He looked shocked.
"But his agent,—his representative?"
"Oh! he's quite available. He will be very polite, and tell you in well chosen words that he can do—nothing."
"But the Governmental Office,—the Board of Works?"
"Quite so. You'll write a polite letter. It will be answered in four weeks to the day: 'We beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication, which shall have our earliest attention.' You'll write again. Reply in four weeks: 'We beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication, which we have placed before the Board.' You'll hear no more on the matter. But don't let me depress you!"
"But is there no redress? What about Parliament?"
"Oh, to be sure! A question will be asked in the House of Commons. The Chief Secretary will reply: 'The matter is under the deliberation of the Board of Works, with whose counsels we do not wish to interfere.'"
He was silent.
"About the factory," I continued. "You know there is a large shirt factory in Loughboro, six miles away. If you apply to have a branch factory established here, the manager will come down, look at the store, turn up his nose, ask you where are you to find funds to put the building in proper order, and do you propose to make the store also a fish-curing establishment; and then he will probably write what a high-born lady said of the first Napoleon: 'Il salissait tout ce qu'il touchait.'"
"It's a damned lie," said Father Letheby, springing up, and, I regret to say, demolishing sundry little Japanese gimcracks, "our people are the cleanest, purest, sweetest people in the world in their own personal habits, whatever be said of their wretched cabins. But you are not serious, sir?"