Mr. Whitcomb pressed his bell and a clerk appeared.
“I want permission to interview Emma Harrison. Will you ring up the prison and see if you can get the governor to give it?”
The clerk withdrew.
“They are not likely to refuse it?” said Northcote.
“They ought not to be,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “but when you are confronted with Mr. Bumble in any shape or form, your motto must always be, ‘You never can tell.’”
“Arbitrary brute,” said the young man with vehemence, “I hate him altogether.”
“I also; but one should always do him the justice of conceding that he has arduous duties to perform.”
“Presumably that is the reason why he aggravates difficulties of those who are called to help him in performing them.”
“Is not that what we agree to call ‘human nature’? But really I think it is the duty of every citizen to think of him tenderly. He means well. He is not a bad fellow at bottom.”
“I have no patience,” said the young man truculently. “Mean well!—not a bad fellow at bottom! Why, he and his satellites are the custodians of the life and liberties of the whole population. One wonders how many innocent lives have been sworn away by this fat-witted blunderer who is barely able to write his own name.”