 opinion of—he should only maintain the subject by way of mere argument.
Thus it happened to Mr. Figgins, for he very often caught himself in the very act of seriously admiring our hero, when his agreement was to serve his enemies.
He did not flinch, however, as we have seen.—He discharged his trust to the very letter of it, and

then claimed what had been promised him, a living of two hundred a year, to be added to his other income.
Finding however that Mr. Standfast's performance of this promise depended upon the interest of Zekiel, who, as we have seen, upon his accession to his fortune, left him fairly in the lurch, Mr. Figgins began to see he had been a rogue for no-nothing. He could not, notwithstanding, blame Mr. Standfast, whose loss was still heavier; yet he was determined to shake of that tyrannical yoke which—in consequence of a few favours conferred on him in his youth, out of which, by the way, the other had had his gleanings—Standfast had so heavily laid on his shoulders. To do this with perfect propriety was, however, no easy task, nor would he have been able to effect it, with any prospect of real satisfaction to himself, or advantage to others, if he had not thought of a coalition with Emma.
To this Mr. Figgins was stimulated by various motives. Mr. Standfast had unbent his mind a good deal before him, and particularly in an altercation one day with Mrs. O'Shocknesy, when such hints were thrown out as obliged him, in his mind, to take a decided part on the spot.

A few days after this he received intelligence from Mr. Balance of the handsome way in which our hero had settled on him a hundred a year.—This determined him to take an active part. The consideration that all his dirty work had been paid by a disappointment, and that the very man he had assisted to cheat had conferred on him such an unexpected and unmerited benefit, worked strongly in his heart. It reproached him with being a rascal; a despicable, low, shuffling villain. In short, like Harry Hotspur's starling, nothing, sleeping or waking, was dinned in his ears by his conscience but such opprobrious sounds, till, at length, the conslict abated, and he tasted the pleasure of feeling himself an honest man.
To do our hero any thing like justice, he saw was a most tremendous task indeed, and of this he soon convinced Emma, who said it was plain the attempt
