“Oh, that ten pounds has been spent, partly so, at least, in making inquiries about the woman, looking-up her back history and all that. Looking-up the back lives of people takes a lot of money, you see.”
“But why did you not relieve her with it, or a portion of it? That is the question I’ve come to ask, young man, and I intend to have it answered.”
The young man looked all surprise. “Why, what an idea!” lisped he. “Our association does not profess to help sinners. That would be a go!”
“Sinners!”
“We can’t be expected to take up a sinner, you know—and she’s a topping one,” continued he, keeping just as cool as the Squire was hot. “We found out all sorts of dreadful things against the woman. The name, Mapping, is not hers, to begin with. She went to church with a man who had a living wife——”
“She didn’t,” burst in the Squire. “It was the man who went to church with her. And I hope with all my heart he came to be hanged!”
The clerk considered. “It comes to the same, doesn’t it?” said he, vaguely. “She did go to church with him; and it was ever so long before his proper wife found it out; and she has gone on calling herself Mapping ever since! And she managed so badly in a lodging-house she set up, that she was sold out of it for rent. Consider that! Oh, indeed, then, it is not on such people as these that our good gentlemen would waste their money.”
“What do they waste it on?” demanded the Squire.
“Oh, come now! They don’t waste it. They spend it.”
“What on? The sick and needy?”