with him.

"Now it ain't no use in life, Mr. Sowerby," Tozer had said. "I ain't
got the paper myself, nor didn't 'old it, not two hours. It went away
through Tom Tozer; you knows that, Mr. Sowerby, as well as I do."
Now, whenever Tozer, Mr. Sowerby's Tozer, spoke of Tom Tozer, Mr.
Sowerby knew that seven devils were being evoked, each worse than
the first devil. Mr. Sowerby did feel something like sincere regard,
or rather love, for that poor parson whom he had inveigled into
mischief, and would fain save him, if it were possible, from the
Tozer fang. Mr. Forrest, of the Barchester bank, would probably take
up that last five hundred pound bill, on behalf of Mr. Robarts,--only
it would be needful that he, Sowerby, should run down and see that
this was properly done. As to the other bill--the former and lesser
one--as to that, Mr. Tozer would probably be quiet for a while.
Such had been Sowerby's programme for these two days; but now--what
further possibility was there now that he should care for Robarts,
or any other human being; he that was to be swept at once into
the dung-heap? In this frame of mind he walked up South Audley
Street, and crossed one side of Grosvenor Square, and went almost
mechanically into Green Street. At the farther end of Green Street,
near to Park Lane, lived Mr. and Mrs. Harold Smith.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Dr. Thorne

When Miss Dunstable met her friends the Greshams--young Frank Gresham
and his wife--at Gatherum Castle, she immediately asked after one Dr.
Thorne, who was Mrs. Gresham's uncle. Dr. Thorne was an old bachelor,
in whom both as a man and a doctor Miss Dunstable was inclined to
place much confidence. Not that she had ever entrusted the cure of
her bodily ailments to Dr. Thorne--for she kept a doctor of her own,
Dr. Easyman, for this purpose--and it may moreover be said that she
rarely had bodily ailments requiring the care of any doctor. But she
always spoke of Dr. Thorne among her friends as a man of wonderful
erudition and judgement; and had once or twice asked and acted on his
advice in matters of much moment. Dr. Thorne was not a man accustomed
to the London world; he kept no house there, and seldom even visited
the metropolis; but Miss Dunstable had known him at Greshamsbury,
where he lived, and there had for some months past grown up a
considerable intimacy between them. He was now staying at the house
of his niece, Mrs. Gresham; but the chief reason of his coming up ha