Tinman pushed the glass into his hand.

“You have spilt some,” said Fellingham.

“It won’t hurt the carpet,” said Tinman.

“Won’t it?” Fellingham gazed at the carpet, as if expecting a flame to arise.

He then related the tale of the magnanimous Alexander drinking off the potion, in scorn of the slanderer, to show faith in his friend.

“Alexander—­Who was that?” said Tinman, foiled in his historical recollections by the absence of the surname.

“General Alexander,” said Fellingham.  “Alexander Philipson, or he declared it was Joveson; and very fond of wine.  But his sherry did for him at last.”

“Ah! he drank too much, then,” said Tinman.

“Of his own!”

Anisette admonished the vindictive young gentleman by saying, “How long do you stay in Crikswich, Mr. Fellingham?”

He had grossly misconducted himself.  But an adversary at once offensive and helpless provokes brutality.  Anisette prudently avoided letting her father understand that satire was in the air; and neither he nor Tinman was conscious of it exactly:  yet both shrank within themselves under the sensation of a devilish blast blowing.  Fellingham accompanied them and certain jurats to London next day.

Yes, if you like:  when a mayor visits Majesty, it is an important circumstance, and you are at liberty to argue at length that it means more than a desire on his part to show his writing power and his reading power:  it is full of comfort the people, as an exhibition of their majesty likewise; and it is an encouragement to men to strive to become mayors, bailiffs, or prime men of any sort; but a stress in the reporting of it—­the making it appear too important a circumstance—­will surely breathe the intimation to a politically-minded people that satire is in the air, and however dearly they cherish the privilege of knocking at the first door of the kingdom, and walking ceremoniously in to read their writings, they will, if they are not in one of their moods for prostration, laugh.  They will laugh at the report.

All the greater reason is it that we should not indulge them at such periods; and I say woe’s me for any brother of the pen, and one in some esteem, who dressed the report of that presentation of the Address of congratulation by Mr. Bailiff Tinman, of Crikswich!  Herbert Fellingham wreaked his personal spite on Tinman.  He should have bethought him that it involved another than Tinman that is to say, an office—­which the fitful beast rejoices to paw and play with contemptuously now and then, one may think, as a solace to his pride, and an indemnification for those caprices of abject worship so strongly recalling the days we see through Mr. Darwin’s glasses.