‘It is all spite, then, on the bishop’s part?’ said the major.

‘Not at all,’ said the doctor.  ’The poor man is weak; that is all.  He is driven to persecute because he cannot escape persecution himself.  But it may really be a question whether his present proceeding is not right.  If I were a bishop I should wait till the trial was over; that is all.’

From this and from much more that was said during the evening on the same subject, Mr Toogood gradually learned the position which Mr Crawley and the question of Mr Crawley’s guilt really held in the county, and he returned to town resolved to go on with the case.

’I’ll have a barrister down express, and I’ll defend him in his own teeth,’ he said to his wife.  ’There’ll be a scene in court, I daresay, and the man will call upon his own counsel to hold his tongue and shut up his brief; and, as far as I can see, counsel in such a case would have no alternative.  But there would come an explanation—­how Crawley was too honourable to employ a man whom he could not pay, and there would be a romance, and it would all go down with the jury.  One wants sympathy in such a case as that—­not evidence.’

‘And how much will it cost, Tom?’ said Maria, dolefully.

’Only a trifle.  We won’t think of that yet.  There’s John Eames is going all the way to Jerusalem, out of his pocket.’

‘But Johnny hasn’t got twelve children, Tom.’

‘One doesn’t have a cousin in trouble every day,’ said Toogood.  ’And then you see there’s something very pretty in this case.  It’s quite a pleasure getting it up.’

CHAPTER XLIII

MR CROSBIE GOES INTO THE CITY

’I’ve known the City now for more than ten years, Mr Crosbie, and I never knew money to be so tight as it is at the moment.  The best commercial bills going can’t be done under nine, and any other kind of paper can’t so much as get itself looked at.’  Thus spoke Mr Musselboro.  He was seated in Dobbs Broughton’s arm-chair in Dobbs Broughton’s room in Hook Court, on the hind legs of which he was balancing himself comfortably; and he was communicating his experience in City matters to our old friend Adolphus Crosbie—­of whom we may surmise that he would not have been there, at that moment, in Hook Court, if things had been going well with him.  It was now past eleven o’clock, and he should have been at his office at the West End.  His position in his office was no doubt high enough to place him beyond the reach of any special inquiry as to such absences; but it is generally felt that when the Crosbies of the West End have calls into the City about noon, things in the world are not going well with them.  The man who goes into the City to look for money is generally one who does not know where to get the money when he wants it.  Mr Musselboro on this occasion kept his hat on his head, and there was something in the way in which