"Mr. Clutterbuck," said Charlie Fitzgerald briskly, "is a total abstainer."
"We are not here, sir," said a barber who had not yet spoken, and who was a deeply religious man, "to hear you, but to hear Mr. Clutterbuck."
To which rebuke Charlie Fitzgerald had the imprudence to murmur in a low tone: "Oh, my God!"
Luckily the expression did not reach the stern half-moon of inquisitors, and Mr. Clutterbuck was free to reply that he had the most ardent and complete sympathy with temperance reform in all its aspects.
"But to take a specific instance," said the clergyman, wagging a forefinger at Mr. Clutterbuck and fixing him with his two glass eyes, "would you or would you not vote for Sir William Cattermole's Bill?"
"I would vote for it," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a tone of ardent conviction, "though it should cost me my seat and the confidence of my party!"
A look of blank amazement passed over the clergyman's face, nor did any of the half circle smile, except the Orangeman, and he only with his eyes.
"You surely cannot have heard me aright," said the clergyman in astonishment and sorrow. "I said Sir William Cattermole's Bill. You would support that infamous measure?"
Charlie Fitzgerald was in a qualm, and it cannot be denied that Mr. Clutterbuck looked at him for aid and information. Like most honest men, Mr. Clutterbuck was not very ready to take hints or to observe expressions, but Charlie Fitzgerald's eyebrows were so unmistakable that he found his cue.
"You must have misunderstood me," he said. "My point was that I would vote for an amendment to that Bill though it should cost me my seat—that is," he added modestly, "supposing I had one."