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Page 60
"Ah, Bold! how are you? You haven't breakfasted?"
"Oh yes, hours ago. And how are you?"
When one Esquimau meets another, do the two, as an invariable rule,
ask after each other's health? is it inherent in all human nature to
make this obliging inquiry? Did any reader of this tale ever meet
any friend or acquaintance without asking some such question, and did
anyone ever listen to the reply? Sometimes a studiously courteous
questioner will show so much thought in the matter as to answer it
himself, by declaring that had he looked at you he needn't have asked;
meaning thereby to signify that you are an absolute personification of
health: but such persons are only those who premeditate small effects.
"I suppose you're busy?" inquired Bold.
"Why, yes, rather;--or I should say rather not. If I have a leisure
hour in the day, this is it."
"I want to ask you if you can oblige me in a certain matter."
Towers understood in a moment, from the tone of his friend's voice,
that the certain matter referred to the newspaper. He smiled, and
nodded his head, but made no promise.
"You know this lawsuit that I've been engaged in," said Bold.
Tom Towers intimated that he was aware of the action which was pending
about the hospital.
"Well, I've abandoned it."
Tom Towers merely raised his eyebrows, thrust his hands into his
trowsers pockets, and waited for his friend to proceed.
"Yes, I've given it up. I needn't trouble you with all the history;
but the fact is that the conduct of Mr Harding--Mr Harding is the--"
"Oh yes, the master of the place; the man who takes all the money and
does nothing," said Tom Towers, interrupting him.
"Well, I don't know about that; but his conduct in the matter has been
so excellent, so little selfish, so open, that I cannot proceed in the
matter to his detriment." Bold's heart misgave him as to Eleanor as
he said this; and yet he felt that what he said was not untrue. "I
think nothing should now be done till the wardenship be vacant."
"And be again filled," said Towers, "as it certainly would, before
anyone heard of the vacancy; and the same objection would again exist.
It's an old story, that of the vested rights of the incumbent; but
suppose the incumbent has only a vested wrong, and that the poor of
the town have a vested right, if they only knew how to get at it: is
not that something the case here?"
Bold couldn't deny it, but thought it was one of those cases which
required a good deal of management before any real good could be done.
It was a pity that he had not considered this before he crept into the
lion's mouth, in the shape of an attorney's office.
"It will cost you a good deal, I fear," said Towers.
"A few hundreds," said Bold--"perhaps three hundred; I can't help
that, and am prepared for it."
"That's philosophical. It's quite refreshing to hear a man talking of
his hundreds in so purely indifferent a manner. But I'm sorry you are
giving the matter up. It injures a man to commence a thing of this
kind, and not carry it through. Have you seen that?" and he threw
a small pamphlet across the table, which was all but damp from the
press.
Bold had not seen it nor heard of it; but he was well acquainted with
the author of it,--a gentleman whose pamphlets, condemnatory of all
things in these modern days, had been a good deal talked about of
late.
Dr Pessimist Anticant was a Scotchman, who had passed a great portion
of his early days in Germany; he had studied there with much effect,
and had learnt to look with German subtilty into the root of things,
and to examine for himself their intrinsic worth and worthlessness.
No man ever resolved more bravely than he to accept as good nothing
that was evil; to banish from him as evil nothing that was good. 'Tis
a pity that he should not have recognised the fact, that in this world
no good is unalloyed, and that there is but little evil that has not
in it some seed of what is goodly.
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