Mr. Baskerville had already picked up his letter; but now he flung the pages back upon his desk and his manner changed.
"Speak," he said. "You learn me a lesson. Ban't often I'm wrapped up in my own affairs, I believe. I beg your pardon, Head."
"No need to do that. Only, seen from my point, with all my misfortunes and troubles on my mind, this here twopenny-halfpenny business of naming a newborn babby looks very small. You can't picture it, no doubt—you with your riches and your money breeding like rabbits. But for a man such as me, to see the sweat of his brow swept away all at a stroke—nought else looks of much account."
"Haven't you got over that yet?"
"No, I haven't; and more wouldn't you, if somebody had hit you so hard."
"Say your say then, if 'twill do you any sort of good."
"What I want to know is this. Why for do Lawyer Popham help one man and not help t'other? Why do this person—I dare say you know who 'tis—do what he's doing and pick and choose according to his fancy? It isn't Masterman or I'd have gived him a bit of my mind about it. And if I could find out who it was, I would do so."
"The grievance is that you don't get your bit back? Are you the only one?"
"No, I'm not. There's a lot more going begging the same way. And if you know the man, you can tell him from me that he may think he'm doing a very fine thing, but in my opinion he isn't."
Mr. Baskerville had relapsed into his old mood.