the fire place, as was a saucepan
over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread,
and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in a
pint pot.

"'Had your dinner, I suppose? It is too warm for you? Like a drop
of beer?'

"'Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?' said Miss Sharp majestically.

"'He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley. Reclect you owe me a pint for
bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I ayn't. Mrs.
Tinker, Miss Sharp, Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman, ho ho!'

"The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker, at this moment made her
appearance with a pipe and paper of tobacco, for which she had been
dispatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the
articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

"'Where's the farden?' says he, 'I gave you three halfpence.
Where's the change, old Tinker?'

"'There,' replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin, 'it's only
baronets as cares about farthings.'

"'A farthing a day is seven shillings a year,' answered the M.P.,
'seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care
of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite
nat'ral.' ...

"And so with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the
morning, he bade her good night, 'You'll sleep with Tinker
to-night,' he said, 'it's a big bed, and there's room for two. Lady
Crawley died in it. Good night.'"

He sums up Sir Pitt's character by saying. "He never had a taste,
emotion or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul."

Sir Pitt's brother, the Rector of the parish, is represented as being
almost as abominable as himself, though in a different way--

"The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, shovel-hatted man,
far more popular in the county than the Baronet. At College he
pulled stroke oar in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all
the best bruisers of the 'town.' He carried his taste for boxing
and athletic exercises into private life, there was not a fight
within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, nor a
coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a
visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county,
but he found means to attend it. He had a fine voice, sung 'A
Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky,' a