“I have no patience with any of you,” muttered Haire. “The world will never believe you have refused such a splendid offer. The correspondence will not get abroad.”
“I trust it will not, sir,” said the Chief. “What I have done I have done with regard to myself and my own circumstances, neither meaning to be an example nor a warning. The world has no more concern with the matter than with what we shall have for dinner to-day.”
“And yet,” said Sir Brook, with a dry ripple at the angle of his mouth, “I think it is a case where one might forgive the indiscreet friend”—here he glanced at Haire—“who incautiously gave the details to a newspaper.”
“Indiscreet or not, I'll do it,” said Haire, resolutely.
“What, sir!” cried the Chief, with mock sternness of eye and manner,—“what, sir! if I even forbade you?”
“Ay, even so. If you told me you'd shut your door against me, and never see me here again, I 'd do it.”
“Look at that man, Sir Brook,” said the Judge, with well-feigned indignation; “he was my schoolfellow, my chum in college, my colleague at the Bar, and my friend everywhere, and see how he turns on me in my hour of adversity!”
“If there be adversity, it is of your own making,” said Haire. “It is that you won't accept the prize when you have won it.”
“I see it all now,” cried the Chief, laughing, “and stupid enough of me not to see it before. Haire has been a bully all his life; he is the very terror of the Hall; he has bullied sergeants and silk gowns, judges and masters in equity, and his heart is set upon bullying a peer of the realm. Now, if I will not become a lord, he loses this chance; he stands to win or lose on me. Out with it, Haire; make a clean confession, and own, have I not hit the blot?”
“Well,” said Haire, with a sigh, “I have been called sly, sarcastic, witty, and what not, but I never thought to hear that I was a bully, or could be a terror to any one.”