 in that respect. And if Rosamond will not mind, I shall take an
apprentice. I don't like these things, but if one carries them out faithfully
they are not really lowering. I have had a severe galling to begin with: that
will make the small rubs seem easy.«
    Poor Lydgate! the »if Rosamond will not mind,« which had fallen from him
involuntarily as part of his thought, was a significant mark of the yoke he
bore. But Mr. Farebrother, whose hopes entered strongly into the same current
with Lydgate's, and who knew nothing about him that could now raise a melancholy
presentiment, left him with affectionate congratulation.
 

                                  Chapter LXXI

 »Clown .... 'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a delight to
sit, have you not?
 Froth. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.
 Clo. Why, very well then; I hope here be truths.«
                                                            Measure for Measure.
 
Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was standing at his leisure
under the large archway leading into the yard of the Green Dragon. He was not
fond of solitary contemplation, but he had only just come out of the house, and
any human figure standing at ease under the archway in the early afternoon was
as certain to attract companionship as a pigeon which has found something worth
pecking at. In this case there was no material object to feed upon, but the eye
of reason saw a probability of mental sustenance in the shape of gossip. Mr.
Hopkins, the meek-mannered draper opposite, was the first to act on this inward
vision, being the more ambitious of a little masculine talk because his
customers were chiefly women. Mr. Bambridge was rather curt to the draper,
feeling that Hopkins was of course glad to talk to him, but that he was not
going to waste much of his talk on Hopkins. Soon, however, there was a small
cluster of more important listeners, who were either deposited from the
passers-by, or had sauntered to the spot expressly to see if there were anything
going on at the Green Dragon; and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while
to say many impressive things about the fine studs he had been seeing and the
purchases he had made on a journey in the north from which he had just returned.
Gentlemen present were assured that when they could show him anything to cut out
a blood mare, a bay, rising four, which was to be seen at Doncaster if they
chose
