of this, and
you'll see that I am right."

The discretion of Tom Towers was boundless: there was no contradicting
what he said, no arguing against such propositions. He took such high
ground that there was no getting on to it. "The public is defrauded,"
said he, "whenever private considerations are allowed to have weight."
Quite true, thou greatest oracle of the middle of the nineteenth
century, thou sententious proclaimer of the purity of the press;--the
public is defrauded when it is purposely misled. Poor public! how
often is it misled! against what a world of fraud has it to contend!

Bold took his leave, and got out of the room as quickly as he could,
inwardly denouncing his friend Tom Towers as a prig and a humbug. "I
know he wrote those articles," said Bold to himself. "I know he got
his information from me. He was ready enough to take my word for
gospel when it suited his own views, and to set Mr Harding up before
the public as an impostor on no other testimony than my chance
conversation; but when I offer him real evidence opposed to his own
views, he tells me that private motives are detrimental to public
justice! Confound his arrogance! What is any public question but a
conglomeration of private interests? What is any newspaper article
but an expression of the views taken by one side? Truth! it takes an
age to ascertain the truth of any question! The idea of Tom Towers
talking of public motives and purity of purpose! Why, it wouldn't
give him a moment's uneasiness to change his politics to-morrow, if
the paper required it."

Such were John Bold's inward exclamations as he made his way out of
the quiet labyrinth of the Temple; and yet there was no position of
worldly power so coveted in Bold's ambition as that held by the man of
whom he was thinking. It was the impregnability of the place which
made Bold so angry with the possessor of it, and it was the same
quality which made it appear so desirable.

Passing into the Strand, he saw in a bookseller's window an
announcement of the first number of "The Almshouse;" so he purchased a
copy, and hurrying back to his lodgings, proceeded to ascertain what
Mr Popular Sentiment had to say to the public on the subject which had
lately occupied so much of his own attention.

In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils
were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave
decorum and laborious argument. An age w