to
be regarded as the captain.

Mr. Westmacott was also in Percycross,--and so was Moggs, reinstated
in his old room at the Cordwainers' Arms. Moggs had not been
summoned, nor was his presence there required for any purpose
immediately connected with the inquiry to be made; but Purity and the
Rights of Labour may always be advocated; and when better than at a
moment in which the impurity of a borough is about to be made the
subject of public condemnation? And Moggs, moreover, had now rankling
in his bosom a second cause of enmity against the Tories of the
borough. Since the election he had learned that his rival, Ralph
Newton, was in some way connected with the sitting member, Sir
Thomas, and he laid upon Sir Thomas's back the weight of his full
displeasure in reference to the proposed marriage with Polly Neefit.
He had heard that Polly had raised some difficulty,--had, indeed,
rejected her aristocratic suitor, and was therefore not without hope;
but he had been positively assured by Neefit himself that the match
would be made, and was consequently armed with a double purpose in
his desire to drive Sir Thomas ignominiously out of Percycross.

Sir Thomas had had more than one interview with Serjeant Burnaby
and little Mr. Joram, than whom two more astute barristers in such
matters were not to be found at that time practising,--though perhaps
at that time the astuteness of the Serjeant was on the wane; while
that of Jacky Joram, as he was familiarly called, was daily rising
in repute. Sir Thomas himself, barrister and senior to these two
gentlemen, had endeavoured to hold his own with them, and to impress
on them the conviction that he had nothing to conceal; that he had
personally endeavoured, as best he knew how, to avoid corruption,
and that if there had been corruption on the part of his own agents,
he was himself ready to be a party in proclaiming it. But he found
himself to be absolutely ignored and put out of court by his own
counsel. They were gentlemen with whom professionally he had had no
intercourse, as he had practised at the Chancery, and they at the
Common Law Bar. But he had been Solicitor-General, and was a bencher
of his Inn, whereas Serjeant Burnaby was only a Serjeant, and Jacky
Joram still wore a stuff gown. Nevertheless, he found himself to be
"nowhere" in discussing with them the circumstances of the election.
Even Joram, whom he seemed to remember having seen only the other day
as an ugly shame