'Why do you take me to such a place, and tell me such things?'
'Will you let that question still rest a little while?' Almost as he spoke Pitt called another cab, and Betty and he were presently speeding on again, whither she knew not. It was a good time to talk, and she repeated her question.
'Instead of answering you, I would like to put a question on my side,' he returned. 'What do you think is duty, on the part of a servant of Christ, towards such cases?'
'Pray tell me, is there not some system of poor relief in this place?'
'Yes, there is the parish help. And sorrowful help it is! The parishes are often very large, the sufferers very many, the cases of fraud and trickery almost—perhaps quite—as numerous as those at least which come to the notice of the parish authorities. The parish authorities are but average men; is it wonderful if they are hard administrators? I can tell you, justice is bitterly hard, as she walks the streets here; and mercy's hand has grown rough with friction!'
Betty looked at the speaker, whose brow was knit and his eye darkened and flashing; she half laughed.
'You are eloquent,' she said. 'You ought to be representing the case on the floor of the House of Commons.'
'Well,' he said, coming down to an easier tone, 'the parish authorities are but men, as I said, and they grow suspicious, naturally; and in any case the relief they give is utterly insufficient. A shilling a week, or two shillings a week,—what would they do for the people I have been telling you of? And it is hard dealing with the parish authorities. I know it, for here and there at least I have followed Job's example; "the cause I knew not, I searched out." One must do that, or one runs the risk of being taken in, and throwing money away upon rogues which ought to go to help honest people.'
'But that takes time?'
'Yes.'