At which everybody burst out laughing, including Mr. Froggatt, and Lance most of all. 'Who was it then,' he struggled to say gravely, 'that pulled so hard at the back of my coat? I suppose it must have been some little cad. I thought it had been you.'
'Well, it was time to hold you back, when you were going to fight that great lout!'
'For my part,' said Lance, 'I think it must have been Smith and I that were holding the Great Bear back by his tail from fighting big Ben Blake. Eh?'
Bernard, never able to bear being laughed at, looked intensely sulky, and a true description of the affair being asked by Mr. Froggatt, Lance gave it, exactly enough, but with so much of the comic side that every one was in fits of merriment, all of which, in his present mood, the younger boy imagined to be aimed at him. He was too full of angry self-consequence really to attend, so as to see how entirely disconnected with himself the laughter was; all he cared for was that Lance should not betray him; and to assure himself on this head, it must be confessed that he hovered on the upper stairs out of sight, while Felix was lingering on the lower to say to Lance, 'Of course it was only Smith's affair that took you into Smoke-jack Alley?'
'Not exactly,' said Lance.
Bernard trembled with resentment and alarm.
'I don't want to ask questions, but you know it is not a nice place for yourself or for Bernard.'
'My dear governor, I know that as well or better than you do, and it won't be my fault if I go there again.'
'Don't let it be anybody's fault,' returned Felix, and vanished through the office door; while Lance, sighing wearily, was heard repairing to his refuge in his own room, and Bernard grimly and moodily swung himself downstairs on his way to afternoon school, believing himself a much aggrieved party. Here was Lance, whom he had believed a fellow-inhabitant of the Alsatia of boyhood turned into one of those natural enemies, moral police, who wanted to do him good! True, Lance had helped him out of his scrape, and guarded his secret; but Bernard could not forgive either his own alarm, or the 'not exactly'; and the terms of confidence so evident between him and Felix seemed to place them in the same hateful category. Worse than all, Lance had laughed at him, and Bernard was far too proud and self-important not to feel every joke like so many nettle-stings. He had expected an easy careless helper; he had found what he could not comprehend, whether boy or man, but at any rate a thing with that intolerable possession, a conscience, and a strong purpose of keeping him out of mischief.
To detect which purpose was to be resolved on thwarting it. Nor, it must be allowed, was Lance's management perfect. He wanted to make himself a companion such as would content the boy instead of the Nareses, but to cross the interval of amusement between sixteen and ten required condescension, that could not but be perceived and rejected, nor did he perceive that ridicule was an engine most fatal in dealing with Bernard. Of course nothing like all this passed through the boy's mind. Lance simply saw that his little brother was getting into mischief, and tried to play with him to keep him out of it, but was neither well nor happy enough to do so naturally, and therefore did not succeed. Yet if he had abstained from showing Bernard a picture in the style of Punch, of the real animal and no mistake, and Bernard himself pointing to Felix and observing that the governor didn't know what's what, he might have prevailed to prevent the boy from eluding him and going to Mr. Sims' rat-hunt.
Of all this Felix: knew nothing. He still had much lee-way to make up, in consequence of his absence, and the excitement in the town told upon the business.
Mr. Bevan's reply had been a timid endeavour at peace-making which foes called shuffling, and friends could only call weakness, so that it added to the general exasperation. Then came the Archdeacon's investigation, which elucidated the Curate's moral integrity, but showed how money subscribed for charity had gone in the church expenses, that ought to have been otherwise provided for. It was allowed that the Rector had been only to blame in leaving the whole administration to the Curate under his wife's dominion, and as the lady could not be put forward, Mr. Smith was left to bear the whole brunt of the storm.
His obsequiousness to Lady Price had alienated his brother clergy, and his fellow-curate allowed himself to be kept aloof by his mother, in a manner that became ungenerous. Half petulant, and wholly ungracious, as Mr. Smith's manner was in receiving assistance, only strong principle could lead any one to befriend him; and his few advisers found it difficult to hinder him from making a public exposure of 'my Lady,' or from throwing up his work suddenly and leaving the town, which would of course have been fatal to his prospects.
The Pursuivant had a difficult course to steer, Mr. Froggatt would fain have ignored the strife altogether, but the original note of defiance having been sounded by his trumpet, this was not possible, and the border line between justice and partisanship was not easy to keep. Whether the young editor did keep it was a question. To Mr. Smith he seemed a tame, lukewarm supporter; to Mr. Froggatt, a dangerously conscientious and incautious champion; and the vociferous public despised the dull propriety, and narrow partisanship, of the old country paper. Finally, on the first Saturday in October, there appeared the first sheet of the Bexley Tribune, with a cutting article on bloated dignitaries and blood-sucking parasites, and an equally personal review of all the Proudie literature. On the Monday morning one hundred and twenty-nine Pursuivants remained on hand. Redstone took the trouble to count them, and to look into the office to ask Mr. Underwood where they should be stowed away.
'I wish he was smothered in them, the malicious brute!' said Lance, grinding his teeth, when Felix had given a summary answer. 'What a blessing to see the ugly back of him on the 1st of November!'
'I'm not so sure of that,' said Felix, as he sorted the letters of the Sunday post.
'Do you think he can. do us any harm?'
'No; but he seems a specimen of an article hard to supply at the same price.'
'Are those answers to your advertisement?'
'Yes, and very unpromising.'
Lance came to look them over with him, and to put aside those worth showing to Mr. Froggatt; but it seemed that an assistant suitable in appearance and intelligence was so costly as to alarm their old- fashioned notions. He must be efficient, for Mr. Froggatt was equal to little exertion, and never came in on bad days; and to give an increased salary when the paper was struggling with a rival was serious; yet the only moderate proposal was from a father at Dearport, who wanted his son boarded, lodged, and treated as one of the family.
'That is impossible,' said Felix, 'unless the Froggatts would do it.'
'Eighteen!' said Lance. 'I'm sixteen, and up to the ways of the place! Why don't you set me to work before I have eaten my head off?'
'It would not do for you afterwards,' said Felix; 'I don't like your rushing out to serve.'
'But really, Felix, I mean it. I can do all Redstone does, except lifting some of the weights; and I am as old as you when you began.'
'No, no, Lance; your line is cut out for you.'
'It was,' said Lance, 'but I'm off it, and no good as I am; and if you could save Redstone's salary, you might send Bear to Stoneborough, instead of letting him stay here and go to the dogs.'
'Ah!' groaned Felix, 'it is hard that all this should come to upset his chances.'
'Are you really afraid those rascals can do us much harm?'
'We have a sound county circulation beyond their reach, but every copy they sell is so much out of our pockets; and there are so many people possessed with a love of the low and scurrilous, as well as so many who differ in politics, that it must thrive unless they stultify themselves. Don't look so appalled, Lancey boy; we aint coming to grief, only it will be a close shave at home this winter.'