rget how extremely busy you are at present," said Mrs. Proudie,
whose spirit was now up, for she was angry with her visitor.

"I will not delay his lordship much above a minute," said the Master
of Lazarus, rising from his chair and expecting that Mrs. Proudie
would now go, or else that the bishop would lead the way into another
room.

But neither event seemed likely to occur, and Dr. Gwynne stood for a
moment silent in the middle of the room.

"Perhaps it's about Hiram's Hospital?" suggested Mrs. Proudie.

Dr. Gwynne, lost in astonishment, and not knowing what else on earth
to do, confessed that his business with the bishop was connected with
Hiram's Hospital.

"His lordship has finally conferred the appointment on Mr. Quiverful
this morning," said the lady.

Dr. Gwynne made a simple reference to the bishop, and finding that
the lady's statement was formally confirmed, he took his leave.
"That comes of the reform bill," he said to himself as he walked down
the bishop's avenue. "Well, at any rate the Greek play bishops were
not so bad as that."

It has been said that Mr. Slope, as he started for Ullathorne,
received a dispatch from his friend Mr. Towers, which had the effect
of putting him in that high good humour which subsequent events
somewhat untowardly damped. It ran as follows. Its shortness will
be its sufficient apology.

MY DEAR SIR,

I wish you every success. I don't know that I can help you,
but if I can, I will.

Yours ever,
T. T.

30/9/185--

There was more in this than in all Sir Nicholas Fitzwhiggin's
flummery; more than in all the bishop's promises, even had they been
ever so sincere; more than in any archbishop's good word, even had
it been possible to obtain it. Tom Towers would do for him what he
could.

Mr. Slope had from his youth upwards been a firm believer in the
public press. He had dabbled in it himself ever since he had taken
his degree, and he regarded it as the great arranger and distributor
of all future British terrestrial affairs whatever. He had not yet
arrived at the age, an age which sooner or later comes to most of
us, which dissipates the golden dreams of youth. He delighted in the
idea of wresting power from the hands of his country's magnates and
placing it in a custody which was at any rate nearer to his own
reach. Sixty thousand broadsheets dispersing themselves daily among
his reading fellow citizens formed in his eyes a better depot for