many yesterdays had
determined for him beforehand.
 

                                   Chapter 17

 It is a good and soothfast saw;
 Half-roasted never will be raw;
 No dough is dried once more to meal
 No crock new-shapen by the wheel;
 You can't turn curds to milk again,
 Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then;
 And having tasted stolen honey,
 You can't buy innocence for money.
 
Jermyn was not particularly pleased that some chance had apparently hindered
Harold Transome from making other canvassing visits immediately after leaving Mr
Lyon, and so had sent him back to the office earlier than he had been expected
to come. The inconvenient chance he guessed at once to be represented by Felix
Holt, whom he knew very well by Trebian report to be a young man with so little
of the ordinary Christian motives as to making an appearance and getting on in
the world, that he presented no handle to any judicious and respectable person
who might be willing to make use of him.
    Harold Transome, on his side, was a good deal annoyed at being worried by
Felix into an inquiry about electioneering details. The real dignity and honesty
there was in him made him shrink from this necessity of satisfying a man with a
troublesome tongue; it was as if he were to show indignation at the discovery of
one barrel with a false bottom, when he had invested his money in a manufactory
where a larger or smaller number of such barrels had always been made. A
practical man must seek a good end by the only possible means; that is to say,
if he is to get into parliament he must not be too particular. It was not
disgraceful to be neither a Quixote nor a theorist, aiming to correct the moral
rules of the world; but whatever actually was, or might prove to be,
disgraceful, Harold held in detestation. In this mood he pushed on
unceremoniously to the inner office without waiting to ask questions; and when
he perceived that Jermyn was not alone, he said, with haughty quickness -
    »A question about the electioneering at Sproxton. Can you give your
attention to it at once? Here is Mr Holt, who has come to me about the
business.«
    »A - yes - a - certainly,« said Jermyn, who, as usual, was the more cool and
deliberate because he was vexed. He was standing, and, as he turned round, his
broad figure concealed the person who was seated writing at the bureau. »Mr Holt
- a - will doubtless - a - make a point of saving a busy man's time. You can