Mr. Pole stood questioning all who surrounded him: “What could I do? I couldn't subscribe to both. They don't expect that of a lord, and I'm a commoner. If these fellows quarrel and split, are we to suffer for it? They can't agree, and want us to pay double fines. This is how they serve us.”
Mr. Barrett, rather at a loss to account for his excitement, said, that it must be admitted they had borne the trick played upon them, with remarkable good humour.
“Yes, but,” Mr. Pole fumed, “I don't. They put me in the wrong, between them. They make me uncomfortable. I've a good mind to withdraw my subscription to those rascals who came first, and have nothing to do with any of them. Then, you see, down I go for a niggardly fellow. That's the reputation I get. Nothing of this in London! you make your money, pay your rates, and nobody bothers a man.”
“You should have done as our darling here did, papa,” said Adela. “You should have hinted something that might be construed a promise or not, as we please to read it.”
“If I promise I perform,” returned Mr. Pole.
“Our Hillford people have cause for complaint,” Mr. Barrett observed. And to Emilia: “You will hardly favour one party more than another, will you?”
“I am for that poor man Jim,” said Emilia, “He carried my harp evening after evening, and would not even take sixpence for the trouble.”
“Are you really going to sing there?”
“Didn't you hear? I promised.”
“To-night?”