“Why do you do that, pray?”
“We conceive that nothing would be gained by encouraging the refuse of mankind to make frivolous complaints against their best friend.” Here the speaker and his mates wore a marked air of self-satisfaction.
“Well, sir! has the present examination in no degree shaken your confidence in Mr. Hawes's discretion?”
“Not in the least.”
“Nor in your own mode of scrutinizing his acts?”
“Not in the least.”
“That is enough! Gentlemen, I need detain you no longer from the business you have described as more important than this!”
Mr. Lacy shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Eden smiled to him, and said quietly:
“As they were in the days of Shakespeare so they were in the days of Fielding; as they were in the days of Fielding so they are in the days of light; and as they are now so will they remain until they are swept away from the face of the soil. (Keep your eye on Mr. Hawes, edging away there so adroitly.) It is not their fault, it is their nature; their constitution is rotten; in building them the State ignored Nature, as Hawes ignores her in his self-invented discipline.”
“What do you mean, sir?”