Bold had tak­en no steps in the mat­ter in any way an­noy­ing to Mr Hard­ing per­son­al­ly. Some months since, af­ter a se­vere bat­tle, which cost him not a lit­tle mon­ey, he gained a vic­to­ry over a cer­tain old turn­pike wom­an in the neigh­bour­hood, of whose charges an­oth­er old wom­an had com­plained to him. He got the Act of Par­lia­ment re­lat­ing to the trust, found that his pro­tegee had been wrong­ly taxed, rode through the gate him­self, pay­ing the toll, then brought an ac­tion against the gate-​keep­er, and proved that all peo­ple com­ing up a cer­tain by-​lane, and go­ing down a cer­tain oth­er by-​lane, were toll-​free. The fame of his suc­cess spread wide­ly abroad, and he be­gan to be looked on as the up­hold­er of the rights of the poor of Barch­ester. Not long af­ter this suc­cess, he heard from dif­fer­ent quar­ters that Hi­ram’s be­des­men were treat­ed as pau­pers, where­as the prop­er­ty to which they were, in ef­fect, heirs was very large; and he was in­sti­gat­ed by the lawyer whom he had em­ployed in the case of the turn­pike to call up­on Mr Chad­wick for a state­ment as to the funds of the es­tate.

Bold had of­ten ex­pressed his in­dig­na­tion at the malap­pro­pri­ation of church funds in gen­er­al, in the hear­ing of his friend the pre­cen­tor; but the con­ver­sa­tion had nev­er re­ferred to any­thing at Barch­ester; and when Finney, the at­tor­ney, in­duced him to in­ter­fere with the af­fairs of the hos­pi­tal, it was against Mr Chad­wick that his ef­forts were to be di­rect­ed. Bold soon found that if he in­ter­fered with Mr Chad­wick as stew­ard, he must al­so in­ter­fere with Mr Hard­ing as war­den; and though he re­gret­ted the sit­ua­tion in which this would place him, he was not the man to flinch from his un­der­tak­ing from per­son­al mo­tives.

As soon as he had de­ter­mined to take the mat­ter in hand, he set about his work with his usu­al en­er­gy. He got a copy of John Hi­ram’s will, of the word­ing of which he made him­self per­fect­ly mas­ter. He as­cer­tained the ex­tent of the prop­er­ty, and as near­ly as he could the val­ue of it; and made out a sched­ule of what he was in­formed was the present dis­tri­bu­tion of its in­come. Armed with these par­tic­ulars, he called on Mr Chad­wick, hav­ing giv­en that gen­tle­man no­tice of his vis­it; and asked him for a state­ment of the in­come and ex­pen­di­ture of the hos­pi­tal for the last twen­ty-​five years.

This was of course re­fused, Mr Chad­wick al­leg­ing that he had no au­thor­ity for mak­ing pub­lic the con­cerns of a prop­er­ty in man­ag­ing which he was on­ly a paid ser­vant.

‘And who is com­pe­tent to give you that au­thor­ity, Mr Chad­wick?’ asked Bold.

‘On­ly those who em­ploy me, Mr Bold,’ said the stew­ard.

‘And who are those, Mr Chad­wick?’ de­mand­ed Bold.

Mr Chad­wick begged to say that if these in­quiries were made mere­ly out of cu­rios­ity, he must de­cline an­swer­ing them: if Mr Bold had any ul­te­ri­or pro­ceed­ing in view, per­haps it would be de­sir­able that any nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion should be sought for in a pro­fes­sion­al way by a pro­fes­sion­al man. Mr Chad­wick’s at­tor­neys were Messrs Cox and Cum­mins, of Lin­coln’s Inn. Mr Bold took down the ad­dress of Cox and Cum­mins, re­marked that the weath­er was cold for the time of the year, and wished Mr Chad­wick good-​morn­ing. Mr Chad­wick said it was cold for June, and bowed him out.

He at once went to his lawyer, Finney. Now, Bold was not very fond of his at­tor­ney, but, as he said, he mere­ly want­ed a man who knew the forms of law, and who would do what he was told for his mon­ey. He had no idea of putting him­self in the hands of a lawyer. He want­ed law from a lawyer as he did a coat from a tai­lor, be­cause he could not make it so well him­self; and he thought Finney the fittest man in Barch­ester for his pur­pose. In one re­spect, at any rate, he was right: Finney was hu­mil­ity it­self.

Finney ad­vised an in­stant let­ter to Cox and Cum­mins, mind­ful of his six-​and-​eight­pence. ‘Slap at them at once, Mr Bold. De­mand cat­egor­ical­ly and ex­plic­it­ly a full state­ment of the af­fairs of the hos­pi­tal.’

‘Sup­pose I were to see Mr Hard­ing first,’ sug­gest­ed Bold.

‘Yes, yes, by all means,’ said the ac­qui­esc­ing Finney; ‘though, per­haps, as Mr Hard­ing is no man of busi­ness, it may lead–lead to some lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ties; but per­haps you’re right. Mr Bold, I don’t think see­ing Mr Hard­ing can do any harm.’ Finney saw from the ex­pres­sion of his client’s face that he in­tend­ed to have his own way.