Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfect command of himself.

‘Mr. Honeythunder,’ he said, taking up the papers referred to:  ’my being better or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of taste and opinion.  You might think me better employed in enrolling myself a member of your Society.’

‘Ay, indeed, sir!’ retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in a threatening manner.  ’It would have been better for you if you had done that long ago!’

‘I think otherwise.’

‘Or,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, ’I might think one of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery and punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a layman.’

’I may regard my profession from a point of view which teaches me that its first duty is towards those who are in necessity and tribulation, who are desolate and oppressed,’ said Mr. Crisparkle.  ’However, as I have quite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession to make professions, I say no more of that.  But I owe it to Mr. Neville, and to Mr. Neville’s sister (and in a much lower degree to myself), to say to you that I know I was in the full possession and understanding of Mr. Neville’s mind and heart at the time of this occurrence; and that, without in the least colouring or concealing what was to be deplored in him and required to be corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true.  Feeling that certainty, I befriend him.  As long as that certainty shall last, I will befriend him.  And if any consideration could shake me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my meanness, that no man’s good opinion—­no, nor no woman’s—­so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my own.’

Good fellow! manly fellow!  And he was so modest, too.  There was no more self-assertion in the Minor Canon than in the schoolboy who had stood in the breezy playing-fields keeping a wicket.  He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small.  So all true souls ever are.  So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be.  There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.

‘Then who do you make out did the deed?’ asked Mr. Honeythunder, turning on him abruptly.

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ’that in my desire to clear one man I should lightly criminate another!  I accuse no one,’

‘Tcha!’ ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great disgust; for this was by no means the principle on which the Philanthropic Brotherhood usually proceeded.  ’And, sir, you are not a disinterested witness, we must bear in mind.’

‘How am I an interested one?’ inquired Mr. Crisparkle, smiling innocently, at a loss to imagine.

’There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your pupil, which may have warped your judgment a bit,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.