ough's own friends,
and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would be
the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His lawyers
thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on, and
were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would be
extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be
unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just
as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,
and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the
best chance of acquittal lay in postponement.

And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was to
appear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could be
no doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr.
Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty.
When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared in
the newspapers,--when first the facts of this and other elections at
Tankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common it
had been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,--how clearly the knowledge
of the corruption had been brought home to himself,--there had for
a short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three London
papers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salient
points of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a conviction
that now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But this
had died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even on the
part of the most virtuous of the public press, had become no more
than lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculed the
Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogether an
absurdity. The _People's Banner_, setting at defiance with an
admirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners'
report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence against
Mr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up by the
malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. But men
who knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr. Quintus
Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these were both
unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believed to
be quite safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of his
prosecutors,--certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent in
affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man
may not look over a h