‘It’s a direct attack on the whole system,’ said Towers. ‘It’ll go a long way to put down Rochester, and Barchester, and Dulwich, and St Cross, and all such hotbeds of peculation. It’s very clear that Sentiment has been down to Barchester, and got up the whole story there; indeed, I thought he must have had it all from you, it’s very well done, as you’ll see: his first numbers always are.’

Bold declared that Mr Sentiment had got nothing from him , and that he was deeply grieved to find that the case had become so notorious.

‘The fire has gone too far to be quenched,’ said Towers; ‘the building must go now; and as the timbers are all rotten, why, I should be inclined to say, the sooner the better. I expected to see you get some eclat in the matter.’

 He had done enough to make his friend the warden miserable for life, and had then backed out just when the success of his project was sufficient to make the question one of real interest. How weakly he had managed his business! he had already done the harm, and then stayed his hand when the good which he had in view was to be commenced. How delightful would it have been to have employed all his energy in such a cause — to have been backed by The Jupiter, and written up to by two of the most popular authors of the day! The idea opened a view into the very world in which he wished to live  . To what might it not have given rise? what delightful intimacies — what public praise — to what Athenian banquets and rich flavour of Attic salt?

This, however, was now past hope. He had pledged himself to abandon the cause; and could he have forgotten the pledge he had gone too far to retreat. He was now, this moment, sitting in Tom Towers’ room with the object of deprecating any further articles in The Jupiter, and, greatly as he disliked the job, his petition to that effect must be made.

‘I couldn’t continue it,’ said he, ‘because I found I was in the wrong.’

Tom Towers shrugged his shoulders. How could a successful man be in the wrong! ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘of course you must abandon it.’

‘And I called this morning to ask you also to abandon it ,’ said Bold.

‘To ask me,’ said Tom Towers, with the most placid of smiles, and a consummate look of gentle surprise, as though Tom Towers was well aware that he of all men was the last to meddle in such matters.