as a
premiss that was not to be quickly started from. To Mr Pink the saddler, for
example, until some distinct injury or benefit had accrued to him, the existence
of the revising barrister was like the existence of the young giraffe which
Wombwell had lately brought into those parts - it was to be contemplated, and
not criticised. Mr Pink professed a deep-dyed Toryism; but he regarded all
fault-finding as Radical and somewhat impious, as disturbing to trade, and
likely to offend the gentry or the servants through whom their harness was
ordered: there was a Nemesis in things which made objection unsafe, and even the
Reform Bill was a sort of electric eel which a thriving tradesman had better
leave alone. It was only the Papists who lived far enough off to be spoken of
uncivilly.
    But Mr Pink was fond of news, which he collected and retailed with perfect
impartiality, noting facts and rejecting comments. Hence he was well pleased to
have his shop so constant a place of resort for loungers, that to many Trebians
there was a strong association between the pleasures of gossip and the smell of
leather. He had the satisfaction of chalking and cutting, and of keeping his
journeymen close at work, at the very time that he learned from his visitors who
were those whose votes had been called in question before His Honour, how Lawyer
Jermyn had been too much for Lawyer Labron about Todd's cottages, and how, in
the opinion of some townsmen, this looking into the value of people's property,
and swearing it down below a certain sum, was a nasty, inquisitorial kind of
thing; while others observed that being nice to a few pounds was all nonsense -
they should put the figure high enough, and then never mind if a voter's
qualification was thereabouts. But, said Mr Sims the auctioneer, everything was
done for the sake of the lawyers. Mr Pink suggested impartially that lawyers
must live; but Mr Sims, having a ready auctioneering wit, did not see that so
many of them need live, or that babies were born lawyers. Mr Pink felt that this
speculation was complicated by the ordering of side-saddles for lawyers'
daughters, and, returning to the firm ground of fact, stated that it was getting
dusk.
    The dusk seemed deepened the next moment by a tall figure obstructing the
doorway, at sight of whom Mr Pink rubbed his hands and smiled and bowed more
than once, with evident solicitude to show honour where honour was due, while he
said -
    »Mr Christian, sir, how do you do, sir?