“Perhaps, sir, as your time is, no doubt, precious—”
“Just at this time of the day we don’t care so much about it, Mr. Crawley; and one doesn’t catch a new cousin every day, you know.”
“However, if you will allow me—”
“We’ll tackle to? Very well; so be it. Now, Mr. Crawley, let me hear what it is that I can do for you.” Of a sudden, as Mr. Toogood spoke these last words, the whole tone of his voice seemed to change, and even the position of his body became so much altered as to indicate a different kind of man. “You just tell your story in your own way, and I won’t interrupt you till you’ve done. That’s always the best.”
“I must first crave your attention to an unfortunate preliminary,” said Mr. Crawley.
“And what is that?”
“I come before you in formâ pauperis.” Here Mr. Crawley paused and stood up before the attorney with his hands crossed one upon the other, bending low, as though calling attention to the poorness of his raiment. “I know that I have no justification for my conduct. I have nothing of reason to offer why I should trespass upon your time. I am a poor man, and cannot pay you for your services.”
“Oh, bother!” said Mr. Toogood, jumping up out of his chair.
“I do not know whether your charity will grant me that which I ask—”
“Don’t let’s have any more of this,” said the attorney. “We none of us like this kind of thing at all. If I can be of any service to you, you’re as welcome to it as flowers in May; and as for billing my first-cousin, which your wife is, I should as soon think of sending in an account to my own.”
“But, Mr. Toogood—”
“Do you go on now with your story; I’ll put the rest all right.”
“I was bound to be explicit, Mr. Toogood.”
“Very well; now you have been explicit with a vengeance, and you may heave ahead. Let’s hear the story, and if I can help you I will. When I’ve said that, you may be sure I mean it. I’ve heard something of it before; but let me hear it all from you.”
Then Mr. Crawley began and told the story. Mr. Toogood was actually true to his promise and let the narrator go on with his narrative without interruption. When Mr. Crawley came to his own statement that the cheque had been paid to him by Mr. Soames, and went on to say that that statement had been false—“I told him that, but I told him so wrongly,” and then paused, thinking that the lawyer would ask some question, Mr. Toogood simply said, “Go on; go on. I’ll come back to all that when you’ve done.” And he merely nodded his head when Mr. Crawley spoke of his second statement, that the money had come from the dean. “We had been bound together by close ties of early familiarity,” said Mr. Crawley, “and in former years our estates in life were the same. But he has prospered and I have failed. And when creditors were importunate, I consented to accept relief in money which had previously been often offered. And I must acknowledge, Mr. Toogood, while saying this, that I have known—have known with heartfelt agony—that at former times my wife has taken that from my friend Mr. Arabin, with hand half-hidden from me, which I have refused. Whether it be better to eat—the bread of charity—or not to eat bread at all, I, for myself, have no doubt,” he said; “but when the want strikes one’s wife and children, and the charity strikes only oneself, then there is a doubt.” When he spoke thus, Mr. Toogood got up, and thrusting his hands into his waistcoat pockets walked about the room, exclaiming, “By George, by George, by George!” But he still let the man go on with his story, and heard him out at last to the end.
“And they committed you for trial at the next Barchester assizes?” said the lawyer.
“They did.”
“And you employed no lawyer before the magistrates?”
“None;—I refused to employ anyone.”
“You were wrong there, Mr. Crawley. I must be allowed to say that you were wrong there.”
“I may possibly have been so from your point of view, Mr. Toogood; but permit me to explain. I—”
“It’s no good explaining now. Of course you must employ a lawyer for your defence—an attorney who will put the case into the hands of counsel.”
“But that I cannot do, Mr. Toogood.”
“You must do it. If you don’t do it, your friends should do it for you. If you don’t do it, everybody will say you’re mad. There isn’t a single solicitor you could find within half a mile of you at this moment who wouldn’t give you the same advice—not a single man, either, who has got a head on his shoulders worth a turnip.”
When Mr. Crawley was told that madness would be laid to his charge if he did not do as he was bid, his face became very black, and assumed something of that look of determined obstinacy which it had worn when he was standing in the presence of the bishop and Mrs. Proudie. “It may be so,” he said. “It may be as you say, Mr. Toogood. But these neighbours of yours, as to whose collected wisdom you speak with so much certainty, would hardly recommend me to indulge in a luxury for which I have no means of paying.”
“Who thinks about paying under such circumstances as these?”
“I do, Mr. Toogood.”
“The wretchedest costermonger that comes to grief has a barrister in a wig and gown to give him his chance of escape.”
“But I am not a costermonger, Mr. Toogood—though more wretched perhaps than any costermonger now in existence. It is my lot to have to endure the sufferings of poverty, and at the same time not to be exempt from those feelings of honour to
