"Half a minute," said Mr. Pabsby pleading, but not rising from his chair. "Perhaps you will do me the honour of calling on me when you are again here in Percycross. I shall have the greatest pleasure in discussing a few matters with you, Sir Thomas; and then, if I can give you my poor help, it will give me and Mrs. Pabsby the most sincere pleasure." Mrs. Pabsby had now entered the room, and was introduced; but Trigger would not sit down again, nor take off his hat. He boldly marshalled the way to the door, while Sir Thomas followed, subject as he came to the eloquence of Mr. Pabsby. "If I can only see my way clearly, Sir Thomas," were the last words which Mr. Pabsby spoke.
"He'll give one to Griffenbottom, certainly," said Mr. Trigger. "Westmacott 'll probably have the other. I thought perhaps your title might have gone down with him, but it didn't seem to take."
All this was anything but promising, anything but comfortable; and yet before he went to bed that night Sir Thomas had undertaken to stand. In such circumstances it is very hard for a man to refuse. He feels that a certain amount of trouble has been taken on his behalf, that retreat will be cowardly, and that the journey for nothing will be personally disagreeable to his own feelings. And then, too, there was that renewed ambition in his breast,—an ambition which six months ago he would have declared to be at rest for ever,—but which prompted him, now as strongly as ever, to go forward and do something. It is so easy to go and see;—so hard to retreat when one has seen. He had not found Percycross to be especially congenial to him. He had felt himself to be out of his element there,—among people with whom he had no sympathies; and he felt also that he had been unfitted for this kind of thing by the life which he had led for the last few years. Still he undertook to stand.
"Who is coming forward on the other side?" he asked Mr. Trigger late at night, when this matter had been decided in regard to himself.
"Westmacott, of course," said Trigger, "and I'm told that the real Rads of the place have got hold of a fellow named Moggs."
"Moggs!" ejaculated Sir Thomas.
"Yes;—Moggs. The Young Men's Reform Association is bringing him forward. He's a Trades' Union man, and a Reform Leaguer, and all that kind of thing. I shouldn't be surprised if he got in. They say he's got money."